Mets blank Giants, 3-0, behind Jon Niese – Sports

He walked two and struck out seven.The effort was a marked improvement over the veteran’s first start of the season last Thursday in Miami, when he gave up five runs on seven hits and four walks in five innings.

New York Mets starting pitcher Jonathon Niese (49) throws a pitch in the first inning as the New York Mets face the San Francisco Giants at AT&T Park in San Francisco, Calif., on Monday, July 6, 2015.

The rookie threw 71/3 innings of shutout ball, allowing four walks but just three hits.

Juan Lagares later singled to drive in Monell. After right-hander George Kontos pitched a scoreless seventh inning, the Mets were able to bring the potential tying run to the plate in the eighth after righty Hunter Strickland gave up a double to catcher Kevin Plawecki and a two-out walk to Tejada. Cuddyer went to third on a double to right field by left fielder Kirk Nieuwenhuis, who was promoted from Triple-A Las Vegas earlier in the day.

It took just four pitches Monday for the Mets to ensure they would not be no-hit again, with Ruben Tejada lacing a single to left field.

Giants: OF Nori Aoki (broken leg) could rejoin the team two weeks after the All-Star break, according to manager Bruce Bochy….

The Mets offense looks to record a hit against Chris Heston Monday night after being no-hit by the righty on June 9th at Citi Field. “You have a tendency to take them for granted and run them out there, but they’re human”. The Giants will actually arrive in San Francisco about six hours before Monday night’s game after staying Sunday night in Washington, D.C., where they were outscored 14-5 by the Nationals in three games over the weekend.The Mets broke out of a lengthy offensive slump with 15 hits in Sunday’s 8-0 victory against the Dodgers and saw Wilmer Flores reinforce his claim as the club’s regular second baseman.

Kevin Plawecki had two of the Mets’ four hits. Left-hander Josh Osich relieved Strickland at that point and needed just one pitch to get third baseman Daniel Murphy to ground out, ending the threat. The Giants loaded the bases with two outs on Joaquin Arias’ single and walks to Ehire Adrianza and Matt Duffy. He then fielded the second one cleanly, but opted to throw to second base for a force out while Blanco raced home with the game’s first run. “Other than that I thought it went pretty well”.

Mets: RHP Jenrry Mejia was activated from the restricted list before the game after completing an 80-game suspension for testing positive for performance-enhancing drugs. Bartolo Colon (9-6, 4.55 ERA) contributed to that with seven scoreless innings in a 2-0, 11-inning loss to the Chicago Cubs on Wednesday. San Francisco ranks 13th in scoring (4.17 rpg), 3rd in hitting (.268) and 22nd in homers (68), while on the mound they are 16th in ERA (3.92) and 15th in WHIP (1.27).

Taking the hill for the Giants tonight will be Chris Heston, who is 8-5 with a 3.78 ERA overall, while at home he has gone 3-4 with a 3.12 ERA.