AJ Ramos
Whenever you see Brandon Nimmo, you see him grinning ear to ear. Well, tonight he gave Mets fans reason to smile.
That smile never gets old @You_Found_Nimmo. ?
7-2 #Mets | End-6 pic.twitter.com/80aF3liq50
— New York Mets (@Mets) September 8, 2017
In a surprise decision, Terry Collins made Nimmo the clean-up hitter tonight. Despite, Nimmo not hitting for much power in the minors, he looked every bit the clean-up hitter tonight.
It was a career night for Nimmo who went 3-4 with three runs, a double, two homers, and three RBI. Oh, and of course, he drew a walk.
One of those homers was the start of back-to-back homers with Juan Lagares:
Two solo shots, same celebration. #LGM
5-2 #Mets | End-5 pic.twitter.com/Knodm4GG8F
— New York Mets (@Mets) September 8, 2017
The Nimmo performance and Lagares homer was part of what was a terrific night for the Mets. Now, it wasn’t just terrific because the Mets won 7-2; it was terrific because of who contributed to the win.
That started with Matt Harvey.
Harvey, starting on normal rest, took a step in the right direction. He pitched five innings allowing two runs on five hits. It was far from a perfect performance, but it was an improved one.
We saw his slider get a little sharper as the game progressed. After allowing runs in consecutive innings to start the game, he allowed just one hit from the third inning through the fifth. Had he not been on a pitch limit, it’s likely he would have pitched the sixth.
Once Harvey left, the Mets bullpen was very good. Josh Smoker struck out the side in the sixth. Jeurys Familia had his best outing of the year pitching two scoreless. While not a save situation, AJ Ramos closed out the game with a scoreless ninth.
At this point of the season, it’s really not about wins and losses inasmuch as its about how the Mets are playing. Tonight, the Mets won getting key contributions from important people. That made this a night that gave you reason to smile.
Game Notes: Jose Reyes gave the Mets the lead for good singling home Dominic Smith and Kevin Plawecki in the fourth.
In life, we tend to get attached to and attribute meaning to bizarre things. Today, that was my car.
Now, I hated that car. From day one, it was a nightmare. I sank more money into it than I care to admit. Driving into bad neighborhoods time and again, it was constantly dinged and scratched. Tires blown. Dents in the car. Really, I hated it.
Even if I found the best Paintless Dent Repair in San Antonio (or wherever I happened to be at the time of the car needing repairs), it didn’t do much to lessen my annoyance with the car, except for the timely repairs, which I’m obviously thankful for.
But you know what I didn’t hate? All the great things I did with the car.
What started out as a car I purchased to commute to and from work became the family car.
It was the car I drive with my wife to Pre-Cana. The day after our wedding, my wife and I drove home for the first time.
I drove that car with my then infant son to and from doctors appointments. That includes when I had to take him for emergency room visits, and one day his surgery.
We took that car to take him for his first day of school, his first Mets game, his ice skating classes, soccer practice, and on family vacations. We drove that car to places where we would share some of our favorite memories as a family. We drove that car everywhere.
Every so often, he liked to get in the front seat and pretend to drive just like his daddy:
I didn’t realize it at first, but there were hints of all those moments scattered throughout the car. I realized this as I cleaned it out today so I could trade it in for the new family car. In some ways, it felt like a moment right out of The Wonder Years.
As we cleaned out the car, there were remnants of these events. Just like we had done a thousand times, we listened to the Mets game on the radio.
You couldn’t pick a more appropriate starter than Rafael Montero. First terrible, but now you see him in a whole new light.
This is because Montero has been a much better pitcher of late. We saw it again from him today. He cruised through five innings allowing just the one run.
It was the sixth he got into trouble. Like his last start, he put his bullpen into a tough situation handing them a bases loaded one out situation. Unlike AJ Ramos, Paul Sewald, who hadn’t pitched in eight days due to some physical issues, allowed all the inherited runners to score.
Fortunately, it didn’t matter much because the Mets offense exploded against Mark Leiter.
Most of the damage came in a six run fourth inning. Even with him not hitting lead-off, Brandon Nimmo got it all started with a single. Four hits, including a Juan Lagares double and Gavin Cecchini RBI single, and an error later the Mets were up 9-0, and the Phillies brought in Kevin Siegrist.
