With less than two weeks to go and a playoff spot in doubt, the Mets had seen enough of the middle-inning struggles of Clay Holmes and Sean Manaea. Two halves of a starting pitcher were stacked together, the club finally acknowledging it would not extract better versions of the pitchers and instead would attempt to maximize the pitchers they are right now.

If this were an announcement that it was time for the team to shift into gear, the offense heard it, too.

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The piggybacking was effective and the bats better than that in a thorough beating of the Padres, 8-3 in front of 41,819 at Citi Field on Tues

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