Tylor Megill and Mets Cruise Through Win Over D’Backs
PHOENIX — Tylor Megill’s fastball was blazing, J.D. Davis smashed his first homer of the year and the opportunistic Mets won another ballgame by beating the sloppy Arizona Diamondbacks, 6-2, on Sunday.
The good times keep rolling for these Mets, who took two of three against Arizona for their fifth straight series win to start the season, matching a franchise record set in 2018.
Mets 6, Diamondbacks 2 | Box Score | Play-by-Play
The N.L. East leaders leave the desert with a 12-5 record.
“We’re going to savor it,” Davis said. “But we know how this game goes — it can humble you really quick. We’re happy, but it’s April. We’ve got to stay on the gas pedal.”
It was another good showing for the Mets’ starting pitching, which came into the game with an 8-2 record and a 2.44 E.R.A. Megill (3-0) gave up two runs and four hits over 6 ⅔ innings, walking one. He struck out seven, at times overpowering the Diamondbacks with a fastball that sat in the 96-97 mile-per-hour range all afternoon.
“I felt like everything was working,” Megill said. “Throwing a lot of strikes today.”
The Diamondbacks didn’t do much at the plate, with one notable exception. Arizona tied it at 1 in the fourth on Christian Walker’s 467-foot drive to left-center that landed on the concourse behind the seats.
It was the second-longest homer of his career, behind a 479-footer Walker hit off Clayton Kershaw in 2018.
Sasaki’s Streak Ends
TOKYO — Japanese pitcher Roki Sasaki of the Chiba Lotte Marines is mortal, after all.
After throwing a perfect game on April 10 — the first in Japanese baseball in 28 years — and eight perfect innings on April 17 before being pulled after 102 pitches, Sasaki gave up a hit on his first pitch Sunday against the Orix Buffaloes.
The game was played at the Kyocera Dome in Osaka.
Shuhei Fukuda hit Sasaki’s first pitch, which ended a streak of 52 batters retired. Sasaki retired 27 in the perfect game, another 24 in the eight-inning outing, and also the last batter he faced in the game before his perfect game.
In the perfect game, and the eight innings of perfection, Sasaki had 33 strikeouts in facing 51 batters.
Sasaki worked five innings on Sunday in Chiba Lotte’s 6-3 win and was credited with the victory. He allowed two earned runs, walked three, hit two batters and gave up six hits. He had only four strikeouts.