Bullpen carries Syracuse Mets to 4-3 extra-inning win in Lehigh Valley

Jonah Tong gave Syracuse exactly the kind of start a road team needs, and the bullpen finished the job. The Mets beat the Lehigh Valley IronPigs 4-3 in extra innings Friday night at Coca-Cola Park, with Tong holding the IronPigs to one run over six innings and striking out seven.

That left the game in the hands of a relief group that has become a pressure point for Syracuse in close games. Ben Simon worked a scoreless seventh to bridge the middle innings, and Jefry Yan took over in the late frames. Yan gave up the tying run in the bottom of the ninth, but Syracuse still escaped when Danis Correa threw a scoreless 10th and preserved the win.

The result mattered beyond one line in the standings. Syracuse picked up its third win of the six-game road series, a valuable response in a stretch that had turned into a sequence of tight games. Instead of letting another late lead slip away, the Mets got enough from Tong’s six-inning start and three different relievers to keep themselves in position until Correa closed it out.

The way Syracuse handled the back end also offered a clear look at how the staff was being deployed. Tong set the tone as the starter, Simon handled the handoff, Yan absorbed the ninth-inning pressure and Correa finished the job in extras. For a team trying to build momentum in the second half, that kind of ordering matters because it shows the Mets could protect a lead even when the game pushed past nine innings.

The win came on the road in Lehigh Valley, where Syracuse had to stay sharp to avoid letting a competitive series swing the other way. The Mets were set to remain there for another day before returning to NBT Bank Stadium for their next home series, carrying with them a win built less on one big swing than on six innings from Tong and three important innings from the bullpen.