Jay Bell
At this point, the Diamondbacks must be wondering what they need to do to beat the Mets at Shea Stadium. Last year, they lost both games in the NLDS played at Shea. Yesterday, they couldn’t complete the comeback. Today, they couldn’t hold onto the lead.
Mostly, Randy Johnson has to wonder how does he get Joe McEwing out?
After the Diamondbacks staked Johnson with a first inning lead with a run off of Rick Reed, McEwing led off the bottom of the first with a double. He came home to score as Derek Bell and Edgardo Alfonzo followed his double with one of their own to give the Mets a 2-1 lead.
The Diamondbacks led off the third with three straight singles to tie the score. They then took a 3-2 lead when Jay Bell moved to third on an Erubiel Durazo fly ball and scored on a Steve Finley RBI groundout. Again, Johnson was given a one run lead, and again, he surrendered it in the bottom of the inning. This time, it was a Mike Piazza homer.
Both pitchers seemed to finally settle in after that with them both putting up a string of zeros. That was until Travis Lee hit a two run homer off of Reed in the top of the sixth.
For Reed, today, it was a mixed bag. On the one hand, this was the eighth time in nine starts, he had pitched at least seven innings. On the other, this is the fourth time over his last five starts he has allowed 4+ runs. Regardless of how you look at it, Reed at least kept his team in the game, and he gave them a chance to win.
In the seventh, the Mets would once again tie the score, and once again, it was McEwing torturing Johnson. With one out in the seventh, McEwing would hit a solo homer to pull the Mets within one.
In this game, McEwing was 3-for-4 with two doubles, a homer, three runs, a walk, and an RBI. He would also have a tough 12 pitch at-bat in the fifth before hitting his second double of the game. That is a great game no matter who is on the mound. When it is Johnson starting, it’s phenomenal.
Speaking of players who torture Johnson, Alfonzo was back at it. As we remember, he homered off Johnson in the NLDS. Today, he hit the first inning RBI double, and like McEwing, he would homer off of Johnson in the seventh. That would tie the score at five, and it would chase Johnson from the game.
Not enough can be said about the Mets offensive outburst against Johnson. The future Hall of Fame pitcher entered the game with a 0.97 ERA, and he had allowed just eight runs all season long. It took the Mets fewer than seven innings to almost double that total.
Dennis Cook would come in for Reed, and he would continue his poor start to the season. This time it was his allowing a homer to the left-handed hitting Steve Finley. With that homer, Cook’s season ERA is up to 6.16. Between his and Rich Rodriguez‘s struggles, the Mets simply do not have a reliable LOOGY in that bullpen right now.
Again, the Diamondbacks lead was very short-lived. Despite his sore thigh, Robin Ventura came into the game to pinch hit for Kurt Abbott with two outs in the eighth. He would tie the game with a pinch hit solo homer.
After Turk Wendell did his job retiring the side in order in the top of the ninth, it was time for some ninth inning heroics, and again it was McEwing at the forefront.
McEwing drew a walk against Byung-Hyun Kim, and he would steal second. That put him in position to score on the ensuing Bell game winning walk-off RBI single.
Simply put, this was a great win. The Mets faced a future Hall of Fame pitcher, and they put up the runs they needed. They took advantage of every opportunity. They got a huge performance from a utility player who began the year in the minors, and they had an injured player hit a game tying homer. This is exactly what very good teams do.
Game Notes: This was just Ventura’s second pinch hit homer of his career. It was also the second pinch hit homer the Mets had this year with Agbayani hitting one in Tokyo. Both Pat Mahomes and John Franco are dealing with sore ankles.
Editor’s Note: With there being no games to begin the season, this site will follow the 2000 season and post recaps as if those games happened in real time. If nothing else, it is better to remember this pennant winning season and revisit some of the overlooked games than it is to dwell on the complete lack of baseball.
The rain caused this game to be delayed three-and-a-half hours, and for a while it seemed like the Mets had completely washed out the Arizona Diamondbacks. With a five run fourth, this game had seemed all but over. It wasn’t.
In that fourth, the Mets built upon a 1-0 lead from a Derek Bell RBI single the previous inning. In the fourth, starting with Benny Agbayani, the Mets hit four straight singles with Mike Hampton delivering a two RBI single. A Joe McEwing grounder ate up Jay Bell driving home another run. The final run of the inning came on an Edgardo Alfonzo sacrifice fly.
When Alfonzo homered in the seventh, the Mets had an 8-0 lead. This should have been as easy as it gets.