After Siegrist issued a couple of walks, Nimmo capped off the inning with an RBI single. That single gave the Mets a then 10-0 lead.
It proved to be an insurmountable lead. That was true even for the hurt Sewald and Hansel Robles, who had another adventurous outing.
It was the Robles outing that had me sitting in my car just a little longer. I sat in my car a little longer like I had done several times in the past. Except this time was the last time in this car.
As Ramos got Rhys Hoskins to fly out to end the game, I had the last memory in that car. It was a rather small one, but a memory nevertheless.
It’s now time for a new car with new family memories. This will be the car I take my next son home from the hospital in. It’ll be the car I take to drive him to his first Mets game. Hopefully, it will be the car I drive to see the Mets in their next World Series.
Game Notes: Kevin Plawecki was 2-4 with two runs and a stolen base.
With rosters expanding now, the Mets have called up Jacob Rhame and Jamie Callahan up to the majors.
With Rhame being the return for Curtis Granderson and Callahan being one of the three prospects netted in exchange for Addison Reed, we get a glimpse of how well Sandy Alderson did at the trade deadline. We also get a glimpse into what exactly the 2018 bullpen could look like.
So far, it’s safe to say Jerry Blevins, Jeurys Familia, and AJ Ramos will be in the Mets bullpen next year. Most likely, but not as definitely, Hansel Robles will be in the bullpen as well. Assuming no moves, and based on Alderson’s tenure with the Mets, it’s a fairly safe assumption, there are three open spots in the bullpen.
To a certain extent, Paul Sewald and Chasen Bradford have stated their case.
Sewald has shown versatility in the pen coming on for multiple innings and being a late inning reliever brought on to get the Mets out of a jam. He’s pitched 57.0 innings in 47 appearances. Overall, he’s 0-5 with a 4.11 ERA, 1.158 WHIP, and a 9.8 K/9.
Bradford has terrific in his first 17 appearances before his clunker against the Reds. Even with that poor performance, he’s still 1-0 with a 3.97 ERA, 1.235 WHIP, and a 7.9 K/9.
With they way they’ve pitched, you could certainly envision Sewald and/or Bradford being on the Opening Day roster. However, digging deeper, neither pitcher really fits the mold of what Alderson envisions from this bullpen.
It’s clear Alderson now wants to see power arm after power arm after power arm coming out of the Mets bullpen.
Rhame throws 98. Callahan can also touch 98. The other two pieces from the Reed trade Stephen Nogosek and Gerson Bautista throw even harder. For his part Bautista is routinely hitting triple digits.
Clearly, these big arms are a sign of what Alderson wants in this Mets bullpen. The first wave will be Rhame and Callahan. More will certainly follow.
Hopefully, now, Alderson had found that right formula. Each and every year he’s been the Mets GM he’s started the year with bad bullpens, and he had to fix them on the fly.
Hopefully, now, he has the arms in place. If he does, the Mets chances of returning to the postseason are much better.
If you recall, there was a time when the Mets considered Rafael Montero to be a better prospect than Jacob deGrom. Sure, it seems silly now with deGrom winning the Rookie of the Year, being an All Star, and how great he pitched in the 2015 postseason. It seems sillier when you consider Montero has mostly been terrible with the Mets shying away from the strike zone and walking too many batters.
Recently, we have seen glimpses from Montero. He is using that change-up, the pitch that made the Mets believe in him, more effectively. He is also throwing strikes. The stretch has been good, but not great. It certainly didn’t give us any indication why the Mets thought so highly of Montero. That was until last night’s game.
Through eight innings, Montero had allowed just one base hit to a stacked Cincinnati Reds lineup. Even allowing for the obvious issues with the OPS statistic, the Reds lineup featured seven batters with an OPS over .800. Two of the players, Zack Cozart and Joey Votto, were All Stars this year. However, when you were pitching like Montero, it simply doesn’t matter.
Given the fact that you have seen Montero pitch in a Mets uniform before, it is understandable that you have to see it before you believe it. Here is a short compliation:
In case you missed it…Montero put in work last night. https://t.co/E2vRvaXUqm pic.twitter.com/q5YK2CF76e
— New York Mets (@Mets) August 31, 2017
Considering how Montero was pitching, you can certainly understand why Terry Collins allowed Montero to go out there for the ninth inning despite Montero having already thrown 107 pitches. This was Montero’s night, and he earned the right to at least try to finish the game.
