A small ball 7th and Soto's latest injury doom the Mets against Dodgers

Dodgers 4 Mets 2 (Citi Field, Flushing, NY)

Mets record: 43-61

Mets streak: Lost 2

WP - Roki Sasaki (4-5)

LP - Brooks Raley (4-5)

SV - Tanner Scott (16)

Seat on the Korner: Roki Sasaki

We select a Star of the Game and virtually invite him to take his Seat on the Korner — just as Ralph Kiner did on WOR-TV Channel 9 during the early days of the New York Mets.

Continuing the tradition of Rheingold Beer sponsoring Kiner’s Korner, this season every seat is proudly presented by The Main Event Restaurant & Sports Bar.

With locations in Plainview and Farmingdale, The Main Event features 80+ HD TVs, fresh daily seafood, and Black Angus certified steaks—so you never have to choose between great food and the big game.

Something about New York agrees with Roki Sasaki. After pitching to a 6.61 ERA in his previous five starts, he came to New York for two games and gave up zero earned runs in 5 and 2/3's in the Bronx and then tonight, one run in seven innings against the Mets, giving up three hits and two walks while striking out nine in 94 pitches in a 4-2 Dodger victory.

Need to Know

• Juan Soto left the game in the 6th for a pinch hitter (Jorge Polanco) due to left calf soreness.

• Sean Manaea pitched six innings and gave up a run on six hits and two walks while striking out three. He threw 84 pitches with 61 of them being strikes.

• Kyle Tucker's two run homer in the 8th off A.J. Minter put the game out of reach at 4-1. Minter has given up three home runs in his last five games.

• Freddie Freeman led the way with three hits for the Dodgers, with three other Dodgers having multiple hits (Shohei Ohtani, Kyle Tucker, and Teoscar Hernandez.)

• The Mets wore their home pinstripes instead of their usual Friday black uniforms because there was a movie being shot called "The Catch" with Emma Stone, who was at the park. Kevin Pillar will be in the movie as Chris Pine's stunt double.

Turning Point

In the 7th inning, the Dodgers benefitted from two soft hits to the outfield, and then a sac bunt attempt which turned into 2nd and 3rd not because the bunt was great, but because Francisco Alvarez threw too quickly on the rundown.

Because Alvarez threw to third quick, it enabled the runners to move up a base, giving Shohei Ohtani an opportunity to hit a sac fly instead of possibly grounding into a double play.

Andy Green had a choice of Brooks Raley vs Shohei Ohtani or walk Ohtani to set up Luke Weaver vs Andy Pages. I probably would have taken the latter, but Andy Green is caught in that middle ground between managing to evaluate and managing to win. It's not his fault, as he's in an impossible position. But between that and the botched rundown, t'was details that killed the Mets tonight.

Three Keys

Roki Was Bright, Clear, and Serene

Both starting pitchers purported themselves very well tonight. Sean Manaea relied on his fastball tonight, consistently topping 90 on the gun and even tasting 93 early in the game to help shut down the Dodgers. He used the fastball more to set up the sweeper for success.

But Sasaki was in another world tonight. He has a splitter and a forkball, and both were nasty.

After giving up the homer to Robert, he faced him again and threw two nasty splitters to start him off, and then a slider. Robert actually worked that count to 2-1, but it all set him up for a fastball on the outer half that Robert took a very weak hack at to ground out to first. Sasaki seemed to go out there with a plan tonight and it worked.

La Potencia

Luis Robert Jr's rainbow home run off of Roki Sasaki was his 2nd in three games. Unlike Freddy Peralta and A.J. Minter, Robert is peaking at the right time in the kaleidoscope of his trade value.

It's entirely possible that Robert could be somebody's Yoenis Cespedes from 2015 for two months. He also is a very low risk for someone to take on. If he goes all Cespedes on the rest of the league, then you can keep him for a mere $20 million for one more season. If he decides he wants to chase wild boars in his spare time, then he has a club option for $2 million. If he keeps going at this pace for ten more games, then it'll make it easier for a team that needs a right-handed bat to pull the trigger on a deal.

(Speculation alert: Seattle, perhaps? Their needs seem to be reliever and right-handed bat that can hit lefties ... and Robert has a career .872 OPS against lefties. If David Stearns decided to package Luke Weaver and a hot Robert while convincing them that Robert could not only be a righty bat, but good insurance for Julio Rodriguez, the return could be a significant part of the efforts to compete in 2027 with their excess starting pitching.)

Carson the Cannon

Who knows how slaughterous this game would have been for the Dodgers had it not been for Carson Benge making two great throws from the outfield to nail Dodger runners. First it was Shohei Ohtani trying to stretch a double into a triple with nobody out in the 5th ...

Always hit the cutoff man, you kids out there.

Then it was Freddie Freeman trying to score on a fly ball by Miguel Rojas, but Benge's throw wound up ending the 6th inning.

If there's one thing that the powers that be can learn from this season, it's that it's nice to have an outfielder playing the outfield. Thankfully, the Mets have enough outfielders that they can fill the outfield with. There's no longer a need to have infielders play the outfield in the name of "run prevention" or "positional flexibility." Let's just have people in the roles that they're good at. Carson Benge is a good outfielder. So is A.J. Ewing. They should stay there.