For a while it was, Hampton continued his stretch of terrific pitching shutting out the Diamondbacks over six innings. After Dennis Cook pitched a scoreless seventh, Bobby Valentine began pulling his regulars. Mark Johnson replaced Todd Zeile at first. Todd Pratt took over for Piazza behind the plate. Jon Nunnally came in for Bell. Kurt Abbott came in for Alfonzo.
At the time, it seemed like the smart move. There was a rain delay, and this presented an opportunity to get the regulars some rest. Little did we know, but the game would soon get away from the Mets.
It began with Pat Mahomes injuring his ankle. In the eighth, he’d walk Luis Gonzalez before surrendering a two run homer to Greg Colbrunn. At that point, it was still just 8-2, and the game was heading into the ninth. That was the type of lead you expect even Rich Rodriguez to hold. That proved to almost be wrong.
Former Met Bernard Gilkey singled to start the inning, and he scored on a Travis Lee double. After a Dan Klassen walk, Hanley Frias grounded into a double play. Any hopes that was going to be the end of the jam ended with a Tony Womack RBI single.
With the Diamondbacks now within 8-4, and Damian Miller singling, Valentine went to John Franco. Franco was not immediately relief allowing three straight singles allowing three more runs to score. Suddenly, it was 8-7, and the Diamondbacks had the tying run at third.
Valentine went deeper into his bullpen he probably never thought he would have in this game, and he went to Armando Benitez. When Benitez struck out Erubiel Durazo, he earned the save in a game the Mets led 8-0 as the eighth inning began.
Game Notes: This is the first time the Mets have won three in a row since April 25. Robin Ventura was held out of the lineup with a sore hamstring, but he was brought into the game for defense on the final out.
Editor’s Note: With there being no games to begin the season, this site will follow the 2000 season and post recaps as if those games happened in real time. If nothing else, it is better to remember this pennant winning season and revisit some of the overlooked games than it is to dwell on the complete lack of baseball.
One of the biggest keys to the 2000 season is the healthy and productivity of Bobby Jones. As we have already seen Dennis Springer and Bill Pulsipher just didn’t have it, and Pat Mahomes is not a viable fifth starter. That means the Mets absolutely need Jones to be a productive fifth starter.
Jones came off the DL to start this game against the Diamondbacks, and for the first time this season, or even for the first time since early 1999, we got a sense Jones can be a viable fifth starter for this club.
What made this start truly impressive wasn’t just the fact he out-dueled Todd Stottlemyre, who entered this game with a 7-1 record, it was the fact, this was not easy. In fact, the Diamondbacks would be successful in seven of their eight stolen base attempts. That’s not a typo. The Diamondbacks stole seven bases off of the combination of Jones and Mike Piazza.
Hearing that, you’d be shocked to hear Jones and Piazza were the difference in this game.
In the second, Stottlemeyer hit a two RBI single giving the Diamondbacks a 2-0 lead. Those runs were set up by Travis Lee stealing two bases in the inning, and Damian Miller stealing one. The Mets would those runs back in the fourth.
Todd Zeile hit a one out double after a Robin Ventura single. Zeile came in to score on a Mark Johnson RBI ground out. Rey Ordonez followed with an RBI single to tie up the game.
The Diamondbacks got the lead right back, and once again, it was Stottlemeyer at the forefront with a lead-off double against Jones. He’d move to third on a Jay Bell single, and he would score on a Luis Gonzalez sacrifice fly. That lead would again be very short lived for the Diamondbacks.
After a Derek Bell one out single, Piazza would come up with two outs. In a way it seems only Piazza can, he completely changed the course of the game with a monster home run to left giving the Mets a 4-3 lead. This time, the Mets had the lead, and unlike the Diamondbacks, they would not relinquish it.
In his final inning of work, Jones pitched a 1-2-3 inning, and he gave the ball to the Mets bullpen, who did the job with the help of the defense.
With the 4-3 lead and the suspect defensive outfield in place, Bobby Valentine began his defensive substitutions. Turk Wendell was double switched into the game with Jon Nunnally moving to left. Jay Payton also came into the game to take over center from McEwing.
The speedy Tony Womack would hit a two out single against Wendell, and then he was off for the races on a Bell double. The Valentine defensive substitutions immediately paid dividends as Nunnally got to the ball quickly and fired a relay throw to Ordonez. Ordonez made a strong one hop throw home, which Piazza not only nabbed, but he was also able to get the tag down to preserve the one run lead.
Over the final two innings, both teams would trade rallies which came up just short. For the Mets, both John Franco and Armando Benitez bent, but they did not break. In both of their innings, there was a runner in scorign position due to a stolen base, but they did what they needed to do to preserve the Mets victory.
