Luis Severino’s bounceback season hit a bit of a speed bump over his previous three starts.
The right-hander responded Saturday with the second complete-game shutout of his career.
Severino gave up just four hits in the 4-0 win over Miami, as the Mets pounded out four runs in the first four innings.
After losing five of six, the Mets have now won two in a row and will go for a sweep Sunday.
Sure, the turnaround has come against the miserable Marlins — owners of the second-worst record in the National League — but with the Mets fighting to keep pace in the NL wild-card race, they’ll take whatever good fortune they can get.
That’s especially true with series against the Orioles, Padres and Diamondbacks coming up.
Severino’s outing may have been the most important part of the win.
Heading into Saturday, he had given up 15 runs — 14 earned — in 13 innings, along with five home runs as his ERA jumped from 3.58 to 4.17 in the three rough outings.
But on Saturday, Severino mostly cruised, throwing a season-high 113 pitches in his first shutout since 2018 with the Yankees.
He struck out eight and walked just one.
Prior to the game, Carlos Mendoza said he wasn’t overly concerned about Severino’s recent struggles, confident that his maintained velocity was a good sign and believing he was the victim of some bad luck.
Mendoza said he wanted Severino to go out and attack, which he did.
It came against the National League’s worst offense, but Severino and the Mets will take it.
The offense also scored a run in each of the first four innings against Miami right-hander Max Meyer.
Francisco Lindor hit his second leadoff homer of the season in the bottom of the first. He now has 24 home runs on the year.
Pete Alonso drilled his 27th home run of the year, a 412-foot shot to right-center, to open the second to make it 2-0.
Brandon Nimmo’s triple set up another run in the third, as he scored on Jesse Winker’s two-out single to right.
And after Lindor walked with two outs in the fourth, Mark Vientos drove him in with a double down the left field line.
The Marlins got a leadoff single from Vidal Brujan off Severino in the top of the third.
After Nick Fortes lined out to center, the right fielder moved to second on Severino’s throwing error on a pickoff attempt.
That’s when the inept Marlins ran into an out. Xavier Edwards hit a grounder up the middle.
When Lindor went to third to get Brujan, Edwards was caught trying to get to second to end the three-pitch inning for Severino.
Severino pitched around a leadoff double by Jake Burger in the fourth and aside from that, the only danger the right-hander faced came in the fifth, when he nearly collided with Alonso while catching a pop-up from Fortes in the rain to finish the inning.
Paul Blackburn will take the mound Sunday for the Mets, who will look to complete their first three-game series sweep since they did it against the Nationals July 9-11.
