Mets ride Pete Alonsos power, stellar defense to series win over Dodgers

Join Post Sports+ for exciting subscriber-only features, including real-time texting with Mike Puma about the inside buzz on the Mets.A consistent problem in the early going — one acknowledged by their president of baseball operations, David Stearns — has been the Mets’ lackluster defense.More recently, the club has encountered issues with Juan Soto’s hustling and Pete Alonso’s disappearing power.Yet viewers who checked in on a national broadcast Sunday night saw the Mets beat the Dodgers largely because of their gloves, Soto’s legs and Alonso’s might.An all-around bounce-back effort added up to a well-played, 3-1 victory over the most exciting team in baseball, sealing the series in front of 41,917 Mets and Shohei Ohtani fans at Citi Field.The Mets (32-21) snapped a two-series skid and are still breathing on the other side of a Yankees-Red Sox-Dodgers gauntlet, having won four of nine.

The schedule more hollows than softens from here, the next six games in Queens against the White Sox and Rockies.The Mets survived Sunday largely because of their defense, which helped Kodai Senga (5 ¹/₃ innings of one-run ball) consistently escape danger after serving up a no-doubter to Ohtani with his second pitch.They survived because the three relievers who followed Senga were untouched, Ryne Stanek to two innings of Max Kranick to Reed Garrett (first save of the season with Edwin Díaz unavailable) ensuring the team’s little bits of offense stood up.All three runs the Mets scored arose from inadvertent assists from the Dodgers, who were charged with four errors.In the first, Soto sent a two-out hard ground ball to the left side.Max Muncy fielded around the traditional shortstop position and booted the ball, which trickled a couple feet away.

Muncy picked up and threw strong to first, but Soto — who had come under scrutiny after not running hard on a grounder in The Bronx and a would-be double in Boston — sprinted the full 90 feet to reach.With the in...