{"id":963787,"date":"2026-07-28T03:11:26","date_gmt":"2026-07-28T03:11:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/963787\/"},"modified":"2026-07-28T03:11:26","modified_gmt":"2026-07-28T03:11:26","slug":"francisco-lindor-drives-in-6-mets-thump-braves-14-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/963787\/","title":{"rendered":"Francisco Lindor drives in 6, Mets thump Braves 14-3"},"content":{"rendered":"

QUEENS, NY \u2014\u00a0<\/strong>Francisco Lindor\u2019s seemingly annual second-half resurgence is officially on, even if it\u2019s coming within his most disappointing season yet in Mets pinstripes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

New York\u2019s star shortstop went 3-for-5 with two home runs, a triple, and six RBI in a 14-3 beatdown of the division-leading Atlanta Braves on Wednesday night at Citi Field. In his last 11 games, Lindor is batting .318 with four home runs and 13 RBI.<\/p>\n

The Mets have scored 22 runs in their last two games.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know man, it\u2019s baseball,\u201d Lindor said. \u201cIt\u2019s hard to point fingers to it. At the end of the day, you have good days, you have bad days. You have a good day, but who knows what\u2019s going to happen tomorrow? \u2026 You look around, and guys are having quality at-bats. We\u2019re all learning from each other, we learn from each other\u2019s at-bats, and we\u2019re feeding off each other.\u201d<\/p>\n

He accounted for two of the Mets\u2019 four home runs on the night, the others coming from another pair of hot bats, Marcus Semien and Tyrone Taylor.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

Perhaps the most important part of Wednesday\u2019s win was the fact that facing the second-best team in the National League did little to slow down Mets rookie starting pitcher Zac Thornton, who put up yet another strong outing.<\/p>\n

Against a team that ranked sixth in MLB with an average of 4.95 runs per game this season, the 23-year-old southpaw yielded three runs on six hits with five strikeouts and one walk across 6.1 solid innings of work.<\/p>\n

Through five career MLB starts, Thornton holds a 2.45 ERA \u2014 a rare win for a Mets team that called him up out of desperation after the continued failures of Kodai Senga and David Peterson, along with Clay Holmes\u2019 broken leg.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He showed a knack for working out of his trouble, inducing three double plays on the night, and bouncing back when he was tagged.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

Following lead-off singles by Ronald Acuna Jr. and Drake Baldwin in the top of the first, he got Matt Olson to ground into a 6-4-3 double play. An infield single by Ozzie Albies plated the night\u2019s first run, but Thornton rebounded to retire the next seven men he faced.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s what I was taught,\u201d Thornton said. \u201cThe first pitch of the game is just as important as my last pitch of the game. Every pitch matters. Just calming down. I left a few pitches middle and got to get back to doing what I do, which is live on the edges.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"ZacJul 27, 2026; New York City, New York, USA; New York Mets pitcher Zac Thornton (49) pitches against the Atlanta Braves during the first inning at Citi Field. Mandatory Credit: John Jones-Imagn Images<\/p>\n

The Mets (45-62<\/a>) took a 3-1 lead into the top of the fourth after Lindor\u2019s RBI triple in the bottom of the first and a two-run home run in the third, but Albies got Thornton again in the fourth when he lifted a game-tying two-run shot.<\/p>\n

Michael Harris followed with a single, but Thornton coaxed a Mauricio Dubon pop-up and an inning-ending Austin Riley twin killing, starting a span that saw the lefty retire eight of the last nine men he faced.\u00a0<\/p>\n

After getting Harris to ground out to lead off the seventh inning, his night was done with a 5-3 lead behind Semien\u2019s two-run home run in the sixth \u2014 his second in as many games.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m just trying to slow the ball down,\u201d Semien said. \u201cI felt like a little late on fastballs, which, you know, everything with me starts with the fastball. If you\u2019re late on the fastball, you\u2019re going to rush on the off-speed chase. So ust trying to make the ball look as slow as possible so you can control the strike zone and stay on the fastball.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Mets broke it open with four in the seventh to preserve Thornton\u2019s second-career win. Taylor stayed red-hot when he launched his second three-run home run in as many games in the bottom of the seventh off Atlanta reliever Connor Thomas.<\/p>\n

\u201cTyrone Taylor continues to do some impressive stuff,\u201d interim manager Andy Green said. \u201cIt\u2019s phenomenal swings right now. Great at-bats. If he swings and misses, it doesn\u2019t impact the next swing. He\u2019s hitting the ball out front, he\u2019s damaging the baseball. It\u2019s really impressive.\u201d<\/p>\n

They added five in the eighth, three coming from Lindor\u2019s second round-tripper of the night. It was the second consecutive inning in which the Mets batted around, as they tagged Thomas for 11 runs \u2014 the most allowed by a reliever in more than half a decade.<\/p>\n

For more on the Mets, visit AMNY.com<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"QUEENS, NY \u2014\u00a0Francisco Lindor\u2019s seemingly annual second-half resurgence is officially on, even if it\u2019s coming within his most…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":963788,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,3685,1266,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,62,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-963787","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-america","tag-mets","tag-mlb","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-newyork","tag-newyorkcity","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-sports","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116995418520663787","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/963787","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=963787"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/963787\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/963788"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=963787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=963787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=963787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}