The Mets plugged the biggest hole in their lineup with their hottest hitter and immediately got the desired result.
In his first game in the No. 2 hole, Tommy Pham extended his hitting streak to six games, reached base four times and scored two runs Sunday as the Mets defeated the Giants 8-4 to win the rubber game of the series.
Pham is hitting .591 (13-for-22) with six extra-base hits over his last six games.
But this isn’t just a good week.
Go back to June 14 and he is hitting .406 (second-best in MLB).
Go back further, to May 28, and he is hitting .377 and ranks among MLB leaders in average, slugging percentage and OPS.
“It’s huge when the guy behind me in the lineup is putting the ball in play the way that he is,” leadoff hitter Brandon Nimmo told The Post. “Good things happen when you put the ball in play, and he’s been putting it in play really hard. It puts a lot of pressure on the pitching staff right from the beginning. He was huge for us tonight, and it obviously showed up in the score.”
The Mets entered the game with a collective .599 OPS from their No. 2 hitters.
It was the worst mark of any of the spots in the lineup and primarily attributable to the season-long struggles of Starling Marte.
Putting an out between Nimmo’s team-high on-base percentage and run-producers Francisco Lindor and Pete Alonso was shortening the lineup.
Enter Pham, who gradually is asserting himself as the starting left fielder over Mark Canha and spent time Sunday nitpicking his defense instead of reveling in his hitting.
“My approach doesn’t change where I’m hitting in the lineup,” said Pham, whose scorching bat was aided Sunday by a couple of seeing-eye hits. “Today I had a little luck on my side, but I don’t think I’m doing anything I haven’t done before in this game. This game has its ups and downs. You can’t get too high and you can’t get too low. You have to stay level.”
Manager Buck Showalter said he considered moving up Pham for a while and saw the Giants using an opener instead of a traditional starting pitcher as the right opportunity.
“There are a lot of things you have to think about differently when teams do this — you look at their bullpen and the people they have available because you don’t want to be susceptible to things that happen after the second inning,” Showalter said. “Tommy has certainly proven himself worthy of a lot of things. He fits a lot of places right now.”
Showalter praised Pham, 35, for keeping himself in great shape.
“Nobody works harder than this guy,” Showalter said. “He told me he plans on playing at a high level until he’s 40. The game is real slow to him right now.”
It certainly looks like he recently started drinking from the fountain of youth.
