Sean Manaea’s brilliance, Francisco Lindor’s homer help Mets finish off sweep of White Sox
CHICAGO — Uninspiring, yes, but it still counts.
The Mets arrived on the South Side with no other acceptable option but to sweep this mess of a team called the White Sox. And they accomplished that goal Sunday, but with few points for style.
Sean Manaea was dominant, but the Mets lineup not so much in a 2-0 victory that completed the road trip.
The Mets won seven of 10 games on the three-city jaunt and returned home back within a game of the Braves — who lost to the Phillies on Sunday night — for the final NL wild-card spot.
“We have definitely set ourselves up for a good run here,” Manaea said.
The Mets scored only 12 runs over the three games at Guaranteed Rate Field, but strong pitching helped avoid embarrassment.
The White Sox established a franchise record on this day with their 107th loss and remain on pace to supplant the 1962 Mets (who lost 120 games) as the worst team in MLB history.
Manaea scintillated over seven shutout innings in which he allowed two hits and walked two with five strikeouts.
Reed Garrett and Edwin Diaz combined to work the final two innings scoreless. Diaz, who struck out the side in the ninth, has three scoreless appearances since his Wednesday meltdown in Arizona.
It was a fourth straight start in which Manaea pitched at least into the seventh inning without allowing more than three earned runs.
“He seems that he’s getting better as the year goes on and that is a really good thing,” Francisco Lindor said. “I’m happy how he’s doing it. I’m not impressed, because I have faced him before, and it’s not fun to hit against him.”
Manaea didn’t face a real threat until the seventh, when he walked Andrew Vaughn and allowed a two-out single to Gavin Sheets that put runners on the corners.
But Manaea — who had plunked Luis Robert Jr. to begin the inning before Robert got nailed by Luis Torrens attempting to steal second — recovered from a 3-0 count to Miguel Vargas and got the final out.
Manaea threw 67 percent sinkers. It’s a pitch that he’s used about 40 percent of the time for the entire season.
“I just kept throwing it until they were going to do something with it,” Manaea said.
Garrett Crochet tied a White Sox record by striking out seven straight batters to begin his start. Luis Torrens ended the streak with a ground out in the third inning.
Crochet struck out eight batters over 3 ¹/₃ innings.
“We’ve seen some pretty good arms throughout the year, but that right there was pretty special,” manager Carlos Mendoza said.
Lindor led off the fourth with a home run. The blast was his 29th of the season and extended his on-base streak to 30 games, which is the longest active in the major leagues. Lindor hit four home runs on the road trip.
Manaea retired the first 11 batters he faced before walking Lenyn Sosa with two outs in the fourth. But he picked Sosa off first base to end the inning.
Vargas delivered the first hit against Manaea with a single to left field with two outs in the fifth. Manaea rebounded to strike out Dominic Fletcher.
Mendoza said he thought Manaea got fired up in trying to match Crochet’s early dominance.
“[Manaea] rose to the occasion today,” Mendoza said. “There was a different demeanor on the mound today. Those first four or five innings, he was ‘Give me the ball,’ and ‘I’m going right after them.’ ”
The Mets, who struck out 16 times, had their own offensive struggles. Starling Marte singled leading off the fifth and got picked off first and was thrown out heading for second for a caught stealing. Torrens followed with a single, but the Mets couldn’t build from it.
Marte delivered an RBI double in the ninth that gave the Mets their second run. And after Diaz worked a perfect ninth, the Mets could finally head home.
“We are in a good spot,” Lindor said. “We’re in the same spot that we were before the road trip. It’s in a position that we still have a chance for the playoffs.”
