Brandon Belt homered twice and finished with four hits and three RBIs Tuesday night, and four San Francisco Giants pitchers combined on a five-hit shutout in an 8-0 win over the host New York Mets in the opener of a three-game series.

Left-hander Sammy Long earned his second big league win by tossing 5 1/3 innings of three-hit ball for the Giants, who improved to 16-5 this month. San Francisco maintained its 2 1/2-game lead over the Los Angeles Dodgers in the National League West.

The Mets are 6-16 in August, a span in which they've gone from leading the NL East by four games to trailing the Atlanta Braves by 6 1/2 games.

Belt opened the scoring by homering off the apple beyond the center field fence with one out in the first off Tylor Megill (1-3). Belt singled leading off the third, homered immediately after a two-run shot by LaMonte Wade Jr. in the fourth and added an RBI infield single in the eighth.

The second homer was the 19th of the season for Belt, breaking his previous career high set in 2015 and 2017. The two-homer game was the second of the season for Belt -- he also went deep twice against the Milwaukee Brewers on Aug. 7 -- and the seventh of his career.

Mike Yastrzemski hit a long two-run homer in the second and Brandon Crawford had an RBI single in the fourth. Wade, Alex Dickerson and former Mets infielder Wilmer Flores had two hits apiece for the Giants, who received at least one hit from every player in the starting lineup.

Long (2-1), who singled in the second for his first big league hit, walked one and struck out four while pitching past the fifth inning for the second time in five career starts.

Pete Alonso had two hits for the Mets.

Megill allowed seven runs on 11 hits and walked none while striking out five over 3 2/3 innings. The runs and hits allowed were the most he has surrendered in 12 big league starts, and he failed to complete four innings for just the second time.

--Field Level Media