Carson Benge Homers in Syracuse Win

The Triple-A Syracuse Mets were the only Mets minor league affiliate in action on Wednesday night. The Mets beat the Lehigh Valley IronPigs, 4-3, on Wednesday night at Coca-Cola Park. The third straight win keeps their slim playoff hopes alive. They trail Scranton/Wilkes-Barre by three games with four games left in the second half of the standings.

Triple-A has been mostly a struggle for Mets’ top prospect Carson Benge, but on Wednesday night, he hit a home run off one of the best pitching prospects in baseball, the Phillies’ Andrew Painter. Following a brutal 0-for-24 spell, the 22-year-old Benge has a modest three-game hitting streak with two extra-base hits, four RBIs and a walk. His slash line in Triple-A is at .143/.212/.234 in 20 games after he crushed Double-A with a .978 OPS in 32 games.

Both of the Mets’ other two top hitting prospects on the Syracuse roster were on base twice on Wednesday. Jett Williams and Ryan Clifford both went 1-for-4 with a walk from the top of the Syracuse batting order. Williams played second base on Wednesday, while Benge was in center and Clifford was at first base. Benge has played a majority of his Triple-A games in center, though Williams has spent 13 games there, 11 games at short and eight at second base. Clifford has played 15 games in left field, four in right field and 11 at first base.

Syracuse shortstop Yonny Hernández picked up three hits, raising his average to .338 on the season and his OPS to .839.

The Syracuse pitching staff was anchored by four solid innings (2 ER, 5 K) by lefty Brandon Waddell and capped by a scoreless inning to pick up the save by righty Oliver Ortega. In between, Austin Warren struck out four in two scoreless innings, Alex Carrillo allowed one run despite hitting 99 mph on the gun and Ty Adcock struck out the three batters he faced.

Kodai Senga gets the ball for Syracuse on Thursday night against the IronPigs, following six innings of one-run ball last week in his first start since being demoted to Triple-A. The game begins at 6:45 p.m. ET, and we will have a minor league thread following the game here at MMO.

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