The New York Mets needed less than a week to confirm manager Carlos Mendoza's belief that their rough start was simply an example of getting one of their subpar stretches out of the way.
The Kansas City Royals hope Friday night wasn't the beginning of their regression to the middle of the pack in the American League.
The Mets will look to clinch their third straight series Saturday afternoon when they host the Royals in the middle game of a three-game series.
Left-hander Sean Manaea (1-0, 0.82 ERA) is slated to start for the Mets against right-hander Alec Marsh (1-0, 3.09).
The Mets cooled off the red-hot Royals on Friday night, when they had four two-out RBI hits and a quintet of pitchers combined on a three-hitter in a 6-1 victory.
The win was the sixth in eight games following an 0-5 start for the Mets, whose offensive struggles continued even after they snapped their season-opening losing streak. New York had just 25 runs on 58 hits in its first nine games but has 35 runs on 53 hits in the past four.
On Friday, every Mets position player who appeared in the game had at least one hit except for Starling Marte. New York built rallies with two outs and nobody on in the third, when Brandon Nimmo had an RBI double, and the fourth, when Jeff McNeil and DJ Stewart had consecutive run-scoring singles.
"I've been saying that at some point during 162 (games), teams are going to go through stretches where it's not easy," Mendoza said Friday night. "It's trying to find that consistency as a team -- offensively, defensively, pitching-wise, baserunning. We're putting together a lot of good at-bats. We're playing overall pretty good baseball right now."
The loss snapped a seven-game winning streak for the Royals, who outscored the Chicago White Sox and Houston Astros 48-13 during the surge. Kansas City enters action Saturday second in the American League in runs (73) and first in slugging percentage (.429) and stolen bases (17) while standing second in home runs (18).
But the Royals had a season-low three hits Friday, when no player got beyond second base after Salvador Perez led off the second with a homer even though Mets starter Luis Severino issued four walks in five innings.
"We didn't square a whole lot up," Royals manager Matt Quatraro said. "We had a couple opportunities with the walks, when (Severino) lost the zone a little bit, but we just didn't capitalize."
Manaea earned the win last Sunday, when he allowed one run on three hits over five innings as the Mets beat the Cincinnati Reds 3-1. The southpaw, who was selected by the Royals No. 34 overall in the 2013 draft before being dealt to the Oakland Athletics in 2015, is 2-1 with a 4.61 ERA in five career starts against Kansas City.
Marsh didn't factor into the decision last Sunday after giving up three runs over 4 2/3 innings in the Royals' 5-3 win over the White Sox. He tossed a scoreless inning of relief in his lone appearance against the Mets last Aug. 1, when Kansas City earned a 7-6, 10-inning victory.
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