After retiring the pinch hitter Billy Hamilton, the Reds finally got to Montero. Phil Ervin singled, and Cozart doubled. With him going to the plate as the winning run, the Mets understandably intentionally walked Votto.
At that point, the Mets also put an end to 8.1 brilliant innings from Montero. During his 117 pitch night, he had allowed just three hits and four walks while striking out eight. The only question remaining was whether he was going to get the win.
It was a real question because the Mets had only given him a 2-0 lead with both runs coming in the first inning off of a pair of RBI doubles from Wilmer Flores and Kevin Plawecki. By the way, if you think Montero’s emergence has been a surprise, what about Plawecki? He has gone from a guy the Mets were probably going to seriously consider cutting from the 40 man roster this offseason to a guy who is hitting .364/.440/.591 with two doubles, a homer, and three RBI in eight games. By the way, he also threw a scoreless inning in relief the previous night.
Getting back to the bottom of the ninth, the Reds had the bases loaded with one out. Once again Collins eschewed Jeurys Familia in a save situation to go to AJ Ramos. Ramos responded by striking out Adam Duvall and Scotter Gennett to end the game.
With that, the Mets now have a victory where Montero and Plawecki were key figures in the game. In what has truly been a bizarre season, this one probably ranks up there. If that isn’t enough for you consider this – the two have combined to throw 9.1 consecutive scoreless innings.
Game Notes: Amed Rosario got the night off. This led the Mets to play Jose Reyes at shortstop and have him lead-off over Brandon Nimmo because that is exactly what you are supposed to do when you are trying to develop players late in the season.
This was one of those days that makes you question why exactly the Mets are sticking with Terry Collins right now?
He’s eschewing developing young players like Dominic Smith, but he makes sure to get Jose Reyes and Asdrubal Cabrera in the lineup.
He also continues to make just poor decisions with his pitching. If you didn’t know any better, you’d expect Collins gets paid by the bullpen move, and he gets paid double for each double switch.
He really pressures his pitching staff. Today, Collins took that to an absurd level.
Even knowing Seth Lugo would be limited to 75 pitches in the second game of the double header, Collins ripped through his bullpen.
Part of that was Tommy Milone only lasting 4.1 innings. The bigger part of that was Collins managing the game like it was Game 7 of the World Series to try to protect a five run lead.
What was really irritating was Collins first ripped through the guys who could give him multiple innings – Hansel Robles, Rafael Montero, and Josh Smoker. The trio combined to pitch one inning with 35 pitches.
With all Collins histrionics, the Mets still blew the 5-0 lead. They got there because Cabrera and Flores hit a pair of homers.
With the Mets blowing the lead, they needed another homer. Amed Rosario came through with an eighth inning homer off Joe Blanton.
Rosario has 4 homers, 3 of them in the 8th inning or later, 2 to give the Mets a lead in a tie game.
— Marc Carig (@MarcCarig) August 27, 2017
The Mets would hold onto the 6-5 lead with AJ Ramos getting the sixth out save to preserve the rare Mets Sunday win. Of course, to get the rare win, you needed a play you rarely if ever see.
With Adam Lind getting the two out single to extend the game, Edwin Jackson pinch ran for him with Daniel Murphy coming to the plate as the go-ahead run.
Murphy ripped a liner above a leaping Cabrera. Travis Taijeron, who had some on in one of the multitude of double switches, overran the ball, and Jackson broke towards home.
Juan Lagares adeptly backup up Taijeron on the play. He then made a strong throw to Cabrera, who in turn, made a strong throw to Travis d’Arnaud. With the tag, the Mets cut down Jackson, and the Mets won the game on your typical 9-8-4-2 put out.
After this game, the question was whether the Mets pitching staff had enough bullets left to pull out a win in the nightcap. The answer was a resounding no.
The Mets had rallied from a 2-0 deficit to take a 3-2 lead in the second game.
Lagares knocked in the first run on an RBI double. He then came home to score on a Brandon Nimmo two run homer to give the Mets a 3-2 lead. It was short-lived.
After Lugo went 3.2 innings allowing two runs, Smoker came on, and he kept the Nationals at bay in his 1.1 innings of work.
