NEW YORK (AP) — Pete Alonso hit a game-winning sacrifice fly in the ninth inning and the New York Mets took advantage of a costly error by shortstop Isiah Kiner-Falefa to beat the Pittsburgh Pirates 4-3 on Monday night.
Pirates ace Paul Skenes pitched out of trouble all night and exited after six innings with a chance to win. But the Mets scratched across two runs against Pittsburgh’s bullpen in the seventh to take a 3-2 lead.
Juan Soto tied it with an RBI groundout, and speedy rookie Luisangel Acuña raced home from second when Alonso’s groundball single trickled into shallow left field after glancing off the mitt of Gold Glove third baseman Ke’Bryan Hayes.
Mets left fielder Brandon Nimmo robbed Joey Bart of a leadoff homer in the eighth, but Pittsburgh evened it 3-all in the ninth after an error by star shortstop Francisco Lindor.
With the infield playing in, Hayes drove in the tying run when Acuña couldn’t handle a grounder to third that was scored an infield single.
With one out in the bottom half, Kiner-Falefa let Lindor’s grounder scoot under his glove just behind second base. Lindor dashed to third on Soto’s single to right-center off David Bednar (0-4), then scored easily on Alonso’s long flyout to right field.
Huascar Brazobán (2-0) allowed just an unearned run in the ninth.
Kiner-Falefa homered off Mets starter David Peterson in his first plate appearance since coming off the injured list.
New York tied it at 1 when Nimmo and Jeff McNeil doubled off Skenes in the fourth. Bryan Reynolds gave Pittsburgh a 2-1 lead with an RBI groundout in the seventh.
Skenes yielded one run and six hits in six innings, with six strikeouts and three walks.
Key moment
After the Pirates tied it, Brazobán got Reynolds to ground into an inning-ending double play with runners at the corners in the ninth.
Key stats
Pittsburgh failed to score more than four runs for the 18th straight game, setting a franchise record since at least 1901. … Skenes hasn’t permitted more than six hits in any of his 32 major league starts. That’s the longest such streak to begin a career (excluding openers), according to OptaStats. Shohei Ohtani went 31 starts from 2018-21.
Up next
Pirates RHP Mitch Keller (1-4, 4.40 ERA) faces RHP Kodai Senga (4-2, 1.16) in the middle game of the series Tuesday night.
___
AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb
