Ike Davis now has 30 good reasons to consider 2012 a success.
The Mets first baseman capped a solid second half of the season with two home runs last night — giving him 30 for the season — leading his team to a 6-2 victory over the Pirates at Citi Field.
Davis hit a two-run homer in the fourth inning against Kyle McPherson before hitting a three-run blast in the fifth against Hisanori Takahashi. In the process, Davis became the first Mets player in the Citi Field era with a 30-homer season. Carlos Delgado hit 38 homers and David Wright 33 in 2008 to close the Shea Stadium era.
“It’s a cool milestone,” Davis said after the Mets won their fourth straight. “But obviously if I would have hit 29 this year, I would have been happy with the power numbers, for sure.”
The Mets (70-83) won their fourth straight and improved to 8-24 at Citi Field since the All-Star break.
Davis’ multi-homer game was his third of the season. That included a three-homer game at Arizona on July 28. For the season he is batting .227 with 30 homers and 88 RBIs.
Considering Davis was batting only .158 on June 8, he can be happy with his turnaround. Of his 30 homers, 18 have come in the second half.
“The difference now is I’m just not awful,” Davis said. “The first 2 1/2 months, I was terrible. It felt like I had never played baseball before.”
Jenrry Mejia (1-1) earned his first major league victory by pitching five shutout innings in which he allowed four hits and two walks. The right-hander was removed after throwing 96 pitches.