MILAN — Dries Mertens scored four goals, including a nine-minute first-half hat trick, as Napoli forgot its scoring problems with a 5-3 win over Torino in Serie A Sunday.
It was a second successive hat trick for the Belgian, who is playing as an improvised center-forward following Arkadiusz Milik's long-term knee injury, and took Napoli's goal tally to 13 in its last three league matches.
Napoli's win lifted it to third with 34 points, one behind AS Roma and eight adrift of leader Juventus.
Mertens became the first Serie A player to score successive hat tricks for 22 years and the first to score four times in a game since Sassuolo's Domenico Berardi in January 2014.
It was hard to believe that Napoli had struggled for goals immediately after Milik was injured playing for Poland in early October.
Mertens opened his account in the 13th minute, sending his shot through a crowd of players following a corner, and added the second from a penalty five minutes later.
Torino was all over the place and Mertens completed his hat trick in the 22nd minute after Jose Callejon's shot was stopped by Joe Hart and the Belgian's first attempt was cleared off the line.
The second half was a different story as Andrea Belotti pulled one back for the visitors just before the hour, Vlad Chiriches scored Napoli's fourth and Luca Rossettini replied for Torino after Pepe Reina failed to hold Adem Ljajic's free kick.
Mertens then produced his best goal of the game with a delightful chip past Hart before Iago Falque pulled another back for ninth-placed Torino with a penalty.
Antonio Candreva's second-half goal gave an unconvincing Inter Milan a 1-0 away win over Sassuolo, which had 10 players on the injured list.
Candreva fired a rebound into the roof of the net after Sassuolo keeper Andrea Consigli could only parry Joao Mario's drive into his path. Seventh-placed Inter had midfielder Felipe Melo sent off in stoppage time for a second bookable offense.
Hapless Pescara, one place off the bottom, had Valerio Verre given a straight red card for a dangerous tackle after only 16 minutes as it slumped to a 3-0 home defeat against Bologna in a meeting of two out-of-form teams.
Bologna was already leading from Adam Masina's header and added further goals with a Blerim Dzemaili shot which took a huge deflection and a Ladislav Krejci penalty.
Cyril Thereau scored twice to give Udinese a 2-0 win over lowly Crotone, its third win a row, while the promoted side's unhappy afternoon was completed when goalkeeper Alex Cordaz was sent off in the 86th minute for handling outside the penalty area.
First-half goals from Riccardo Meggiorini and Sergio Pellissier set up a 2-1 win for Chievo over Sampdoria in Verona.
