Neil Walker sat back and waited for his pitch on a 3-1 count with Michael Conforto on third and two out.
With big eyes, Walker promptly parked the 95 mph inside fastball from Tyler Glasnow into the bullpen in right field, kicking his legs into a skip as he rounded the bases for his seventh long ball of the season, and his third against his former team in the last week, the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Walker went 2-for-3 on the night with a walk, as he improved his batting average on the season to .267.
Walker has hit safely in all nine games he has played against the Bucs, and overall, is batting .361 with a double, a triple, four home runs and 10 RBI in those games.
”The fact that it’s against my former team is great, but I don’t come in here holding grudges,” Walker said.
But that wasn’t all for the Mets who decided to smack dingers as their preferred method of scoring on Saturday night.
Jay Bruce unloaded on a 94 mph heater from Glasnow that was just beyond Andrew McCutchen‘s leap at the center field fence, his 13th of the season that broke a then 2-2 tie in the third inning.
Wilmer Flores chipped in a solo shot of his own in substitution of Jose Reyes and Lucas Duda collected two more hits as the Mets offense is finally starting to look like a cohesive bunch.
“I think we’re all seeing the ball pretty well,” Duda said. “Jay tonight, Neil, Conforto, as well. It’s nice when people are clicking. It was nice to get a win tonight.”
Saturday’s game was reminiscent of a 2016 season in which the Mets had a 51 percent rate of their runs coming from the long ball. That number has dipped down to 38 percent in 2017, due in part to the Mets .303 batting average with runners in scoring position (RISP), a statistic that plagued them just a season ago (.225 w/ RISP).
On Saturday, the Mets looked like a cohesive unit as they ended their three game skid.
It’s something they have lacked the first two months of the season and something they will need to practice should they look to appear in the playoffs for the third straight season.
