4 hours Ago By Dan Martin
There were three homers by the Mets in Tuesday’s 8-3 win over Arizona , but the biggest reaction from the Citi Field crowd came after three defensive sparklers in the top of the fourth. It started with a Randal Grichuk smash to third base, where Mark Vientos dived to his left and deflected the ball. Francisco Lindor, deep in the hole, got to it and fired to Pete Alonso at first for an old-fashioned 5-6-3 groundout.
Lourdes Gurriel Jr. followed with a rocket to the gap in left-center. Tyrone Taylor raced over and went airborne to make a tremendous diving catch for the second out.
And then Eugenio Suárez came up and hit the hardest shot of the inning, a 111 mph grounder that Lindor backhanded on a short hop and fired to first again for the final out of an inning that left David Peterson — the beneficiary of the defense — practically in disbelief. “That inning, I’ve never seen something like that,” the left-hander said after picking up the victory. The home crowd stood and cheered afterward, rightly impressed with the glove work shown on the three consecutive plays.
“It was fantastic,” Lindor said of the inning. “I loved it. It was my type of inning.
” Like Peterson, Lindor was at a loss to recall a similar frame. “Probably not,” the shortstop said. “You don’t see stuff like that.
It was an electric inning. It was pretty cool to hear the fans [and] how they got behind it.” And then there was Taylor, who said he received “multiple hugs” from Peterson.
Carlos Mendoza called the diving catch “unbelievable.” “I thought, ‘No way is he gonna get there,’ ” the manager said of his thought process as Taylor chased after the fly ball. “It was a ridiculous play.
” Alonso, who made several excellent plays at first Tuesday, referred to it as “Tyrone’s unbelievable Superman catch.” “Halfway through it, I thought I had a chance,’’ said Taylor, who mouthed, ‘Wow,’ after he came down with the ball. “I shocked myself a little bit.
It was a good defensive inning all around.” Peterson, who allowed one run over five innings to continue the rotation’s strong showing, called the inning “unbelievable,” but he added he wasn’t totally blown away by it. “It wasn’t disbelief,” Peterson said of his reaction.
“I feel like anybody on our defense can make plays like that. It was crazy to have three of those in an inning.”.
