Credit: Matt Kartozian-USA TODAY Sports

The Mets took two of three from the Arizona Diamondbacks and beat the Braves Saturday in the only game played in that series. (We’re including the Braves game in this 3 Up, 3 Down because we didn’t bother to write one for the one game.)

As the team’s gotten healthier–Pete Alonso, Kevin Pillar and Seth Lugo all came back from the IL Monday and played this series–they were able to continue a nice run of series wins before heading to San Diego.

3 Up

Slumpers Coming Around

The last four games featured breakouts from the core of the healthy Mets lineup.

All three  of these guys were hitting new lows before Saturday’s Braves game (and Pete was struggling for about three weeks before he was put on the injured list). They’ve found some new life, and you’ll see it’s in the power numbers. That’s nine extra-base hits in four games from Smith, Lindor and McCann. That’s nearly as many extra-base hits as those three guys had total in the 45-ish games before this stretch.

These guys were responsible for knocking in 19 of the 31 runs scored the last four games. This is what the offense should look like while the remainder of the primary guys are out.

Dingers & Doubles

Sweet, sweet dingers. The Mets hit nine home runs over their last four games to go along with eight doubles and a triple. It’s the best power output the team has had over any stretch this year, and the 13 runs they scored Saturday are the most they’ve scored this year so far.

I’ve wrote on past 3 Up, 3 Downs that the Mets really needed to work on blending their high on-base clip with some power, as singles and walks–the core of the Mets offense the first two months–can only score so many runs, and they finally did so over the last four games with 48 hits of all varieties and 31 runs.

Though their overall team slugging percentage is still bottom five in the league, their output last four games has raised the slugging percentage over 20 points brought them out of last place in that stat. The only road was up, so now they just need to keep chugging along.

Playing Better Teams

Twelve of the Mets first 48 games were against teams with winning records. (They only won two of those games.)

Now 11 of their next 13 come against teams over .500–seven against the Padres and four at home against the Cubs. The Mets may catch the Padres at a time where they’re down a couple main players (including Fernando Tatis Jr.), but the same could be said for teams who’ve played the Mets the last month or so.

These next 13 games–still with a depleted lineup–will be a nice barometer to see where the team is at in terms of keeping up with the top of the National League competition. The Mets next 16 games after this stretch are all against NL East opponents.

Mandatory Credit: Joe Camporeale-USA TODAY Sports

3 Down

Trevor May‘s Recent Stretch

Following a rough introduction to the Mets on Opening Day, Trevor May ripped off 12 straight scoreless appearances. Things have turned back the other way for May, though, giving up runs in five of his last eight appearances and an 8.11 ERA over that span (though his ERA still sits at 3.79 on the year)

Two of those appearances came against the D’backs on Monday and Tuesday night, where may combined to give up four runs–including the game winners Tuesday–and only get three outs.

May said in a press conference Tuesday that he’s just going through a stretch right now where he’s lost control of his pitches. “These stretches happen pretty much once a year,” May said, noting that he gets “in patterns, and then you’ve got to get out of those patterns and get back to what makes you good.”

I’ve got full faith in May to turn it around his these medium- and high-leverage situations, and perhaps they can avoid back-to-back days with him while he does, especially now that Seth Lugo is back.

David Peterson‘s command

David Peterson just lost his command Wednesday and couldn’t make it out of the first inning for the first time in his career. He threw 35 pitches, and 19 of them were balls.

Peterson is best when he keeps his walks down (as are many pitchers, sure). When Peterson has made it five innings or more in a start this year, his walk rate is 2.67/9 innings with a 2.67 ERA. When he’s pitched less than five innings in a start, his walk rate is 7.07/9 innings with a 12.86 ERA.

I’ve shown side-by-sides in previous articles about what David Peterson’s heat maps look like in good starts and bad starts, and when he’s under control and the heat map bunches his sliders down and away from lefties and in to righties. Here’s what it looked like Wednesday, compared to where his sliders typically land:

I count that as one, maybe two, that ended up where Peterson lands ’em most often. You can almost see the individual dots from his start Wednesday end up on the yearly heat map as individual dots, too.

All that being said, Peterson’s had five pretty-good-to-really-good starts this year and five eh-to-bad starts, and that’s about what you expect from a fifth starter–especially a guy with less than 25 career starts under his belt.

Jonathan Villar on the Base Paths

This experience is just chaos.

Jonathan Villar was caught stealing twice during the Diamondbacks series–both after leadoff walks in the first inning. That makes four caught stealings on the year in 10 chances (though some of those are him being picked off–including at third base during extra innings in the crazy 12-inning Marlins game that the Mets ultimately won).

His BsR–Fangraphs’ all-encompassing base running stat–puts Villar at 0.8, which is an average number. That feels about right for a guy who’s ran the Mets into and out of a couple runs.

He’s won the Mets a game or two, too, with his speed, so you’ll take the bad with the good, but man, there are some nights I just don’t want a ride on the El Caballo Loco experience. (Villar may be injured with hamstring tightness now, and THIS IS NOT WHAT I MEANT.)

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The Mets are 27-21 and lead the NL East by 4.5 games. This is the separation the team needs as they head into a tough stretch in June against solid National League opponents.