Then came Robles in his second appearance on the day. After getting a Murphy line out, the Nationals had a runner on first with one out.
Robles continued by walking the first four batters allowing the Nationals to not only tie the game, but also take a lead. On the bright side, Collins double-switched Smith out of the game meaning he was willing to sacrifice development to win this one game.
Things could’ve been worse, but Chasen Bradford enduced Howie Kendrick to hit into the inning ending 4-4-3 double play.
Ultimately, it didn’t matter. Erik Goeddel pitched the eighth, and Lind took him deep to give the Nationals a 5-3 lead. The insurance run loomed large with the Mets rallying in the ninth off Sean Doolittle.
d’Arnaud led off with a pinch hit single, and Gavin Cecchini singled to move d’Arnaud to second. With a 0-2 count, Reyes dropped a single right in front of Taylor allowing d’Arnaud to score to pull the Mets within one.
The tomfoolery ended with a Lagares line out to Alejandro De Aza.
Collins did everything he could to win both ends of the double header even if it meant eschewing his main responsibility right now- developing players. He didn’t care what he did to the bullpen. For all that effort, he just had a split to show for it.
Game Notes: Kevin McGowan was activated for the second half double-header as the 26th man. He would not pitch.
With the Nationals getting in at 6:00 A.M., Dusty Baker put out a lineup that looked like the Nationals Triple-A affiliate with Daniel Murphy. For their part the Mets put out a similar looking lineup because, well, the Mets are bad and injured.
If you think it couldn’t get worse for the Mets, it did. In the top of that first, Yoenis Cespedes pulled up lame running to third base. Once again, Cespedes left the game with a leg injury.
The shame of the play was the Dominic Smith single hit the second base umpire. It was a dead ball costing him an RBI, and it helped kill a Mets first inning rally.
At that point, the Mets already had a 1-0 lead. Once again, Brandon Nimmo lead off a game by getting on base. He would come home to score on an Asdrubal Cabrera RBI single.
The Mets would then load the bases with one out against Nationals starter A.J. Cole. With Travis d’Arnaud and Amed Rosario striking out, the Mets would come up short.
Speaking of short, the Mets had an insanely short bench tonight. The team had just a three man bench with one of those players being backup catcher Kevin Plawecki.
This was mostly the result of the soul crushing Michael Conforto injury, and the Mets having no viable options on the 40 man roster. With Jeurys Familia being ready to return after his rehab stint, the Mets chose to activate him instead.
The end result was the Mets having a two man bench when Matt Reynolds came in to pinch run for Cespedes.
Fortunately, it wouldn’t matter as Jacob deGrom was his deGrominant self. For a while, it seemed like he could get a no-hitter tonight. He certainly had the stuff, and the Nationals had the lineup.
Still, your heart was in your throat during the game with deGrom. First, he is a Mets pitcher. Second, the Mets luck somehow got worse. Third, he was fouling balls off his leg, and he seemed to pull up lame legging out an infield single in the second.
By some miracle, deGrom was healthy, and he was able to get the win. His final line was 7.2 innings, five hits, one run, one earned, one walk, and 10 strikeouts.
In Matt Grace‘s second inning of work, the Mets went to work. It started with a Juan Lagares lead-off double. While many were contemplating the bunt, Terry Collins let Reynolds swing away, and Reynolds rewarded Collins’ faith with an RBI single.
Cabrera followed with a double setting up second and third with no out. Collins again showed a young player some faith, and he was again rewarded. Collins left Smith in to face the left-handed Grace, and Smith delivered with a sacrifice fly to give the Mets a 3-0 lead.
The Nationals chipped into that lead. It surprisingly came from two rookie players with two outs in the eighth. First, it was an Andrew Stevenson double. Then it was an Adrian Sanchez RBI single.
With Murphy coming to the plate as the tying run, Collins went to Jerry Blevins, who got a huge strikeout to end the inning.
In the ninth, Nimmo created a run. He reached with a one out single, and he put himself in scoring position with his first career stolen base. He then scored on a Lagares RBI single making it a 4-1 game.
Even with Familia back from the disabled list, Collins stuck with AJ Ramos as the closer. Even when Ramos struggled, Collins had Paul Sewald warming instead of Familia.
