​The Mets found a way to break the 1-1 tie in the eighth inning and ultimately defeat the Kansas City Royals 6-2. New York capitalized on a string of Royals miscues in the bottom of the eighth, surging for five runs with two outs. Jorge Polanco somehow reached first to load the bases, and Jared Young was hit by a pitch to drive in the go-ahead run. With the inning still alive, Brett Baty delivered some breathing room with a two-run single, a wild pitch scoring another, and Francisco Alvarez driving in another run to stretch the lead.
Earlier, A.J. Ewing continued his breakout stretch by homering off Steven Cruz for the Mets’ leadoff shot, giving New York a 1-0 lead in the first. It marked Ewing’s first career leadoff homer, and he joins Francisco Lindor, Bo Bichette, Juan Soto, and Carson Benge as Mets who have homered leading off a game this season. It’s a notable milestone for a club that hadn’t seen five different players hit leadoff homers in a season since 1962.
Christian Scott turned in one of his best performances of the year, delivering five scoreless innings and dropping his season ERA to 3.17. The young right-hander required 49 pitches to navigate the first two frames but settled down for two efficient innings in the third and fourth (25 pitches combined). He kept things rolling with a tidy fifth inning, though his day ended after reaching 90 pitches. Across five frames, Scott yielded three hits, fanned five, and walked one.
In the bottom of the third, Francisco Lindor appeared poised to deliver a big hit with two runners aboard, but Tuesday’s breakout star Tyler Tolbert tracked a ball to the wall in right field for a leaping catch that robbed him of a potential extra-base hit for the third out.
Tobias Myers, recalled from Triple-A earlier on Wednesday, took over for Scott to begin the sixth. The performance didn’t go entirely as hoped, as Myers allowed a one-out double to Jac Caglianone and an RBI single to Salvador Perez that tied the game at 1-1. Myers came back to pitch the seventh, escaping trouble including a leadoff double, keeping the game deadlocked at one run apiece. In all, he permitted one run on three hits across 2.0 innings, with one strikeout and one walk.
Offensively, the Mets couldn’t crack Royals reliever Randy Dobnak, managing only three hits—two of them by Carson Benge—through 5.2 innings into the bottom of the seventh. Francisco Alvarez drew a two-out walk to extend the at-bat, ending Dobnak’s outing, but Ewing struck out looking on what some viewed as a controversial call, and the Mets were unable to challenge because they had no challenges left.
Xzavion Curry made his team debut in the ninth inning with a five-run cushion, allowing one run on a double and issuing a walk. Scott had stifled Kansas City’s lineup after they had torched the Mets for 19 hits and 16 runs the previous night.
Looking ahead, the Mets will close out their three-game set with the Royals on Thursday at 1:10 p.m. on SNY. Sean Manaea (1-4, 4.76 ERA) is slated to start for Kansas City against Michael Wacha (5-6, 3.45 ERA) for New York, in a matchup that promises more opportunities for both clubs to capitalize on late-inning opportunities and for the Mets to build on their momentum from the recent come-from-behind win.