Allentown, PA – The Syracuse Mets completed their dream week in Allentown in style, dominating the Lehigh Valley IronPigs (Triple-A affiliate, Philadelphia Philles) from start to finish in a 6-0 win on Mother’s Day at Coca-Cola Park in Allentown. The Mets won five out of six games this week in Allentown, outscoring the IronPigs by a combined score of 48-15 all week.
Syracuse (22-15) received two tremendous starts from Tylor Megill this week as he rehabs his way back to the New York Mets. On Tuesday afternoon, Megill tossed four hitless and scoreless innings with seven strikeouts. On Sunday afternoon, the big righthander was dominant yet again, as the Californian threw five and one-thirds more scoreless innings with no walks and six strikeouts. While Megill did allow seven hits, they were all just singles. In fact, three of the seven singles were infield singles. Also, five of six strikeouts were swinging strikeouts.
As Megill kept the Lehigh Valley (13-23) batters in check, his offense provided him plenty of run support. The Mets scored six runs in the first six innings, scoring twice in the first, twice in the third and two more times in the sixth to put the game out of reach early. In both the first and third innings, the runs came home on a Luke Ritter RBI single followed immediately by a Trayce Thompson sacrifice fly. Thompson finished the week with 10 runs driven in, while Ritter followed up his two-hit game on Saturday with another two-hit game on Sunday.
In the sixth, Ben Gamel’s two-run double plated both Hayden Senger and Luisangel Acuña and capped off the Syracuse scoring on the afternoon. Gamel has now reached base in 21 straight games, while Acuña now has hits in eight straight games. Senger also finished the game with two hits, fresh off driving in three runs in his last start behind the plate on Thursday night.
From there, the Mets’ bullpen was masterful yet again. Four pitchers (Danny Young, Yacksel Ríos, Grant Hartwig and Dedniel Núñez) tossed the final three and two-thirds innings in scoreless fashion on just three hits, walking one batter and striking out three. The Mets bullpen this weekend, in three games, allowed exactly one earned run in 14 and one-thirds innings of work with 13 strikeouts. Syracuse has still not lost a game this season when leading after seven innings, largely due to their remarkable bullpen work.
Syracuse now finally returns home after two long weeks on the road. Next week’s series against the Triple-A affiliate of the Chicago Cubs, the Iowa Cubs, begins on Tuesday evening at 6:05 from NBT Bank Stadium. Joey Lucchesi is expected to start for the Mets.
