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LOS ANGELES — Lucas Duda saw Yasiel Puig heading toward home and couldn’t believe his luck.
“I was lucky enough to just have enough time to get the ball to Travis [d’Arnaud] and he made a good tag,” Duda said after completing a triple play in the Mets’ 11-3 victory over the Dodgers on Sunday.
Adrian Gonzalez’s RBI single in the sixth had sliced the Mets’ lead to 7-2, leaving runners on first and second with nobody out. Matt Kemp followed with a grounder to third, on which the Mets converted a 5-4-3 double play. But Puig kept running from second base and was nailed at the plate after Duda received the throw from Daniel Murphy.
The triple play was the first turned by the Mets since May 19, 2010, at Washington and the second against the Dodgers this season. The other came July 1 in a game with the Indians. Puig’s bad judgement while running the bases caused that one too.
“It’s just the wrong play,” said Dodgers manager Don Mattingly, who had a talk with Puig immediately after the outfielder returned to the dugout. “That’s what we talked to him about. It’s just a little disappointing because he had another one of these in a similar-type game.
“He’s going to make mistakes and we’re OK with that. But this is the second time that same almost exact play happened. You would hope that guys would learn from their mistakes and get better.”
And while Mattingly and the Dodgers scratched their heads, nobody was happier about the triple play than Mets’ starter Bartolo Colon.
“That was right in the crucial moment,” said Colon, who was removed from the game following the sixth inning. “That was when I was starting to feel a little tired and it came at the right time. That was the game right there and thankfully [Puig] tried to go home and we got a good throw to home plate. It came at the right time, because I really needed it.”
“We were just happy to have a double play,” manager Terry Collins said. “The extra out was extra special for us.”