He was greeted with an Adam Lind homer to dead center to make it 4-2.
Things got interesting when Wilmer Difo followed the Lind homer with a double. Ramos then gave us all a heart attack hanging one to Anthony Rendon, who just hit one foul. Instead, he walked Rendon setting up first and second with one out.
Things got really troubling when Ramos walked Matt Wieters to load the bases. For some reason while this was all happening, Collins sat Sewald and had none of his other fifty relievers in his bullpen warming up.
Nimmo came in and would catch a Difo rope, and he made the perfunctory throw home. While that was happening, Rendon strayed too far from second, but Witt the throw home, Rendon had time to get back.
It ultimately didn’t matter as Ramos struck out the final batter of the game to preserve the 4-2 win and deGrom’s 14th win of the year.
Normally, with a game like this, you would leave the game feeling good about the Mets. deGrom was great, and he recorded his 200th strikeout of the season. Nimmo looks like a lead-off hitter reaching base three times, and his stealing his first career base. Lagares’ bat got going. The young Mets beat the Nationals.
However, there is still a hangover with Conforto’s injury and uncertain future. On top of that, Cespedes is once again on the shelf.
Really, this team continues to finds ways to make things more depressing.
Game Notes: For Player’s Weekend, the players were allowed to put nicknames on their jerseys. For the newer call-ups, there apparently wasn’t enough time to get them a nickname jersey. With respect to Nimmo, his choice, “You Found Nimmo” wasn’t permitted due to potential Disney copyright violations.
One of the few remaining reasons to watch the Mets is to see how the young players are progressing and whether they can be pieces for the 2018 season. One player getting an unexpected and long audition is Chris Flexen.
Today was Flexen’s best start in the majors. This time, instead of working hard to get through five innings, Flexen pitched six good innings.
The Diamondbacks got to him with a first inning rally capped off by a J.D. Martinez RBI single. From there, Flexen settled in, and he would run off four straight scoreless. He did get some help from Wilmer Flores, who made a nice play and a good throw home to nail David Peralta.
He got more help from Juan Lagares in the fifth. For some reason, A.J. Pollock would test Lagares’ arm on a Martinez line-out. Even with the UCL tear, Lagares has a strong enough arm to nail runners at the plate. It should be noted if Lagares continues playing center this way, and his arm continues being this good, he needs to be in the CF conversation next year.
With the two plays at the plate, Diamondbacks wouldn’t get to Flexen again until the sixth when Chris Iannetta homered off of him.
Flexen got out of the inning with a respectable line: six innings, six hits, two runs, two earned, four walks, and five strikeouts. It was his first major league quality start. It was also his third career win.
After Flexen had allowed the aforementioned first inning homer, the Mets responded in the bottom of the first.
Brandon Nimmo led off the bottom of the first with a double off Diamondbacks starter Zack Godley. He came home on a Michael Conforto RBI single. The two would combine in the fifth to plate another run.
There, Nimmo got the rally started with a one out walk, and he moved into scoring position on an Asdrubal Cabrera fielder’s choice. Conforto then delivered the two out RBI single.
That single gave the Mets a 3-1 lead. The second run came in the previous inning when Amed Rosario followed a pair of walks to Dominic Smith and Travis d’Arnaud with an RBI single.
Smith made it 4-2 in the sixth with an absolute bomb to left-center off Jake Barrett.
The Mets couldn’t quite deliver the knock-out punch that inning. Lagares came up with runners on first and second, and he not into a double play. Nimmo then walked against Jorge De La Rosa, but it was all for naught as Cabrera struck out to end the inning.
Fortunately, the Mets bullpen, who was been pitching MUCH better of late, didn’t need to help.
While Jerry Blevins struggled, Paul Sewald came on and retired five straight. AJ Ramos then came on and saved his third game as a Met.
For tonight at least, the Mets gave their young players a shot. Not only did they play hard, they also won the game. As a Mets fan, you can certainly watch this team learn and improve over the final month of the season.
Game Notes: With his three homers, Smith has 19 combined homers between the MiLB and MLB leaving him one short of his first ever 20 home run season.
Late in the season, both Robert Gsellman and Yoenis Cespedes gave you reasons to question their commitment.
Like he has most of his career, Cespedes has failed to hustle this year. While deemed acceptable when things are going well, this becomes an issue for everyone.
