MLB

Mets enjoy rare laugher, pound Marlins

MIAMI — There is no such thing as overkill for a team like the Mets.

Just keep the runs coming on those rare days you are scoring, and enjoy every last second of the barrage until reality — usually the next game — arrives to deliver a wake-up call.

On Sunday, the Mets littered South Beach with 17 hits and flattened the Marlins 11-5 for their fourth victory in five games.

“I think we could use this off day [Monday], but you almost wish that we could carry it over and play,” David Wright said. “The offense really busted out.”

Curtis Granderson and Lucas Duda led the attack, each with three hits, on a day seven members of the lineup had at least two. The team’s hits total tied a season high. It kept the Mets busy on the bench, waving white rally towels that became a staple on this road trip.

Granderson was behind the idea, having grown up in Chicago in the early 1990s when the Bulls were winning three straight NBA titles, waving towels during games to celebrate.

“Hopefully it can be a little something that keeps us going,” Granderson said. “The good thing is it’s not a rally thing, so you don’t have to wait for it. It can happen in the first inning, it can happen late in the game and it’s something that can be good for us.”

Sunday was nirvana for a Mets team that had averaged 2.7 runs over its previous 18 games.

“We’ve been waiting a long time to break one open,” manager Terry Collins said. “We’ve been put in a lot of situations where one hit breaks the game open. We haven’t had it, [Sunday] we got it.”

The Mets (35-41) are scheduled to play a two-game homestand against the Athletics beginning Tuesday before heading to Pittsburgh and Atlanta for seven games.

Jon Niese (4-4) survived a rocky sixth inning in which he allowed three runs — and left the bases loaded — to get his first victory since May 22.

Overall, the lefty allowed three earned runs on six hits over six innings with four strikeouts and two walks. It was Niese’s 19th straight start allowing three runs or fewer, the longest such streak in the major leagues.

The Mets seized control with four runs in the seventh. Anthony Recker’s RBI double was among the big hits in the inning, after Ruben Tejada delivered a run-scoring single. Eric Young Jr. also had an RBI single in the inning.

“One of the things we’ve been looking at, the back end of our lineup, we haven’t been driving in many runs,” Collins said. “Today we got a squeeze bunt from Jon, but Ruben got a couple of big hits and Recker got a couple of big hits.”

Niese’s suicide squeeze in the second brought home Kirk Nieuwenhuis to give the Mets a 2-0 lead against Anthony DeSclafani. Collins could not remember the last time the Mets had executed a suicide squeeze.

“Nieuwy got a good jump off third and luckily I was able to get a pitch that I could put down,” Niese said. “We work on it all spring training. Square around late so you don’t give it away and he threw me a pitch that I could handle and I put it down.”

Daniel Murphy’s three-run homer in the fourth put the Mets on the road to a runaway, extending their lead to 7-0.

Nieuwenhuis’ second double in as many innings gave the Mets a 4-0 lead in the third. Wright’s sacrifice fly brought in the inning’s first run, after Granderson and Murphy delivered consecutive singles.

Wright said the towel waving is catching on among the Mets.

“It’s kind of cool,” he said. “The bullpen is doing it now and I guess every team needs a gimmick now and that’s ours.”