Suddenly, things look good for the Mets again who have won two straight and are back to two games over .500. The hope now is they can go on a similar run to what they had last year to get back into contention and give the Atlanta Braves a run for their money.
Game Notes: Bell has a nine game hitting streak. Mike Hampton will be moved up to pitch in Glendon Rusch‘s place. After being benched again, this time in place of Johnson, Payton intimated he may be better suited to playing somewhere else.
Editor’s Note: With there being no games to begin the season, this site will follow the 2000 season and post recaps as if those games happened in real time. If nothing else, it is better to remember this pennant winning season and revisit some of the overlooked games than it is to dwell on the complete lack of baseball.
After Jeurys Familia allowed a three run home run to Conor Gillaspie, he was booed off the mound at the end of the top of the ninth in the Wild Card Game. From what I heard at Citi Field, and what I read in the comments section to my Mets Merized Online article, there is a significant portion of Mets fans that believe Familia is a choke artist. There’s another group of fans that want the Mets to move Familia to the eighth inning and sign someone like Aroldis Chapman in free agency.
About that . . .
After two Cubs relievers allowed Brandon Belt and Buster Posey to get on to start the bottom of the eighth inning, Joe Maddon stopped messing around, and he brought in Chapman to get the six out save to propel the Cubs to the NLCS. It would be the second time in Chapman’s career and first time in his postseason career that a manager would ask him to get a six out save. After striking out Hunter Pence, Gillaspie came to the plate with the chance to tie the game.
Chapman threw a fastball over the heart of the plate, and Gillaspie, yes, the very same Gillaspie, swung from his shoetops again. Gillaspie hit this ball even harder than the one he hit off Familia. The reason it wasn’t a home run was because it is 421 to right center at AT&T Park. In Citi Field, that’s a home run. Really, in any other park, that’s a home run. Instead, in AT&T Park, it is a bases clearing triple that gave the Giants a 4-3 lead. After that Brandon Crawford hit an RBI single scoring Gillaspie to make it 5-3.
That was a crucial at-bat against a Giants team that does not know how to quit. They weren’t daunted by facing Chapman. They weren’t daunted when Sergio Romo blew a save by allowing Kris Bryant to hit a game tying two run home run in the ninth. No, this Giants team fought off elimination by winning on a Joe Panik walk-off RBI double.
Now, if Chapman did his job and got Gillaspie out like he should’ve, the Cubs would’ve won the series. However, that’s the life of a closer. They all blow the big ones.
Look no further than the greatest closer, postseason or otherwise. In Mariano Rivera‘s first postseason as the Yankees closer, he was asked to make a five out save to close out the 1997 ALDS and send the Yankees to the ALCS to continue to defend their World Series title. Rivera would allow Sandy Alomar, Jr. to hit a game tying home run in a game the Yankees would lose in the ninth. The Yankees would go on to lose the series.
In the 2001 World Series, Rivera took the mound to save Game 7 of the World Series. Not only did Rivera allow a Mark Grace lead-off single, he then threw Damian Miller‘s sacrifice bunt attempt into center field. After Rivera calmed things down by field Jay Bell‘s sacrifice bunt attempt and nailing Grace at third, he allowed a game tying double to Tony Womack. Eventually, the Yankees would lose the World Series on a Luis Gonzalez walk-off single.
Fast-forward a couple of years to the 2004 ALCS. On back-to-back nights, Rivera blew saves that allowed the Red Sox to complete the improbable and unprecedented comeback from being down 0-3 in the series. It was Rivera’s blown saves that gave the Red Sox life and that ultimately propelled them to their first World Series title since 1918.
However, when talking about the totality of Rivera’s career, we don’t focus on those four devastating blown saves. No, we call him the greatest closer in the history of the game because we use perspective and realize there was a greater body of work available to derive a conclusion. In his postseason career, Rivera made 96 appearances going 8-1 with 18 saves, a 0.32 ERA, and a 0.571 WHIP.
Now, no one is calling or comparing Familia to Rivera. However, Rivera is illustrative of the fact that we should again take the totality of his postseason appearances into account. The Mets certainly don’t get out of the NLDS without Familia, and the NLCS would’ve been more difficult if Familia wasn’t shutting the door. In Familia’s postseason career, he has made 13 appearances going 0-1 with five saves, a 2.30 ERA, and a 0.638 WHIP. And remember, two of his three blown saves were the result of a Daniel Murphy and a Lucas Duda error. Flat out, Familia has been great in the postseason.
By the way, Chapman is 2/4 in save chances in his postseason career. Overall, he has made eight appearances going 0-1 with a 2.57 ERA and a 1.571 WHIP. Familia is better.