Mets bounce-back on West Coast, take series from Angels

Abbey Mastracco, New York Daily News on May 3, 2026

Published in Baseball

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ANAHEIM, Calif. — A series win against one of the only teams that have a worse record than the New York Mets might not seem like much of a victory, especially since they didn’t look particularly good in any of the three games they played this weekend at Angel Stadium.

If the Mets learned anything this weekend, it’s that digging themselves out of this absolute crater they’ve managed to get themselves into is going to take a Herculean effort.

Mark Vientos hit a pair of home runs in a 5-1 win over the Los Angeles Angels on Sunday afternoon, driving in four runs to help with that effort.

“Last night was a tough one, but I’m glad that we were able to turn the page and come back here with a quick turnaround and get the job done,” said manager Carlos Mendoza. “That’s what it’s going to take for us to get to where we want to be, winning series one series at a time.”

The first homer from Vientos came off Jack Kochanowicz in the third inning, a go-ahead two-run blast into the rock fountain to pull the Mets ahead 2-1. Right-hander Clay Holmes helped the Mets protect the lead with another start, going 6 2/3 innings, and he was rewarded in the next inning by three more runs to preserve his win.

Left-hander Tayler Saucedo hit Brett Baty with a pitch to start the top of the eighth. After one out and a pitching change, Vientos hit his second, teeing off on a sweeper from Nick Sandlin, sending it over the left-field fence.

“I think the work behind the scenes is, for sure, showing these past two days,” Vientos said. “I’ve been seeing the ball great all season. I think I’ve just been missing stuff, and I didn’t miss these two pitches today.”

The Halo hitters were aggressive against Holmes from the start. Leadoff hitter Zach Neto drew an 11-pitch walk in the first inning, and Mike Trout then walked to put two on with none out. After striking out Nolan Schanuel, Holmes gave up an RBI single to Jorge Soler, giving the Angels a 1-0 lead.

A 5-3 double play ended the inning and got Holmes out of further trouble. From there, he held the Angels scoreless, giving up only three more hits and striking out six. Despite the three walks, he managed to pitch into the seventh inning, and likely would have finished seven strong had it not been for an error by shortstop Bo Bichette.

Right-hander Luke Weaver got the final out of the inning to preserve the win for Holmes (4-2).

“That first at-bat, you know, I think some pitches were fouled off trying to see where we were at there, and it was a good at-bat,” Holmes said. “I probably was a little too careful with Trout, and knew I was kind of making some good pitches and my command wasn’t too bad. It was just a matter of kind of getting the ground ball. I was able to get out of that with the run one run and settle in.”

The error could have just as easily been ruled a hit. Bichette, a career shortstop playing there again with Ronny Mauricio and Francisco Lindor both on the injured list, had a tough play on a chopper at the edge of the dirt by Oswald Peraza. He made a great stop and a hard throw, but it was off the line and not in time.

Down to shortstops, the Mets have Bichette and Brett Baty playing back at their natural positions. A ground-ball pitcher like Holmes needs a strong infield, and for the first time all season, he had that. Baty made that key double play in the first inning. Bichette had a nice backhanded stop for the out right before the error.

In the bottom of the ninth with one on and one out, Carson Benge made an outstanding diving catch in right field to rob Vaughn Grisson of extra bases and prevent a run from scoring.

“I dove still not knowing if I was going to make it,” Benge said.

Vientos might not be the most fundamentally sound first baseman, but he may still be better than Jorge Polanco, who was signed to play first base after playing middle infield and third base nearly his entire career. Polanco was only able to play two games at the position before getting injured. Now on the mend, the Mets may need to give him extra work before playing him there again once he’s eligible to come off the injured list.

As it turns out, playing everyone out of position isn’t the most effective way to achieve the goal of “run prevention.”

“Especially a guy like me, I need the defense,” Holmes said. “Just to everyone out there giving everything they have and working with where they are is huge. Brett back at third and Bo at short, it’s just good to see. There’s a lot of confidence in those guys so for me, it’s like, man, the more plays they make, the more I kind of feed off of it.”

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