Cespedes Strikes Out Until Clutch Situation Arises

With the Mets blowout loss on a really bad Matt Harvey start, it looked like a team who lost three of their past four games needed to gain some momentum.  Fortunately for the Mets, in baseball, momentum in the next day’s starting pitcher, and the Mets were sending Noah Syndergaard to the mound.

Unfortunately for the Mets, the rest of the team was not quite up to the task when he was on the mound.

Yes, Syndergaard was beat by Ozzie Albies on a fastball, but that was Albies hitting a good pitch.  The other runs against Syndergaard was really on the Mets.

In the third, Jay Bruce, who has struggled in every aspect of his game lately, misplayed a John Flaherty ball leading to an RBI double that allowed Dansby Swanson to score from first.

In the sixth, Nick Markakis made the mistake of challenging Yoenis Cespedes‘ arm trying to stretch and single into a double.  As poor as the decision was to challenge Cespedes’ arm, it was a smart decision to test Asdrubal Cabrera‘s glove. With Cabrera unable to field the one hop throw, Markakis was safe at second.

Markakis moved to third on a Syndergaard wild pitch, which was partially the result of Tomas Nido not getting down, and he would score the third and tying run on a Kurt Suzuki sacrifice fly.

The shame of it was Syndergaard was very good on the night.  His final line was 6.0 innings, seven hits, three runs, three earned, no walks, and six strikeouts. He would get the no decision, partially because Wilmer Flores couldn’t quite score in the top half of the inning:

Still, the Mets did score three runs against Braves starter Sean Newcomb.

The Mets scored their first run in the third inning on an Amed Rosario double to deep center allowing Nido to score from first.  With Ender Inciarte making a throwing error on the play, Rosario was able to scoot over to third.  This allowed him to score on a Michael Conforto sacrifice fly, which, at the time, gave the Mets a 2-1 lead.

The Mets lead grew to 3-1 the following inning.  Todd Frazier drew a walk to lead off the inning, and he stole second putting him in scoring position to score on a Flores RBI single.

After the sixth, the Mets would begin to play much better in the field, including Nido, who threw out both Flaherty on a strike ’em out-throw ’em out double play in the seventh.  He would then nail Albies in the eighth.  These would be the first two players thrown out on the basepaths by Mets catchers.

As impressive as that was, the Mets bullpen was even better allowing just one hit after Syndergaard departed the game.  Seth Lugo pitched a scoreless seventh and eighth.  AJ Ramos threw a scoreless ninth. Robert Gsellman contributed a scoreless 10th and 11th.

With the tired arms in the Mets bullpen, Mickey Callaway sent Gsellman up to bat against Josh Ravin, who was in his second inning of work.

Gsellman would reach with Ravin hitting him with a pitch, and Gsellman quickly found himself on second on a successful Rosario sacrifice bunt.  For a moment, it appeared the Mets were going to squander an opportunity with Conforto popping out, and the .197 hitting Cespedes, who had already had the golden sombrero on the night, coming to the plate.

However, like Cespedes has done many times this season, despite his struggles, he came through hitting an opposite field single against the shift scoring Gsellman from second and giving the Mets a 4-3 lead.  That lead expanded to 5-3 when Cabrera hit a double off the right field wall.

Then for the second time in a week, Cabrera made a really bad base running mistake.  On the way to third on what should have been a stand up triple, he did one of his slides to stop himself, and he went back to second.  He was beaten back to the base by Swanson leading to the third out of the inning.

The good news is that play needed a replay review giving Jeurys Familia more time to warm up and get into the game.  Between that and the two run lead, the Mets had all they needed to lock up this 5-3 win.

Once again, the Mets are back to their winning ways, are still in first place, and are sending another ace to the mound in tomorrow’s game.  Once again, things are looking up for the Mets.

Game Notes: With a bloop opposite field double in the sixth, Bruce snapped an 0-19 skid.  He then went hitless in his next two at-bats.

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