Francisco Lindor
The New York Mets had not lost a home series or been swept once this season. That was until the Boston Red Sox came to town:
1. The best way to sum up Jacob deGrom‘s greatness is a bad start is one run over six innings.
2. In four starts, deGrom is 2-2 with a 0.51 ERA. That’s beyond absurd.
3. The long story short is if deGrom doesn’t shut ’em out and hit one out, he’s going to lose the game.
4. That may not be a deGrom thing anymore. The Mets offense has been that bad lately.
5. This isn’t exactly by chance. The Mets are following the pattern of teams who previously retained Chili Davis as hitting coach.
6. As noted and will continue to be noted, Francisco Lindor is a slow starter. If you’re booing him over that, you’re an idiot.
7. Also, imagine booing him when he makes a great play to turn an unassisted double play.
8. Speaking of defense, Pete Alonso has been great at first. While we note the diving play, that stretch on the James McCann throw was excellent.
9. With the Mets offense the way it is, making bad pitching look great, they need all the great defense and pitching they can get. Fortunately, the pitching has been great leading the league in FIP.
10. Keep in mind, this is before Carlos Carrasco, Seth Lugo, and Noah Syndergaard come off the IL. That’s how good the pitching has been.
11. Mets really need to navigate this Brandon Nimmo hip issue because he’s the one consistent bat in this lineup. He’s also playing well in center.
12. Jeff McNeil homered and was dropped in the lineup. It’ll be interesting to find out what Sandy Alderson comes up with to bench McNeil again and/or drop him in the lineup again.
13. Mets held the best offensive team in 2021 to three runs TOTAL over two games. Somehow, the Mets were swept over the two game set.
14. With the Mets pitching and hitting this way, it’s reminiscent of the summer of 2015. The only difference is these Mets are healthy and the other batted Eric Campbell and John Mayberry in the heart of the lineup. These Mets are healthy.
15. It’s way too soon to panic or overreact, but the Mets problems have gone from bad to worse. That said, there is still plenty of time to turn things around.
16. The at-bats by Michael Conforto and J.D. Davis at the end of the second game where literally as bad as you can get. They were swinging at pitches in the dirt.
17. Jeurys Familia and Trevor May have been nearly unstoppable since their struggles in their first appearances. Miguel Castro has been unstoppable all year.
18. Jerry Blevins seemed to be a casualty of the dumb three batter rule when he announced his retirement. Same goes for former Met Oliver Perez who was designated for assignment by the Indians despite pitching well.
19. As Joe Girardi was rightfully flipping out over Genesis Cabrera hitting Bryce Harper in the face and Didi Gregorius in the ribs, he has no issue putting Jose Alvarado on the mound who threw consecutive dangerous up and in pitches to Conforto. If you’re going to be upset about hard throwers with zero control endangering batters, don’t put one on the mound yourself.
20. Despite what people want to tell you, the Mets are going to be fine. They’ll finish April near or at first, and they’re primed for a big May.
Garrett Richards made four starts in 2021 averaging under 5.0 innings per start. He’s allowed 14 runs over 16.2 innings while walking more than he’s struck out.
Naturally, he dominated the New York Mets over 7.0 innings. In fact, he struck out 10 batters, which nearly matched his 2021 total. He picked up the win after allowing one run on seven hits with no walks.
Now, every now and then, every pitcher has a great game. Perhaps, that was just that for Richards. It’s also possible this is just the Mets continuing their season long offensive struggles.
On the night, the Mets only run scored on a Jeff McNeil second inning homer. At the time, that gave the Mets a 1-0 lead.
First pitch fastball ambush by the ?.@JeffMcNeil805 | #LGM pic.twitter.com/GutvYIRbew
— New York Mets (@Mets) April 27, 2021
The problem is that was just one of two Mets extra base hits on the day. The other was Michael Conforto in the fourth, but in what doesn’t remotely come as a shock, he was stranded there.
