NEW YORK (Interstat) — Sean Manaea pitched seven strong innings as the New York Mets defeated the Kansas City Royals 7-3 on Thursday afternoon at Citi Field. Manaea allowed two earned runs on six hits with six strikeouts to improve to 2-4. Tyrone Taylor homered and went 2 for 3, and Carson Benge drove in a run with two hits for the Mets, who improved to 40-54. The Royals dropped to 38-56. Michael Wacha took the loss, allowing six earned runs over 4 2/3 innings, falling to 5-7.

New York broke open a 1-1 game with five runs in the fifth inning, highlighted by a two-run single from Benge and an RBI single from Francisco Alvarez. Kansas City’s runs came on solo home runs by Bobby Witt Jr. in the first, Lane Thomas in the fourth and a Jac Caglianone RBI double in the seventh. Attendance was 33,868, and the game lasted 2 hours, 24 minutes.