When he comes to Gsellman, he basically said as much. Well, that’s a bit of a stretch. When he was told Sandy Alderson said he needed to pitch better, Gsellman replied he didn’t care.
On the field tonight against a very good Diamondbacks team, they were both very good.
Gsellman was reminiscent of the pitcher we saw last year. He mostly kept the ball out of the air preventing him from being victimized by the long ball. With a much better defense behind him, which somehow included Wilmer Flores making some nice plays at third, Gsellman went deep into the game.
In the odd chance the ball was in the air, the outfield got to those balls. This included Cespedes making not one but two hustle plays in the outfield.
With the defense playing well behind him, and his sinker working, Gsellman arguably had his best start of the year. His final line was 6.1 innings, five hits, one run, one earned, one walk, and three strikeouts.
Even with that terrific outing, he still didn’t get the win because the Mets offense continued to squander their scoring opportunities against Taijuan Walker.
The Mets could bring home Brandon Nimmo after he lead-off the top of the first with a double.
Wilmer Flores and Dominic Smith lead off the second with consecutive singles. Amed Rosario struck out. After Kevin Plawecki intentionally walked to load the bases, Gsellman struck out, and Nimmo lined out.
Flores came up in the third with runners at first and second with one out, and he grounded into the 6-4-3 inning ending double play.
Plawecki’s two out double in the fourth didn’t amount to anything with Gsellman hitting it back to the pitcher.
Plawecki came up in the sixth with runners on the corners and two outs. It would be runners on second and third after Rosario stole second. David Hernandez came on for Rubby De La Rosa, and he got Plawecki to tap it back to him to end the inning.
Finally, the Mets broke through in the sixth.
Travis d’Arnaud, who came on for Plawecki in a double switch in the top half of the inning, hit a lead-off double. Nimmo then sacrificed him to third.
Asdrubal Cabrera and Michael Conforto then earned walks to load the bases putting the game in Cespedes’ hands. As noted above, he played this game with a different energy than he has been playing with for most of the season.
Cespedes battled back from 0-2 against Archie Bradley to rip an RBI single past a diving Jake Lamb to tie the game.
It only tied the game because David Peralta nailed Cabrera at the plate. It’s a tough play to pin blame on anyone. With it being so close, it was a good send by Glenn Sherlock. Likely, Cabrera would’ve been safe if his leg was on the ground instead of in the air. You can’t blame Cabrera because that was just tough luck.
In any event, after a Flores foul out, this was now a battle of the bullpens.
Jerry Blevins, Paul Sewald, and AJ Ramos did their jobs combining to pitch 2.2 scoreless innings helping send the game into extra innings.
The Mets went to Erik Goeddel in a rare second straight day of work to pitch the 10th. In a rare appearance on consecutive days. We saw the reason why he rarely does this.
Goeddel issued a lead-off walk to Gregor Blanco before allowing a game winning two run homer to A.J. Pollock:
https://twitter.com/citifieldhr/status/899824587944452096
The homer snapped a Meys bullpen 17.2 streak of not allowing an earned run.
Mets still has a chance in the bottom of the 10th with the heart of the lineup due up against Diamondbacks closer Fernando Rodney.
Conforto got the inning off on the right foot hitting an opposite field lead-off home run to pull the Meys within 3-2. That’s as close as the Mets got as Rodney set down Cespedes, Flores, and Smith to end the game.
The main thing that really stood out today was the Mets played with a different energy. At this point in the season, it’s all we can reasonably expect. Well that and better situational hitting.
When that happen, we will see a much better brand of baseball much like we saw tonight.
GAME NOTES: Steven Matz is done for the year as he will undergo surgery to re-position his ulnar nerve. It is the same surgery Jacob deGrom underwent last year.
I’d like to say when I saw Dominic Smith was getting called up to the majors, I rushed to purchase tickets to the game.
Fact is, I long had these plans. That doesn’t change the fact I was absolutely thrilled to see a lineup with Smith, Amed Rosario, and Michael Conforto in the same lineup. If tonight’s game is any measure, the three of them in the lineup is going to produce some exciting and winning baseball for years to come.
After falling behind 3-0 with a tough first inning, the Mets quickly got Seth Lugo off the hook.