James McCann had tried to get his own extra base hit in the fifth, but he was thrown out by J.D. Martinez.
Conforto was the only Mets player with multiple hits. Francisco Lindor was the only Mets player not to strike out, but he went hitless. Pete Alonso had the golden sombrero. Both of those players did come to play defensively.
They needed it too because with the way the Mets were hitting, they needed to keep it close. David Peterson did that, and he’d be the hard luck loser for his efforts.
Peterson had kept the Red Sox at bay until the third. Right after the Mets gained the lead with the McNeil homer, Peterson gave that lead right back when Bobby Dalbec homered off of him.
The Red Sox didn’t get anything going until the sixth. Enrique Hernandez led off the inning with a double. He then scored on a Rafael Devers RBI single. That was the scoring in the game.
Peterson rebounded, and he got out of the sixth. That was partially due to Lindor turning a double play. That wouldn’t be his best one of the day.
With the Mets trailing 2-1 heading into the seventh, Jeurys Familia relieved Peterson. Familia allowed a one out double to Hunter Renfroe, and Marwin Gonzalez hit a liner up the middle which Lindor turned into an unassisted double play:
The master at work. @Lindor12BC | #LGM pic.twitter.com/Akvlw8sgmO
— New York Mets (@Mets) April 28, 2021
This was an amazing defensive play. However, it wasn’t enough for the Mets fans in the ballpark who had the temerity to boo Lindor. You’d think early season offensive struggles caused by a number of factors would be excused for Lindor, but the people at Citi Field are morons.
The bigger problem than the idiots booing was the loss. The final 10 batters of the game failed to reach.
When that happens, you really can’t win games. The Mets didn’t here, and they fell back to .500.
Game Notes: Brandon Nimmo was held out of the lineup with a hip impingement. Lindor went hitless. Stephen Tarpley was sent down to the alternate site, and Jose Peraza was called-up. Lindor batted lead-off.
If we hearken back to the 2018 season, the New York Mets were languishing, and Todd Frazier landed on the IL for the first time in his career. Jose Reyes was just flat out terrible, Wilmer Flores was at first, and David Wright, well, he wasn’t an option. Down in Double-A Binghamton, Jeff McNeil was flat out raking. He just kept hitting and hitting and hitting.
The answer seemed obvious to everyone. Everyone, that is, except Sandy Alderson and the New York Mets. When pressed on calling up McNeil to play third base, the answer was McNeil was a second baseman only. Of course, the irony there was McNeil was the Binghamton Rumble Ponies Opening Day third baseman.
Back then, it was difficult to ascertain how much of personnel decisions were driven by Jeff Wilpon, whomever Wilpon decided to listen on any given day, or Alderson. Whatever the case, McNeil would eventually get the call-up, prove himself, and he would go on to have an All-Star season in 2019.
Since 2019, things have gone quite uneven for McNeil as it has for the rest of us. In the end, what we do know with McNeil is he is an exceptionally gifted contact hitter, and he is a fiery player who you could trust defensively at four different positions.
According to Baseball Savant, McNeil has a career 3 OAA at second, 3 OAA at third, and -1 OAA in left field. DRS has a much better picture with McNeil having a 5 DRS at second, 6 DRS at third, and a 3 DRS in left field. All told, McNeil is not a Gold Glove, but he is a very solid defender at multiple positions.
As noted, McNeil could hit. Entering this season, McNeil had a 139 wRC+. Since his debut, he has been the 13th best hitter in the majors, and he trailed only Brandon Nimmo among Mets players. All told, McNeil has established himself as a very good, versatile, and valuable Major League player. Despite that, we are seemingly back at square one with McNeil.
With the acquisition of Francisco Lindor, and his preference to hit near the top of the lineup, McNeil was dropped from the top two spots, where he thrived, to sixth and seventh in the lineup. Perhaps it was the drop in the lineup, the new baseball, the delay to the season, the typical influence Chili Davis has on his teams, the pandemic, or just the normal ebbs and flows of the season, but McNeil has struggled.
