The San Francisco Giants Luis Matos makes the catch against the centerfield padding in the bottom of the second inning against the New York Mets at Citi Field in New York on Sat Jul 1, 2023 (AP News photo)

By Jessica Kwong

NEW YORK. — San Francisco Giants starting pitcher Anthony DeSclafani was retired after throwing a season-low three innings and allowing the New York Mets to score three homers in an inning, and the visiting team lost 4-1 at Citi Field on Saturday afternoon.

Good things came in threes for the Mets in the third.

Francisco Alvarez hit a home run to center field to put the Mets up 1-0. Immediately after, Brandon Nimmo homered to right field to boost New York up 2-0. Then Francisco Lindor hit a homer to center field to expand the lead to 3-0.

“I made mistakes and I just couldn’t put them away. Got the two strikes with them and yeah just couldn’t put them away, unfortunately,” said DeSclafani of the three-homer inning. “I made bad pitches and they torched them.”

Giants manager Gabe Kapler said that DeSclafani “wasn’t effective” on Saturday.

“We would’ve liked him to have seen him get through five innings for us and (Sean) Manea was prepared to give up some length and the lineup was set up for him to give us that length.”

In the fourth inning, Tommy Pham hit a ground ball to left field and Pete Alonso scored, putting the Mets up 4-0.

It took the Giants until the seventh inning to score a run. Thairo Estrada grounded into a double play and J.D. Davis scored, making it 4-1 Mets.

Kapler said that Mets starting pitcher Justin Verlander “pitched a phenomenal game” giving up five hits, striking out six and not allowing an earned run in seven innings.

“We weren’t able to score runs early on and one thing that I’m noticing is we’re putting together pretty good at-bats later in the game. Historically we do a really nice job in the first couple of innings in the game and right now we’re just a little short in that regard,” Kapler said. “The early parts of games are seemingly not as competitive as they can be and need to be for us to be a great team.”

The series is tied at 1-1 and first pitch for the third and final game is 4:10 p.m. PT.