Carlos Torres, who was promoted from Triple-A Las Vegas on Saturday night and arrived in New York at 9 a.m. yesterday, made his Mets debut. He relieved starter Jeremy Hefner in the sixth, pitching two scoreless innings, allowing just one hit and striking out one.
“I had talked to my agent and he said a lot of guys had pitched [Saturday], so be ready to go when you get off the plane. I said will do,’’ said Torres. “You got to get in there sooner or later. [It] might as well be Day 1. … I wasn’t as sharp as I wanted to be … but I’ll take it.’’
The 30-year-old pitcher essentially forced the Mets’ hands by exercising an out clause in his contract Friday, leaving them 48 hours to promote or release him. They promoted him, but he missed his non-stop flight from Las Vegas and ended up with a 5 a.m. layover in Atlanta, delaying his arrival in the city.
* Kirk Nieuwenhuis’ three-run, walk-off home run marked only the second walk-off RBI of his career. He had an RBI single to beat the Marlins on April 26, 2012. It was his first homer since June 23, 2012, against the Yankees.
* Marlon Byrd’s ninth-inning solo homer was his 11th home run of the year, and continued his red-hot month. He’s batting .303 with five homers in a dozen June games, equaling the most in any calendar month during his career, which he set in Sept. 2009 and matched in May.
* Mets starter Jeremy Hefner, who allowed one earned run in five innings, has a 2.40 ERA in his last five starts, albeit with a lone win to show for it. He has a 2.93 ERA at Citi Field this year.
* Despite the win, the Mets’ offensive issues continued. They have gone 26 straight home games without scoring more than five runs, tying a dubious team record set June 20-Aug. 17, 1968 and equalled Aug. 10-Sept. 23, 1979. The last team to do the same was the Giants, from Aug. 5-Oct. 2, 2005.
* Jordany Valdespin went 0-for-4, and is 3-for-23 since being handed the second base job on Tuesday. That experiment may be running its course.
“The way I look at things down the road, we’ve got lefties coming up, I’ve got to get some right-handed bats in the lineup, so we may move Daniel [Murphy] back to second,’’ manager Terry Collins said.
* Closer Bobby Parnell earned his fifth win, tying last year’s career-high. He has the major league lead among relievers and is tied with Matt Harvey and Dillon Gee for the Mets lead. … Ike Davis went 0-for-4 with two strikeouts yesterday for Las Vegas. He’s hitting .174 (4-for-23) since being demoted. … The Mets demoted reliever Greg Burke despite the fact he had allowed just one earned run in his last 12 2/3 innings.