When your team’s suddenly hot young slugger hits three home runs in a game and your team only scores three runs… well that’s pretty sad. Tonight (Saturday), the Mets lost to Arizona 6-3 even though Ike Davis went 4 for 4 with three round trippers. All three were off of Diamondbacks starter Ian Kenneday, who pitched splendidly to everyone else, and the first two dingers were nearly identical blasts to straight away center. The third went down the right field line.

In his fourth at-bat, Davis ripped a single to right field off of Arizona set-up man David Hernandez. There was nearly a fifth chance, but Davis was left on deck as the game ended with J.J. Putz striking out David Wright.

I didn’t see any of Chris Young thanks to a social engagement, but apparently he got rocked. Young allowed six runs in just four innings with two strikeouts and two walks. Miguel Montero hit a two-run bomb in the fourth, while Aaron Hill and Ryan Wheeler hit RBI doubles in the first and second innings, respectively.

Besides Davis being a monster, the Mets kept the game watchable with a trio of nice bullpen performances. Ramon Ramirez pitched two scoreless innings and Manny Acosta struck out three in one and one-third innings. Josh Edgin wrapped things up with a pair of strikeouts in the eighth.

Davis is still hitting just .216/.281/.448 on the season, but the 20 home runs show that, at the very least, he can be depended on to hit for power. There’s still a lot for Davis to work on, but given that power hitting is something that the Mets sorely lack, he’s on the right track. Another good sign is that Davis is dealing with a career low BABIP even though he’s hitting line drives more often than in his previous two seasons. In other words, Ike is probably not a career .216 hitter.

Sunday at 4:10 PM the Mets finish their four-game set with Arizona. R.A. Dickey will take the mound for New York and Joe Saunders will pitch for the Diamondbacks.