Rookie Carson Benge went 5-for-5 and supplied one of his team’s three home runs Sunday as the visiting New York Mets won the rubber game of their weekend series with the San Diego Padres 7-3.
Benge clubbed his seventh homer of the year an estimated 389 feet to right-center in the sixth inning, two batters after MJ Melendez belted his fourth homer an estimated 398 feet to right-center.
In the eighth, Benge capped his career game by lacing an RBI triple into the right field corner to score Brett Baty. New York finished with 13 hits.
Sean Manaea (1-1) worked four innings as the Mets’ bulk reliever to garner the win after opener Huascar Brazoban pitched a scoreless first. Manaea allowed four hits and two runs, walking one and whiffing three.
Freddy Fermin homered and drove in all three of the Padres’ runs. Randy Vasquez (5-4) fell to 0-3 in his last four starts after being knocked out during a two-run fifth. Vasquez gave up eight hits and four runs in four-plus innings with two walks and three strikeouts.
After snapping a six-game losing streak Saturday night in a 3-2 win, San Diego lost for the 11th time in 13 games. Its offense managed only seven hits against six pitchers and finished the three-game series with just 15 hits.
New York got on the board in the first via Juan Soto’s groundout to second that scored Benge, who led off with a single and reached third on Bo Bichette’s double off the left field wall.
Marcus Semien doubled the lead in the second when he cracked his eighth homer an estimated 360 feet into the left field seats.
In the fifth, the Mets made it 4-0 when Jared Young stroked an RBI single to end Vasquez’s day and A.J. Ewing lofted a sacrifice fly off reliever Yuki Matsui.
The Padres cut the deficit to 4-2 with one swing of Fermin’s bat in their half of the fifth. He jacked a two-run shot an estimated 404 feet to left-center with Samad Taylor aboard after a one-out single.
Fermin added an RBI double with two outs in the ninth that scored Taylor.
