McCoy: Greene delivers as Reds take series from Mets, pull back to within 4 games for final Wild Card spot

When he struck out Francisco Lindor to open the game with his new pitch, the splitter, then struck out Juan Soto and Pete Alonso, all on 15 pitches, the Mets knew quickly they were in for it.

Then he struck out the next two, five straight to open the game, it was clear he was a man on a mission.

For his seven innings, he gave up one hit, a home run off a slider by Brett Baty with one out in the second.

Credit: AP

Credit: AP

Hunter’s fastball would beat a Japanese bullet train to the Osaka station. It averaged 100.2 miles an hour and the last pitch he threw for his 12th strikeout to Jeff McNeil, was 102 miles an hour.

McNeil entered the game with 31 straight plate appearances without striking out. Greene struck him out twice.

For Greene, it was another day on the job. Asked by reporters if it was extra satisfying because it was another game his team needed to stay in the wild, wild wild card chase, Greene was blasé.

“My expectation is to do what I did today,” he said. “I don’t know if it’s extra, it’s what is expected from me and the rest of the team, so I’m just glad I was able to do my job.”

And when asked about the 12 strikeouts, he said with a grin, “Just trying to be a man of the people, get them some pizza.”

If Reds pitchers strikeout 11 in a game, fans are rewarded with a free slice of pizza from LaRosa’s. With what Greene did, it should be an entire pie.

But as the score indicates, it wasn’t easy.

Mets starter Brandon Sproat was making his major league debut and he no-hit the Reds for five innings.

The Reds scored a run in the fourth to tie it, 1-1, without a hit. Sproat walked Noelvi Marte to open the inning and he stole second. He moved to third on Elly De La Cruz’s grounder to first and scored on Austin Hays’ sacrifice fly.

The Reds finally got to him in the sixth with three straight one-out hits. It began with Marte’s broken bat bloop single to right, Cincinnati’s first hit.

Credit: AP

Credit: AP

De La Cruz lined a run-scoring double up the right field alley and sprinted to third on the throw home. Hays lined a run-producing single to left to score De La Cruz and it was 3-1.

That’s where it stood until a throat-closing ninth against Tony Santillan. With one out, Soto slammed his 38th home run into the right field seats and it was 3-2.

Pete Alonso grounded to De La Cruz in the hole and he skipped his throw to first, his MLB-leading 23rd error. Brandon Nimmo singled and the Mets had the potential tying and go-ahead runners on base with one out.

Starling Marte shattered his bat and hit a spinning ground ball near second base. De La Cruz fielded it and gave a glove-flip toss to second baseman Matt McLain and his throw to first completed the game-ending double play.

Hays drove in two of the three runs and Marte scored two of the three runs as the Reds improved their one-run decision games to 18-20

“There was some nasty spin on that ball, but Elly was able to hang on to it and had a nice glove-flip to Matt and he finished it off,” Hays told reporters of the game-ending double play. “That was big-time right there.”

After losing the opener Friday, the Reds won the next two and won the season series against the Mets, 4-2. If a tie arises in the final standings with the Reds and Mets, the Reds win the tie-breaker.

“We still have a lot of fight left in us,” said Hays. “The goal is still there and we still have an opportunity in front of us. We just have to keep playing good, clean baseball.

“When we get starts like we did from Hunter today, you’ve got a chance every day,” he added. “I love our starting rotation for the rest of the season. They’ll keep us in every game and we’ll have a good shot.”

Manager Tito Francona was back to work after missing Saturday’s game with an illness.

“When you strike out that many (12) to get you that deep in the game. . .Hunter pounded the strike zone with a real good fastball and a real good breaking ball,” he said of Greene’s domination. “And he had a good split, a lethal combination.

“There wasn’t a lot of offense (four hits by the Reds, three hits by the Mets), but there were some good things.”

Credit: AP

Credit: AP

De La Cruz did two good things and a bad thing — the run-scoring double and sprint to third and the nifty start of the game-ending double play, wiping away the bad thing, the near costly ninth-inning error.

Now the Reds head back to the West Coast and start with a three-game series in San Diego against the Padres, one of the six teams involved in seeking the final wild card spot.

The National League Wild Card Standings (for the third spot):

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