First it was a Conforto homer in the second off Phillies starter Nick Pivetta. Then it was a Yoenis Cespedes three run shot in the third to give the Mets the lead. With Cespedes’ being my son’s favorite player, this was the absolute highlight of the night for him.
Yes, moreso than getting Paul Sewald‘s autograph. Sorry, Paul.
From there it was a back and forth game. And no, I don’t just mean the back-and-forth between the potty trips and the stops to the concessions. No, this was an exciting game.
The Phillies tied it in the third on a Tommy Joseph RBI double.
In the fifth, Rosario got a rally started with a lead-off single, and he’d score on a Neil Walker base hit. Walker, himself, scored on a Cespedes RBI single.
With Conforto walking, the Phillies pulled Pivetta and brought in Jesen Therrien. Wilmer Flores got into a favorable 2-0 count, and he got a good pitch to hit. Unfortunately, Flores hit it right at Rhys Hoskins to end the inning. This would not be the last time Flores would kill a rally.
The Phillies would get a run back on a Freddy Galvis sixth inning RBI double off Josh Smoker (run charged to Lugo) to make it a 6-5 game.
In the eighth, the Mets had runners on first and second with one out and Rene Rivera at the plate and Rosario on deck. On a 1-2, not a 3-2, but a 1-2 pitch, Flores took off for third. It was an easy strike em out – throw em out double play.
At that moment, you had to feel all warm and cozy about Terry Collins decision in the previous inning to double switch Smith out of the game. You felt even worse about it when Cesar Hernandez homered off Jerry Blevins in the bottom of the eighth to tie the score at six.
This was all a prelude to Rosario earning his first crown as a Met. In the top of the ninth, he homered the lead-off the top of the ninth:
"It's a dream come true." –@Amed_Rosario
He picked the perfect time for his first career home run! pic.twitter.com/c524mUpnWb
— New York Mets (@Mets) August 12, 2017
It was his first HR and his first game-winning RBI.
There is no doubt this was and will be the best Mets game of the year. You got homers from Conforto and Cespedes. Smith had his first big league hit. Rosario capped it all off with his first career homer.
Tonight was as good as it has been for the Mets all year. Hopefully, with the young pieces all due to return next year, there are lot more in store.
Game Notes: AJ Ramos earned his second save as a Met. Hansel Robles earned the win meaning his record is now 7-3.
After two straight tough starts to begin his career, Chris Flexen finally had that magical major league experience every organization’s young top prospect envisions they’ll have.
Staked with a 4-0 lead on the strength of homers hit by Michael Conforto, Yoenis Cespedes, and Travis d’Arnaud off Rangers starter A.J. Griffin, Flexen was able to go out there and just focus on getting the batters out.
Now, it wasn’t always pretty. He did wind up walking three batters. He also came close to hitting a few batters until he finally plunked Rougned Odor in the fourth. With that said, Flexen pitching inside was a welcome change, and it was part of his effectiveness.
The Rangers wouldn’t score off of him until a Joey Gallo homer to lead-off the fifth.
Despite the homer in the fifth, Flexen would start the sixth. He would come just short of finishing the inning. If he had, he would’ve doubled the amount of innings he lasted in his first two starts.
First, it was an Adrian Beltre homer. After a Carlos Gomez two out walk, Terry Collins pulled his young starter and entrusted Erik Goeddel to get the Mets out of the jam. Goeddel would first allow Gallo to hit an RBI double to pull the Rangers to within 4-3 before Goeddel would get out of the inning.
Flexen’s final line in his first career win was 5.2 innings, four hits, three runs, three earned, three walks, and four strikeouts. In addition to that, Flexen would double in the fifth to collect his first career hit.
The win would be secured with some good bullpen work from Jerry Blevins and AJ Ramos, who collected his first save in a Mets uniform.
It also helped Asdrubal Cabrera hit an RBI double scoring Conforto in the seventh to provide an insurance run in the 5-4 victory. That homer loomed large with the Robinson Chirinos two out homer in the ninth.
The game certainly earned Flexen another opportunity to start. That’s a good thing when you consider the Mets are stubbornly playing their vets over the young kids. At a minimum, we can see the maturation of Flexen.
Game Notes: Neil Walker had his first career start at first base. Matt Harvey threw a 25 pitch bullpen before the game.