That's more like it with the Mets!
The Mets had a comfortable, routine win in Denver to open their series against the Rockies
The Mets beat the Rockies in the opener of a three game series in Denver by the score of 4-2 (box)
The Mets used both Huascar Brazoban and Austin Warren in quasi opener roles, and the two combined to throw three scoreless innings
LHP David Peterson was the bulk guy, going four frames and allowing two earned run while striking out six to earn the win
Carson Benge connected on his third home run of the season
Mark Vientos stayed hot, driving in a pair of runs
Juan Soto hit leadoff for the first time in almost five years
Craig Kimbrel and Devin Williams closed the game out with scoreless innings in the 8th and 9th
The Just Mets Podcast 🎙️
On Sunday, Andrew and Rich recapped a 3-3 week for the Mets after winning their series against the Angels. Plus, reactions to Carlos Mendoza’s job apparently being safe.
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Play of the Game ⭐️
This game was scoreless into the 6th—which is a true oddity for contests played at Coors Field. Leading off in the 6th, though, Carson Benge blasted his 3rd home run of the season, which proved to be a huge momentum swing as the Mets went on to score three more in the frame.
Down on the Farm 🌾
All Mets minor league affiliates were off on Monday
Today’s Game 🗓
Match-up: Mets (13-22) at Rockies (14-22)
Where: Coors Field — Denver, CO
Starters: RHP Freddy Peralta (1-3, 3.52 ERA) vs. RHP Michael Lorenzen (2-3, 6.09 ERA)
When: 8:40 PM EDT
Where to Watch: SNY
Three out of four! ✍️
It’s going to take a heck of a lot more than winning three out of four games for fans to start believing in this Mets team again.
But hey, it’s better than the alternative, right?
Monday night’s series opener in Denver was a rather elementary, ho-hum, Mets win, the likes of which have obviously been few and far between thus far in 2026.
New York got strong pitching from start to finish, used a key home run from their rookie sparkplug to ignite a four-run rally in the 6th, and while the final score was close, for the majority of the evening it felt like the Mets had the upper hand.
The club has been desperately searching for answers beyond the top three in the starting rotation, and on this day, I really liked the solution they came up with.
Huascar Brazoban opened the game with a scoreless frame, before giving way to Austin Warren who worked two excellent innings. At that point, struggling David Peterson entered, and was able to give the Mets four frames of length, and hand it over to Craig Kimbrel and Devin Williams to secure the win.
That formula is something we could certainly see again with Peterson’s upcoming outings.
The interesting part about Peterson is, he hasn’t been major league caliber as a starter this year, or pretty much since last September. But, as a reliever, he has pitched to the tune of a 2.45 ERA in 11 innings of relief so far in 2026. Now, it’s hard for the Mets to have two left-handed long relievers on the roster with Peterson and Sean Manaea, especially when they’re making a combined $33 million between them. Part of their problem right now is they have these two arms (really three if you count Kodai Senga) who clearly cannot be in the rotation, which has created a heavy roster imbalance and excess in one area, and a major gap in the other.
They still have to solve this issue in the rotation somehow. Brazoban and the bullpen were good at piecing Thursday’s win together, but now they might need fresh arms for the bullpen, and their staff is not capable of doing this on a regular basis as currently constructed. Especially since they still have issues in general getting their starters deep into games and remain heavily reliant upon the entirety of their bullpen.
Anyway, despite having just hit to show for it, Mark Vientos swung the bat well all day on Thursday, crushing two fly balls that would have been home runs in most other ballparks. Coors Field is deep and cavernous and for good reason - perhaps on another day it goes differently for Vientos, who is showing signs of progress over the last couple of days.
Francisco Álvarez and Luis Torrens were in the middle of the team’s big inning as well.
And lest we forget Carlos Mendoza’s decision to insert Juan Soto into the leadoff spot for the first time as a Met. I think that decision is less about its appearance and more about what it means.
From my seat, this is Mendoza’s attempt to try and find whatever formula he can among the pieces that are available to generate any sort of momentum with the offense he can find. It’s no secret the offense has been nothing more than terrible all year long, and people - including those on this website - have called for changes to the formula that simply wasn’t working for a few weeks now. It’s not to say that this one change altered the makeup of the offense - they scored four runs in one of the great hitters ballparks of all-time on Thursday. But, there was a different flow to the offense on Thursday, a different feeling, and sometimes that can serve as a spark.
For this team, and any team for that matter, the magic number is four, as in if a team scores at least four runs, they generally have a good chance to win. Sure, the pitching needs to be good, and it was on Thursday. Despite its issues, the pitching has unquestionably been good enough for this team to at least be at .500 for the year, but the offense hasn’t at all supported their good performances in large measure. And, it makes it harder when key pieces are absent for extended periods, as has been the case with Soto and now Francisco Lindor.
But again, they’ve won three out of four, and haven’t looked that bad in doing so overall.
All in all, the Mets have certainly not yet done enough to change the narrative on 2026, but they’re finally showing a bit of a pulse, and taking care of teams they have to beat.
Let’s hope it can continue through the rest of this series with the Rockies.
Around the League 🚩
Nick Martinez and five Rays relievers combined to strand 10 Blue Jays baserunners in Tampa’s 5-1 home win
Aaron Nola went six scoreless innings to help lead the Phillies to a 1-0 win in Miami
Jac Caglianone homered on his own bobblehead night in Kansas City’s 6-2 victory over the Guardians
Aaron Judge blasted his 14th bomb in the Yankees 12-1 drubbing of the Orioles
How long before the "something has to change!" narrative will be down the memory hole?
Speaking of oddities, I'd be curious to know how often the winning team gets all of their hits in a single inning. A brief search didn't yield an answer.