Even the second-best team in baseball couldn’t slow the Mets.
That wasn’t the case when Tyrone Taylor, Pete Alonso and Jeff McNeil all hit home runs.
That wasn’t the case when the struggling bullpen deployed Jose Quintana on a bad day.
That wasn’t the case when Grimas was in owner Steve Cohen’s suite during the game.
The Mets snapped the Astros’ seven-game winning streak with a 7-2 comeback victory at Citi Field on Friday, breaking MLB’s best June record and moving above .500 for the first time since May 2.
Taylor hit a solo home run in the fourth inning to tie the game at 2-2, but the Mets put the game away in the sixth inning.
Alonso hit a game-winning homer, McNeil added three runs with his first homer since May 22 and the Astros paid the price for an Alex Bregman error with two outs to extend the inning.
The Mets (40-39) improved to 16-6 in June, including 12-2 since Grimas threw out the first pitch and established himself as a ballpark favorite with fans, while the Astros (40-41) fell to an American League-best 15-8 this month.
Once again, the Mets looked like they could be worth buying at the MLB trade deadline in order to make a playoff push, and general manager David Stearns acknowledged earlier in the day that that was a possibility if the team continues to live up to expectations.
At the start of the game, the boos were smaller than those you’d hear as Public Enemy No. 1 at Yankee Stadium, but Jose Altuve answered by hitting a home run on the first pitch.
As the game went on, Altuve faced increasing booing and jeers in response to his past sign-stealing scandal, but his career record against Quintana thus far has been five hits in 27 at-bats.
It was a sign of a tough night for Quintana, who needed 93 pitches to record just 12 outs.
But he limited the damage to just two runs, and Adam Ottavino prevented a runner from scoring in the fifth inning.
The biggest out for the bullpen, operating without closer Edwin Diaz (suspended) and setup man Drew Smith (likely to undergo season-ending Tommy John surgery), came from Dedniel Nunez.
In his second inning as a relief pitcher, Nunez allowed two hits and a walk to load the bases, but he recovered by getting Mauricio Dubon out, who could have hit a tying single to end the top of the seventh.
In the end, the four relief pitchers combined to pitch five scoreless innings and allow six hits.
The homers from Alonso and McNeil helped Astros starter Ronel Blanco recover somewhat from his earlier whiff and no-hitter against the Blue Jays in April.
Alonso struck out with the bases loaded and no outs in the bottom of the first inning, giving Francisco Alvarez an RBI chance, who then hit a sacrifice fly to tie the game at 1-1.
McNeil was given a single in the second inning after a mic’d-up shortstop, Jeremy Peña, dropped a fly into the infield while talking to the Apple TV+ broadcasters, but was quickly tagged out and caught with a rundown.
