The Mets looked unbeatable. The Padres were kind of a mess.
That was Monday.
Two nights later, the Padres had won a series against the team with the best record in the National League.
And they had done it big.
A 13-2 victory on Wednesday followed a 7-0 victory the night before.
The Padres, who lost the series opener 11-5, had not scored that many runs in a single game nor that many runs in successive games this season.
The Mets (38-21) still sit atop the NL, just ahead of the Dodgers (36-20) and Padres (35-22).
Jake Cronenworth drove in five runs, three of them with his third home run in five games, every player in the Padres starting lineup got at least one hit and Sean Manaea went seven innings while his teammates got the better of Chris Bassitt.
Manaea and Bassitt played together for six seasons under Padres manager Bob Melvin in Oakland.
“It’s definitely more exciting because BoMel and Manaea are my two favorite people in baseball,” Bassitt said Tuesday.
His memories of this visit would be partially tainted by the rest of the Padres battering him with seven hits and seven runs in 3 1/3 innings.
Jurickson Profar walked to start the bottom of the first inning, moved to third on Luke Voit’s single and scored on a single by Nomar Mazara.
In the third, a one-out single by Cronenworth was followed by Manny Machado’s RBI double.
The Padres added five runs in the fourth. Jorge Alfaro singled, Trent Grisham walked and Ha-Seong Kim reached on an error on his sacrifice bunt to load the bases with no outs. After Sergio Alcantara struck out, three straight Padres drove in runs — a two-run single by Profar, two-run double by Cronenworth and RBI double by Machado.
Profar drove in another run with a double in the fifth before Cronenworth hit a three-run homer, giving him 14 RBIs in five games.
Manaea allowed a bunt single and walked two through his first six innings before surrendering two runs (one earned) in the seventh on a walk, two singles and an error.
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