Mets’ Cespedes homers 3 times against Rockies

Yoenis Cespedes had one of the greatest nights any hitter ever had Friday at Coor Field.

Yoenis Cespedes has hit three home runs for the New York Mets, including a grand slam Friday against the Colorado Rockies. I had that kind of night. Cespedes’ 5 hits is his new career high. “We’ll take a look at it tomorrow and see how it goes”. Colorado is led on offense by young star Nolan Arenado, who has a WAR of 4.5, and all-star Carlos Gonzalez, with a WAR of 2.7. Nick Hundley finished a homer shy of the cycle.

He also scored five runs and stole a base on a rare night. “We did a good job today”.

Cespedes was the biggest reason why.

The power display began with a slam off rookie Jon Gray in the Mets’ 6-run second inning. He powered his second career grand slam and second of the season over the right-field fence. His first came on April 19th for Detroit against the Chicago White Sox. He belted a two-run homer in the sixth to give the Mets a 10-8 lead after the Rockies fought back from a 7-1 deficit in the second to tie the score st 8-8 in the fifth.

“Tough to keep him down for long”, Rockies manager Walt Weiss said.

The odds of the Mets acquiring an elite reliever-or even a solid one for that matter-are remote now that we’re in August and all players must pass through waivers before being dealt. I don’t think I got ahead of any guys tonight.

Travis d’Arnaud and Michael Conforto also had home runs in the seventh inning in the Mets’ first five-homer game since September 5, 2014, against Cincinnati. He joins Kirk Nieuwenhuis and Lucas Duda this season, the first time in franchise history three players accomplished it in a season. He was hit by a pitch on his right hand in the second when he squared to bunt.

Cespedes has hit five home runs since joining the Mets and has 23 home runs overall.

Colon lasted just 3⅔ innings, allowing seven runs on nine hits, walking two and striking out just one. Bartolo Colon was charged with seven runs on nine hits including three bombs over 3.2 frames but he was bailed out by the bats.

It all unraveled for Gray in the second inning. Aside from being allowed to get six more outs, it was actually a very similar outing to Gray’s. “It was just bad”. Chris Rusin will go for the Rockies against the Mets on Saturday, and he has lowered his ERA to 3.99 after two straight starts allowing one run or less. Friedrich (0-4), who gave up the tiebreaking shot to Cespedes, took the loss.

The Rockies aren’t thinking playoffs at all, now sitting 18 games back of the Dodgers for first place in the NL West, and 19 games back of the final wild-card spot in the National League.

Duda had missed six starts with a strain in his lower back before returning Tuesday.

All of this happened only a few hours after Terry Collins announced that Matt Harvey would indeed be skipped Sunday, with Logan Verrett to make his major-league debut as a starter. “Just a quick turnaround”, Weiss said. The Mets had lost four of five before a 14-9 series opening win at Coors Field. Rusin comes off his best career start in a complete game five hit shutout of San Diego.