The Mets took on the Marlins in the rubber match on Wednesday night at loanDepot park in a battle between two rookie starting pitchers. The Mets sent 30-year-old Kodai Senga to the mound against the Marlins’ 20-year-old starter Eury Pérez. While neither of the two rookies were on the top of their games, Senga was able to hold the Marlins to just two runs over six innings. Mark Vientos led the way for the offense, hitting two of the Mets’ four home runs as the Mets won the game 8-3 to take the series.

Jim Rassol-USA TODAY Sports

Senga did not have his best stuff on Wednesday night. He allowed seven hits and walked two in his six innings of work while only striking out three batters, and did not have a single 1-2-3 inning. Despite this, Senga was able to limit the damage. The Japanese right-hander made his pitches when he needed to strand runners on base all night and pick up his 12th win of the year. Senga’s ERA moved to 2.96, which is now second in the National League and fourth in MLB after a poor outing from Justin Steele on Wednesday.

Along with his timely pitching, Senga was aided by brilliant defense in right field from Jeff McNeil. McNeil was originally scheduled to start in left field, but with DJ Stewart being scratched just before the start of the game, McNeil was moved to right field. In the fifth inning, he threw out Jazz Chisholm Jr. attempting to stretch a single into a double. One batter later, he threw out Jorge Soler at home attempting to score on sacrifice fly. He recorded all three outs in the inning, and became the first Met to record two outfield assists in an inning since Bernard Gilkey in 1996.

The Mets got the scoring started in the second inning when Vientos lined a solo shot over the left field wall to give the Mets an early 1-0 lead. In the sixth inning, he launched his second home run of the night on a hanging slider. The two home runs, which both came on 0-2 pitches, brought his season total to seven homers.

Brett Baty made his return to the lineup after missing a week due to stiffness in his groin. In his first game back, the third baseman went 1-4 with a mammoth home run 440 feet into the upper deck of loanDepot park. The home run was Baty’s eighth of the season.

Brandon Nimmo had another big game in the Mets’ win. He collected three more hits, adding his 24th home run of the season. In the series, Nimmo went 7-for-14 with three extra-base hits.

The Mets added two more runs in the third inning thanks to a pair of defensive miscues from the Marlins. With Nimmo on first base, Ronny Mauricio lined a base hit to right field. With Nimmo going from first to third on the hit, Jesús Sánchez made a wild throw to third base that got away from Jake Burger. Nimmo went home on the errant throw, and Burger made a poor throw of his own to the plate that allowed Mauricio to move all the way to third on the single. Pete Alonso followed with a sacrifice fly to give the Mets a 3-0 lead.

Alonso added another RBI, his 114th of the season, on an RBI single in the top of the seventh. Francisco Lindor followed with a fielder’s choice to bring in the Mets’ sixth run of the night and his 88th RBI of the year.

After six innings from Senga, the Mets used four relievers to close out the win. Drew Smith worked a scoreless seventh inning, and after Brooks Raley and Phil Bickford worked through the eighth, Trevor Gott pitched the Mets’ first 1-2-3 inning of the night in the ninth to close out the Mets’ victory. With the win, the Mets moved to 71-81 on the season.

Player of the Game: Mark Vientos

Vientos went 2-4 with two home runs in the Mets’ win over the Marlins on Wednesday night. Vientos, who grew up near loanDepot park in Pembroke Pines, had his first career multi-homer game on Wednesday night in Miami. In his last 17 games, Vientos has hit .311 with five home runs. While 2023 has been an overall difficult year for the rookie, he is finishing the year on a high note.

“I’ve been saying this whole series that I needed to at least hit one for my fam and friends out here, and I got two,” Vientos said following the win. “We came out swinging the bats today and got the job done, so that’s all I could ask for.”

On Deck

The Mets will travel to Philadelphia to take on the Phillies on Thursday night at 7:15 p.m ET. David Peterson (3-8, 5.22 ERA) will start for the Mets against Ranger Suarez (3-6, 3.80 ERA) for the Phillies.

Peterson has racked up the strikeouts over his last two starts. On September 9, he struck out eight Twins matching his then-season high. In his next start on September 15, he struck out 10 Reds, his fourth career double-digit strikeout game and his first since July 1, 2022.

The game will be broadcast on WWOR, and the radio call will be on WCBS 880.