MIAMI _ The horrors of Hollywood far behind them, the frightening echoes of that Chavez Ravine thunder a distant memory, the Mets finally wrapped a 10-game road trip that felt 10 times as long with Thursday's 6-3 victory over the Marlins, a patched-together win spurred by another strong start, this one by Seth Lugo.
Lugo is doing what he can to make people forget about the small UCL tear inside his left elbow and his six solid innings Thursday were pretty convincing as the Mets earned their fifth victory in six games after the Dodgers' demoralizing four-game sweep.
T.J. Rivera, who started at first base for the ill Lucas Duda, had three hits and a pair of RBIs. Jerry Blevins and Josh Edgin each provided a scoreless inning of relief before Addison Reed struck out two in the ninth for his 12th save.
If the Mets are going to muster any flicker of life in the coming weeks, the battered rotation is going to have to lean on pitchers like the revitalized Lugo, who has been effective despite missing the first two months with the elbow issue. Even with that fear in the back of everyone's mind, he's provided what the Mets have come to expect from him.
"He's been Seth Lugo-ish," Terry Collins said before the game. "Mixes pitches, changes speeds, throws strikes."
Lugo's fragile elbow doesn't generate the same velocity as in the past, but the lethal spin rate on his breaking pitches remains intact. He left with a 5-3 lead through six innings. Lugo allowed six hits, including a 392-foot homer to Giancarlo Stanton, and only two earned runs as he trimmed his ERA to 3.55 in four starts since his June 11 return.
Lugo retired nine of the first 10 Marlins before Stanton opened the fourth inning with a thunderous drive that caromed off the left field scoreboard. But the sixth is when things got a little tricky, as Miami added two runs on some dangerous glove acrobatics by catcher Rene Rivera and a wild pitch.
Stanton didn't slide trying to score from second on Martin Prado's single and Yoenis Cespedes' strong throw almost nailed him. But Rivera got his glove stuck between Stanton's legs and both it and the ball got scissor-kicked off his left hand, sailing behind him. That allowed Christian Yelich to take third and then score on a wild pitch.
Heading into the final stretch of the Mets' road trip, the Miami visit got off to a terrible start when Robert Gsellman was forced from Tuesday's 6-3 loss in the fourth inning because of a hamstring strain that put him on the disabled list. But Steven Matz followed with seven scoreless innings in Wednesday's 8-0 rout and then it was down to Lugo, a true road warrior who entered the series finale 5-1 with a 2.91 ERA in 10 career appearances (six starts) away from New York.
The Mets that backed Lugo, however, must have reminded him more of Triple-A Las Vegas. With Duda sidelined by flu-like symptoms, Rivera manned first base, and Matt Reynolds _ called up Wednesday to replaced Gsellman _ was at third. No matter. Just as they had done the previous night with Matz, the Mets staked Lugo to an early lead and kept tacking on runs.
Once again, it was Curtis Granderson who sparked a first-inning rally, this time with a leadoff double. That upped him to 13-for-32 (.406) on the trip, and two outs later, Jay Bruce delivered an RBI single with T.J. Rivera adding a run-scoring double. The Mets continued to pile on in the third inning, but used more modest means, with Granderson reaching on a replay-backed safe call on a throwing error, Cespedes' infield hit and Bruce's bloop double to left field.
After another RBI hit from T.J. Rivera, this one a single, Jose Reyes lofted a sacrifice fly to right that put the Mets ahead 5-0.