The thing is, he didn’t quite struggle right away. In fact, to start the season, McNeil was tattooing the ball. Unfortunately, he was not getting any luck. Balls he normally hit for singles and doubles weren’t falling in anymore. The Mets reaction to that was to sit him after the Mets first two games of the season.
That has become an emerging pattern for McNeil. So far, the Mets have played 17 games, and McNeil has only started in 14 of them. The only projected starter who has started in fewer games is J.D. Davis, but that was only because Davis landed on the IL after getting hit by a pitch early in the season.
Davis is somewhat illustrative of the problem here. Davis has again been a nightmare defensively. He’s already a -2 DRS and a -1 OAA at third. He made errors directly impacting his team and leading Taijuan Walker and David Peterson to have shorter starts. The end result was just one game off, where he still appeared as a pinch hitter, and he was put right back in the lineup.
For some reason, Davis is able to work through his problems despite them not being fixable. For McNeil, this is very clearly a blip, but he keeps getting relegated to the bench. Instead of getting to see more pitches and get into a rhythms, the Mets are doing to the opposite. In fact, they’re just setting him up to continue to struggle.
Perhaps, this is just Alderson resting back on previous biases towards players from his first stint with the Mets. Taking a broader look, Dominic Smith has had some similar struggles getting into the lineup. In fact, the Mets have begun using him as a platoon bat. That’s despite him being one of the Mets best hitters against left-handed pitching.
To some extent, McNeil is also being used as a platoon player. For example, he was also not in the lineup against Patrick Corbin. More likely, McNeil is just being punished for struggling. For some reason, he is not going to be permitted to struggle and figure things out at the plate while others can go out there being butchers in the field costing the Mets games.
Make no mistake, how the Mets are handling McNeil is a very big problem. They are taking one of their best players, and they are crossing him up further. They are not putting him in a position to succeed in terms of where he hits in the lineup and in terms of getting to play enough to get into a rhythm and figure things out. Whatever the reason for the McNeil benchings, they have to stop, and they have to stop now.
Well, after the first series of the season was canceled due to COVID19, the Washington Nationals and New York Mets finally got to play in a series. The Mets would win yet another home series and stay above .500:
1. Jacob deGrom is already the second best pitcher in Mets history, and in short order, we will consider him the second best Mets player to ever wear a Mets uniform. In fact, he may already be there.
2. To put in context just how great deGrom is, he’s set the record for most strikeouts to start a season, and he has passed Tom Seaver in Mets ERA and ERA+. Yes, he has been so great he has put himself in Seaver territory.
3. Seeing deGrom hit, you are reminded pitchers can actually hit and help themselves at the plate. The fact other pitchers don’t do it is their own failing, and it is not a good argument for the universal DH.
4. deGrom has driven in and scored more earned runs than he has allowed.
5. Marcus Stroman had one bad day. There is nothing more that should be read into it.
6. We saw Robert Gsellman step up, and he has looks ready to be a solid contributor to the bullpen. Overall, the bullpen has picked it up across the board, and they seem to be outperforming the early season expectations. In some ways, this could be attributable to Jeremy Hefner who had a similar effect in Minnesota as an assistant pitching coach.
7. Once again, Taijuan Walker was really good, and he appears to be the steal of the offseason for the Mets. Notably, when starters are going deep into games, that also helps the bullpen.
8. Michael Conforto‘s defense is still worrisome, especially his arm, but he appears to be getting going at the plate. We saw him hit his first homer of the season, and we saw him get extra base hits on back-to-back days for the first time all season.
9. For reasons that defy expectation, this Mets front office seem to believe more in J.D. Davis than Jeff McNeil. Davis can cost Mets consecutive games with his glove, and they give him on brief rest, but McNeil has some struggles at the plate, and they refuse to try to put him where he thrives in the lineup or let him work through it.
