For what surely will be the only time this year at Citi Field, a Juan Soto strikeout was met with cheers.
Another long bottom of the inning had mercifully ended, this one entailing the Mets scoring seven runs.
Finally, the 42,112 on hand could be done with the overwhelming and over-boring Mets offense and could watch Jonah Tong pitch again.
For one energetic night in Queens, the vast majority of the sellout crowd preferred the starting pitcher to his team.
Such is the excitement for Tong, a 22-year-old phenom known for a nastiness on the mound and a kindness off of it.
There is plenty of hope that the future of the Mets was on display Friday — a future that might have just arrived.
Tong was encouraging and intriguing if not perfect in his debut, a 19-9 destruction of the Marlins in a contest whose result essentially was decided after five Mets batters.
When the onslaught was finished, the Mets had set a new franchise record for runs scored at home and gave Luis Torrens his first taste of pitching.
Perhaps trying to atone several years later for its unfriendliness toward Jacob deGrom, the Mets offense scored five runs in the first — No. 2 hitter Soto smoked a two-run homer against young star Eury Pérez before No. 5 hitter Brandon Nimmo socked a three-run shot — and seven more in a 12-batter second in which nine consecutive Mets reached base.
When Soto whiffed, the crowd stood on its feet to welcome Tong back to the rubber after another extended break.
The best minor league pitcher in baseball had to weather Day 1 nerves, interminably long half-innings and a defense that let him down late, but his stuff flashed enough that the club can envision that it has unwrapped a second Nolan McLean in the heat of a playoff race.
When his five innings were over — punctuated by a called strike three to ring up Liam Hicks, home-plate umpire Andy Fletcher perhaps coaxed by a crowd desperate for the escape — Tong had allowed four runs (just one earned) on six hits with zero walks and six strikeouts.
He had not allowed four runs in any of his 22 starts with Double- or Triple-A, but miscues behind him were more to blame.
Tong’s debut will be better remembered for the life in the ballpark than the life on his pitches (which was excellent, by the way).
When the outgoing and smiley character emerged at 6:20 p.m. from the dugout to walk to the bullpen, the group of fans down the right-field line stood and applauded — about 50 minutes before first pitch.
The kid from Canada warmed up to Nickelback and heard Rush and the “Thong Song” between innings, and after strikeouts.
There is a new fan favorite in Flushing, and if he did not immediately announce himself as an ace, he did leave the crowd and the Mets wanting to see more.
Displaying his Tim Lincecum-esque delivery, the spry, generously listed at 6-foot-1, maxed out at 97.7 mph, relied heavily on a changeup that induced a few whiffs and more weak contact and mixed in a curveball that he used to record his first strikeout, a hook that sat down Joey Wiemer.
Tong needed six pitches to retire the Marlins in order in the first and could have popped back home to Markham before making his second trip to the mound, such was the unrelenting Mets offense.
When he retook the rubber, he let up a double to Otto Lopez before displaying an ability Mets officials have raved about: a steeliness under pressure.
He induced a ground out to Hicks that moved Lopez to third, got Connor Norby to line out and handled a soft comebacker from Troy Johnston to navigate out of danger.
Tong again pitched his way out of a jam in the third, when he struck out a pair, and warmed up in the fourth inning as Citi Field stood to thank its military veteran of the game.
Tong, too, used a right hand that held a ball and his gloved left hand to clap before his lone 1-2-3 frame.
The fifth was troublesome for Tong and more troublesome for his defenders.
One run scored cleanly — a single, wild pitch and RBI single — before Francisco Lindor dropped a flip that would have recorded an out at second base.
Jakob Marsee followed with a ground ball that deflected off Pete Alonso’s glove for a second error to score an unearned run.
Two more came in when Otto Lopez dropped a single into center.
With one last strikeout, Tong finished his night and gave way to a game that became cartoonish: The Mets added six runs in the eighth before Torrens could not finish a four-run ninth.
One of the great blowouts in franchise history, though, will be remembered for a pitcher long gone by the end.
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