In Change of Pace, Mets Win

Coming into today’s game against the Brewers, the Mets had lost more catchers (Travis d’Arnaud and Kevin Plawecki) than they had games on the season.  One of the reasons why that was the case was this Mets team has gotten contributions from almost everyone on the team and each night presents a new hero.

Early on, that hero was Todd Frazier. Up until today, he had been homerless in a Mets uniform.  That changed rather quickly when he hit a homer off Brewers starter Zach Davies to give the Mets a 2-0 lead.

The Mets first run came in the first when Yoenis Cespedes followed an Asdrubal Cabrera one out double in the first inning.

After cruising through the first three innings where just about Lorenzo Cain being the only Brewer to challenge him in any way, Steven Matz would have a tough fourth inning allowing a double to Jesus Aguilar and a homer to Hernan Perez in consecutive at-bats tying the game at 2-2.

Of course, much in the same way the Mets have done all season, they immediately responded.  This time the response came in the form of Frazier hitting his second home run of the day.  That gave the Mets a 3-2 lead which would expand in the fifth inning.

The inning began with Michael Conforto drawing a lead-off walk against Davies and a Cabrera single.  After Davies struck out Cespedes, Craig Counsell went to the lefty Dan Jennings to face Jay Bruce and Adrian Gonzalez.

The move was completely ineffective as Bruce hit an RBI double to score Conforto, and Gonzalez brought Cabrera home with a sacrifice fly.  Apparently not having done enough damage to the Brewers’ chances of winning, Jennings threw a wild pitch allowing Bruce to score from third giving the Mets a 6-2 lead.

With the Mets having a lead and winning streak like this, it appeared the Brewers were going to have to be unconventional to try to beat the Mets.  In retrospect, they probably want to take back challenging Cespedes in the field:

Hyperbole aside, with Matz cruising and the way the Mets bullpen has been pitching of late, this game seemed like a lock for the Mets.  As we would soon see in the sixth inning, that couldn’t be further from the truth.

The inning started when Bruce dropped a Domingo Santana fly ball.  The Brewers immediately capitalized with a Ryan Braun two run homer to pull them within 6-4.

After striking out Travis Shaw, the book on Matz was done.  He would be in line for the win after striking out five allowing four runs (three earned) on three hits and two walks in 5.1 innings.  With Seth Lugo coming in, it seemed like this game was a lock.  Instead, the Mets would find themselves hanging on to try to capture the victory.

Lugo was immediately met with back-t0-back singles by Aguilar and Perez.  Lugo would get out of the inning after inducing Orlando Arcia to ground into the 5-4-3 inning ending double play.

Lugo would be bailed out a bit again in the seventh.  After Cain reached on a single, he thought he would challenge Cespedes on a Santana single.  Cespedes nailed the speedy Cain to help snuff out that rally.

Even with Lugo not being himself, Mickey Callaway sent him back out for the eighth.  Finally, the Mets got burned as Shaw hit a solo homer to pull the Brewers within one run.  After an Aguilar single, Callaway was not about to let this one get away.

Callaway pulled out all the stops to make sure this one didn’t get away.  First, it was AJ Ramos to get Perez to fly out.  Then it was Jerry Blevins to face Eric Sogard.  After Sogard singled, Robert Gsellman came on to get Jett Bandy to get out of the inning.

The only thing left was for Jeurys Familia to come on in the ninth and get his Major League leading seventh save of the season.  Familia did that with a rare and much needed 1-2-3 inning to get the Mets to 11-1.

So far, the Mets have won games a number of ways during this nine game winning streak.  The handing on for dear life win we saw tonight was a different one than the other wins we have seen the Mets amass this season.  It’s just more evidence that no matter what happens this team will find a way to win.

Game Notes: Since joining the majors in 2012, Cespedes has a MLB leading 65 outfield assists.  Mets became the first New York team to start the season 11-1 since the 1955 Brooklyn Dodgers.  Before the game, Jacob Rhame was sent down to Triple-A, and d’Arnaud, who elected to have Tommy John surgery, was put on the 60 day disabled list.  Brandon Nimmo and Jose Lobaton were called up in their stead.  Lobaton tripled in his first at-bat as a Met.

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