Mets sweep Red Sox behind stellar bullpen, defense for seventh straight win

The Mets rotation has emerged during the second half as a real strength.

Their offense has at times carried the team and been one of the better attacks in the majors.

Less heralded has been the bullpen, a unit that has continually evolved, occasionally irritated, sometimes frustrated and on Wednesday looked precisely good enough.

A seventh straight victory depended upon five quality innings from the Mets bullpen, which delivered five scoreless frames in an 8-3, exhale of a victory over the Red Sox in front of 26,270 to clinch a series sweep.

The Mets (76-64) just keep winning, getting star-turns from every area of the team.

“Hell of a job,” manager Carlos Mendoza said of his bullpen, which kept the Mets a half-game back of the Braves for the third NL wild-card spot.

Jesse Winker eked out a grand slam in the first inning, which proved to be all the scoring the Mets would need and all they would get until the eighth inning, when they scored four more.

Mets are employing winning formula of a playoff team

Bases-loaded walks from Tyrone Taylor (against Kenley Jansen), Jeff McNeil (against Rich Hill) and Francisco Alvarez (Hill), along with a sacrifice fly from Harrison Bader, provided the late insurance.

After Tylor Megill (four innings, three runs all scored in the third inning) was pulled, a procession of five Mets relievers managed to limit Boston to no runs on four hits and three walks, helping the Mets tie their season-best win streak.

Alex Young, Huascar Brazoban, Danny Young, Phil Maton and Edwin Diaz were not especially dominant, but they were clutch.

The bullpen consistently induced the ground ball it needed, escaping three straight jams with inning-ending double plays.

“A lot of confidence in our group right now,” said Maton, who has been excellent since arriving from the Rays. “The task at hand right now is to try to put as many zeros as possible.”

First it was Alex Young, who escaped a two-on jam with a ground-ball double play from Rafael Devers.

Jesse Winker waves to Mets fans after big grand slam: ‘energy’ is unmatched

In the sixth it was Brazoban who got into two-on trouble.

But the righty watched as Triston Casas grounded right back up the middle to Francisco Lindor, who stepped on the bag and fired to first to end the frame.

An inning later, Danny Young inherited a runner on first and erased him using a full-count sinker that Romy Gonzalez bounced for a double play.

The Mets defense, too, was flawless.

Beyond the double plays, there was Alvarez picking off a runner at first; Lindor making a nice, charging play to retire Jarren Duran; and a sneakily huge effort from Bader in the eighth.

In what was a one-run game, Rob Refsnyder rifled what looked to be a gapper.

Bader dashed into right-center, lunged to cut it off and lobbed a throw in quickly, holding Refsnyder at first.

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Tyler O’Neill followed with a two-out single — which advanced Refsnyder to third and not home, the tying run 90 feet away — before Maton got a lineout from Masataka Yoshida, allowing both a loud cheer and a loud sigh of relief.

“I can’t say enough good things about our defense,” Maton said, before crediting Bader’s cut-off that “could have been the difference in the game.”

In the Mets’ first and last innings at bat, they scored four runs. They ended up only needing the first four.

Lindor (single), Brandon Nimmo (walk) and Mark Vientos (single) loaded the bases in the first.

After a Pete Alonso strikeout, Winker drilled a grand slam that just cleared the wall and hit off the railing in left-center.

Winker, who has stepped up in the absence of J.D. Martinez (on the paternity list), has hit .306 with three home runs and 13 RBIs since the deadline deal and continues to do exactly what the Mets ask: Crush righty pitching.

There are nights when Sean Manaea, Luis Severino or David Peterson wills the Mets to victory. There are nights when Lindor refuses to let his team lose.

Especially encouraging are nights like Wednesday’s, when another group steps up and finds a way to secure the Mets’ 11th series sweep of the season.

“It feels good,” Mendoza said as his team plays its best baseball of the season at the most significant stretch of the season, “but there’s a lot of games left.”

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