SAN FRANCISCO — If the San Francisco Giants thought coming back home off a disappointing road trip would be a cure-all, they found out differently Thursday night.
The New York Mets had a five-run fifth against Giants starter Sean Manaea and touched up reliever Tristan Beck for four runs in a 9-4 win before a crowd of 24,452 at Oracle Park.
It was the sixth loss in seven games for the Giants, who fell to 6-12 and were coming off a 1-4 road trip against Detroit and Miami. The Mets, headed in the opposite direction, have won six of their last seven on a road trip that started in Oakland and then went to Los Angeles against the Dodgers. New York is 13-7.
Pete Alonso, Eduardo Escobar and Jeff McNeil homered for the Mets. It was the ninth for Alonso, the second for Escobar and the first for McNeil. Blake Sabol and Lamonte Wade Jr. had solo shots for the Giants, their third and second, respectively.
Manaea (0-1), was the losing pitcher, with New York’s Kodai Senga (3-0) getting the win with five innings of work before turning it over to the bullpen.
New York went up 6-4 in the sixth on McNeil’s leadoff solo home run, then scored three times in the seventh — all off Beck — for a 9-4 lead. The key hits in the seventh were Alonso’s ground single past a diving Brandon Crawford to bring in two runs and McNeil’s run-scoring single.
Trailing by five runs, the Giants scored four times against Senga to get back in the game in the bottom of the fifth. The first two runs came on solo home runs by Sabol, a 423-foot blast to center, and Wade, a 373-foot shot to left center
Senga then walked by Thairo Estrada and Michael Conforto, with Mike Yastrzemski punching a single to center to make it 5-3. Conforto then scored on a Senga wild pitch. That was it for Senga, with Brooks Raley coming out for the sixth.
Manaea didn’t make it out of the fourth, allowing three free baserunners and three extra-base hits, including home runs by Alonso and Escobar, as the Mets batted around and took 5-0 lead.
The inning opened when Manaea spiked a breaking ball that bounced into the leg of Francisco Lindor, who took first base. Alonso hit a 3-2 pitch just over the fence in left and the Mets led 2-0.
After getting Tommy Pham to fly out, Manaea hit Jeff McNeil square in the back, and Escobar followed up with a home run just inside the foul pole down the left field line and it was 4-0.
The Mets weren’t done. After Manaea walked Luis Guillorme and struck out Tomas Nido, Brandon Nimmo doubled into the left field corner, with Guillorme coming around the score for a 5-0 lead.
That was the end for Manaea, who gave way to Beck, a recent call-up from Sacramento. Manaea ended up throwing 88 pitches, 51 for strikes, with three walks, two hit batters and three strikeouts. Beck finished up with 5 1/3 innings, giving up eight hits and four earned runs. The two needed 169 pitches to finish the game.
That Manaea even made it to the fourth inning was remarkable considering two shots he took on rockets back to the box in each of the first two innings.
Leadoff hitter Nimmo got Manaea’s attention with a 96.3 miles per hour drive off the pitcher’s calf for an infield single. Manaea got out of the inning on former teammate Mark Canha’s double play on a comebacker.
In the second Pham hit a 109.3 mph sizzler off Manaea’s torso. Manaea managed to have the ball deflect off his body and then threw Pham out at first.
