There were two reasons to believe that the Mets were going to win today’s game against the Rockies.  The first was that since July 10th, the Mets have alternated wins and losses, and the Mets lost last night.  The second reason was that Jacob deGrom was taking the hill during a day game, and deGrom is the Dayman having gone 15-3 with a 1.63 ERA and a 0.923 WHIP in day games.  In his last start, deGrom threw a complete game shut out.

With that in mind, you knew a Rockies team who played a night game was not going to do any damage against deGrom.  They didn’t as deGrom pitched seven scoreless innings allowing just five hits and walk one while striking out six.  Trevor Story was the only Rockies baserunner to reach second base, and no Rockies even reached third against him.  Seemingly, the only reason deGrom was lifted from the game having thrown 97 pitches was to get some more offense.

The Mets were in need of it as well.  The team didn’t have Jose Reyes and Yoenis Cespedes in the lineup due to injury.  Michael Conforto was sitting because the Rockies were starting the left-hander Tyler Anderson.  That meant Alejandro De Aza, and his extremely poor splits against lefties, was in the starting lineup.  Furthermore, Rene Rivera was starting over Travis d’Arnaud.  It was a weak lineup that featured the still struggling Neil Walker was batting cleanup.  It should then come as no surprise that heading towards deGrom’s spot in the lineup in the seventh inning, the Mets were only up 1-0.

That run would be scored on a Rene Rivera two out RBI double scoring James Loney from first.  Perhaps inspired how the Sid Bream-esque Loney was able to score from first, Rivera was thrown out trying to stretch a double into a triple.  He made the ill-advised last out of an inning at third base.  Even with that, he had a terrific day going 3-3 with two doubles and an RBI.  It was Rivera who would leadoff the seventh inning with a single off Rockies reliever and former Rays teammate Jake McGee starting a curious chain of events.

De Aza followed Rivera’s single with a double to deep left-center field.  That double would have scored anyone other than Rivera.  Still, the Mets had runners at second and third with no outs.  Terry Collins then made the bold choice of using Cespedes as a decoy.  The Rockies took the bait walking Cespedes to load the bases.  As Cespedes had a flare-up of his quad before the game preventing him from playing the field, he would be lifted for the pinch runner Steven Matz.  It was a defendable position considering with his bone spurs there was no way Matz would ever pitch in this game, and he has decent speed.  Furthermore, the Mets did not want to waste their bench any further.  After Collins made two very good and defendable decisions, he began to make some baffling decisions.

The Rockies would bring in the right-handed reliever Scott Oberg into the game to pitch to Juan Lagares.  Rather than keeping Lagares, his best defensive center fielder, in a tight 1-0 game, Collins went to his bench.  Instead of going with Michael Conforto, the best hitter he had on the bench, Collins went to Kelly Johnson for some reason or other.  At this point, the Mets struggles with runners in scoring position would really become magnified.  Johnson would hit into a fielder’s choice with Story choosing to take the force out at home.  Bases were still loaded, but now with one out.  Granderson would chase a ball in the dirt to strike out putting it all on Wilmer Flores to come through.  He didn’t.  He hit a shallow popout to the center fielder Charlie Blackmon to end the inning.  The Mets had bases loaded with no outs, and they still could not score.

The Mets were very fortunate they have an incredible bullpen that would hold onto this lead.  Despite pregame overtures that Jeurys Familia would be unavailable for today’s game, Collins went to Addison Reed in the eighth.  Reed would record two outs and would allow a single to DJ LeMahieu.  Collins then lifted Reed for Jerry Blevins, who struck out Carlos Gonzalez to get out of the inning.

Familia would come on in the ninth on a day he was supposedly unavailable, and a day after he blew his first save in approximately one year.  Of course, it wouldn’t be easy as it never is with the Mets.  Story would hit a leadoff single, and he would steal second.  Rivera was late on the throw, and it got through the infield.  Familia would then walk David Dahl on a 3-2 count.  Daniel Descalso was sent up there to lay down a sacrifice.  With two strikes, he laid down a bunt spinning towards the line.  Rivera let it go as it seemed as if it was going to go foul giving Familia the strikeout.  Instead, the ball stopped dead on the line loading the bases with no outs.

It seemed like Familia would get out of it for a split second.  He struck out Tony Wolters to get the first out.  Then Cristhian Adames hit a ball that Loney just booted.  The Mets weren’t going to turn two, but the Mets could’ve recorded at least one out.  With that, Story would score the game tying run.  With Blackmon at the plate, Familia spiked a ball at the edge of the grass that just ate up Rivera behind the plate.  The wild pitch allowed Dahl to score the tying run.  At that point, Familia intentionally walked Blackmon, and Collins lifted him from a game he shouldn’t have been used in the first place.  Hansel Robles then came on and get the Mets out of the inning without any further damage.  Maybe, just maybe, he should’ve pitched in the eighth or ninth rather than a tired Familia who Collins had declared was not available for this game.

When you peruse the official statistics for this game, you will see Familia blew the save and took the loss.  That is true.  However, it was a series of curious late inning decisions by Collins that really set the stage for this loss.  It is quite fitting the very Kelly Johnson Collins had to bring into the game would make the final out in the ninth.

Game Notes: A night after going 3-3 with a walk, Walker was 3-4 on the day.  It appears like his deep two and a half month slump might be coming to an end.