Often for the Mets, the first six innings of a game tend not to matter. It’s not as if the Mets are bad early in games. (They’re not.) It’s just that from the seventh inning onward, they turn into a juggernaut.

Two innings earlier, the Mets had runners on first and second with one out for Soto and Pete Alonso, facing Daniel Palencia and trailing 4-3. Palencia struck out Soto with an 87 mph slider before inducing Alonso to ground out to Dansby Swanson, to end the Mets’ two-game winning streak.