{"id":255160,"date":"2025-09-26T03:16:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-26T03:16:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/255160\/"},"modified":"2025-09-26T03:16:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-26T03:16:10","slug":"lindor-homers-to-join-30-30-club-as-mets-beat-cubs-8-5-to-remain-in-playoff-position","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/255160\/","title":{"rendered":"Lindor homers to join 30-30 club as Mets beat Cubs 8-5 to remain in playoff position"},"content":{"rendered":"

CHICAGO — – Francisco Lindor<\/a> homered to reach the 30-30 milestone for the second time, Brett Baty<\/a> went deep and the New York Mets<\/a> beat the Chicago Cubs<\/a> 8-5 on Thursday night to remain in position for the final National League wild card.<\/p>\n

The Mets built a six-run lead and withstood a shaky outing by rookie Nolan McLean<\/a> (5-1). They remained a game ahead of Cincinnati in the playoff race, with the Reds beating Pittsburgh<\/a> 2-1.<\/p>\n

Chicago’s Shota Imanaga<\/a> (9-8) got tagged for a season-high eight runs in 5 2\/3 innings. Seiya Suzuki<\/a> homered twice and Dansby Swanson<\/a> also connected for the Cubs, who have lost six of seven.<\/p>\n

Chicago leads San Diego by two games with three to play for the top wild card and home-field advantage in the opening round of the playoffs. Those two teams will meet in Game 1 on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

The Mets led 2-0 in the third when Lindor connected against Imanaga, sending a solo drive beyond the left-field bleachers to Waveland Avenue. That gave him 30 homers to go with 31 steals. The five-time All-Star had 31 homers and 31 steals for New York in 2023.<\/p>\n

Though he struck out a personal-best 11, McLean gave up a season-high five runs and five hits in 5 1\/3 innings. Edwin D\u00edaz worked the ninth for his 28th save in 31 chances.<\/p>\n

Suzuki hit a solo shot in the fourth and chased McLean with a three-run drive in the sixth.<\/p>\n

Key moment<\/p>\n

Baty bumped the lead to 6-0 in the third with his three-run shot to left.<\/p>\n

Key stat<\/p>\n

With Lindor and Juan Soto<\/a> (43 homers, 36 steals), the Mets have two 30-30 players in a season for the second time. Howard Johnson and Darryl Strawberry did it in 1987.<\/p>\n

Up next<\/p>\n

Mets: Rookie RHP Brandon Sproat<\/a> (0-1, 3.94 ERA) makes his fourth start as the Mets visit Miami and RHP Sandy Alcantara<\/a> (10-12, 5.48).<\/p>\n

Cubs: Had not announced a starter for Friday’s game against St. Louis and RHP Miles Mikolas<\/a> (8-10, 4.76).<\/p>\n

——<\/p>\n

AP MLB: https:\/\/apnews.com\/MLB<\/a>br\/]<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2025 ESPN Internet Ventures. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CHICAGO — – Francisco Lindor homered to reach the 30-30 milestone for the second time, Brett Baty went…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":255161,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[134546,1271,5723,1266,1305,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-255160","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-134546","9":"tag-chicago-cubs","10":"tag-espn","11":"tag-mlb","12":"tag-new-york-mets","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115268431608858981","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255160","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=255160"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255160\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/255161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=255160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=255160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=255160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}