10. Albert Almora doesn’t play much, but when he does, he makes an impact. He scored from first in a pinch running opportunity earlier in the season, and he robbed Kyle Schawarber of an extra base hit as we have only seen Juan Lagares do previously.
11. Jonathan Villar has contributed quite well in the games he has played, and he has earned his playing time. It is really curious why the Mets won’t sit Davis for him, but they will sit McNeil. It’s also curious what Luis Guillorme has to do to get into the lineup.
12. The Mets sat Dominic Smith against a left-handed pitcher again despite his being one of their best hitters against left-handed pitching. Again, better players sit so Davis can be force fed into the lineup.
13. While Sunday was a really good game defensively, the Mets defense continues to be atrocious, second worst in the National League by DRS, and the Mets show little to no interest in playing their best defensive players.
14. It needs to be mentioned again. Jacob deGrom is doing things we haven’t seen since Seaver, and we may never get to see greatness of this level in a Mets uniform again for quite some time, if ever. He is that good, and he is going to be the player we tell our children and grandchildren about for years to come.
15. The Mets better not fail deGrom the way they did Mike Piazza and David Wright. They need to make sure he wins a World Series in a Mets uniform.
16. Brandon Nimmo is very quietly emerging as one of the best players in baseball. He is an on-base machine, and we see his defense steadily improving. This is someone using all the information at his disposal to be better. He should be an All-Star, and at some point, we may need to have serious MVP discussions about him. Then again, that award should go to deGrom.
17. The state of umpiring in the majors may be at its worst. We see calls routinely blown, especially by the home plate umpire. Needless to say, if Nimmo takes a pitch, it’s a ball.
18. Pete Alonso is really heating up at the plate, and we have seen him just demolish homers.
19. Put aside the offense, the work James McCann and Tomas Nido have done behind the plate has been nothing short of phenomenal. They are getting their pitcher the calls they need, and they are playing all around great defense. If McCann can start hitting like we know he can, watch out. Hopefully, that RBI single on Sunday for McCann was a start.
20. Listening to the game on the radio really makes you miss Josh Lewin. No one really wants to hear Francisco Lindor needs to run out foul balls or Nimmo is swinging at pitches because he’s finally confident at the plate. The Mets can and should do better than that, but in some ways, that’s an allegory for their season so far.
The New York Mets came to Chicago looking to beat up on a reeling Cubs team. Instead, they got beat up and are reeling themselves.
1. J.D. Davis needs to be on the bench period. He continues to prove he can’t field, and that really hurt the team in this series.
2. In the three game set Taijuan Walker, David Peterson, and Joey Lucchesi failed to go four innings let along five.
3. Walker and Peterson were really hurt by Davis’ defense. Walker would also be hurt by walks as would Lucchesi.
4. The more you see Lucchesi, the more you realize he’s not a starter, but he might be a great reliever.
5. One bright spot of this series was maybe discovering Sean Reid-Foley could be a real piece. He kept his walks down for a night. If he can do it for many nights, watch out.
6. Speaking of watch out, Pete Alonso is heating up. He hit some big homers, one of which left the ballpark.
7. Michael Conforto almost hit one out, and he at least appears to be working towards being his normal self.
8. After all the nonsense and hand wringing over Francisco Lindor, he hit his first homer and had his first three hit game.
9. Jeff McNeil just can’t seem to get going this year. It’s really difficult to pinpoint the problem too.
10. While the Mets are struggling at the plate, it’s too early to derive conclusions. That said, they’re following the same patterns as other Chili Davis coached teams with climbing ground ball rates.
11. James McCann is just so good mechanically, and he gets the ball out so quickly, he gives his middle infielders a real chance to get down the tag.
12. The one issue with McCann is he hasn’t been great receiving throws. Then again, the throws to him at home have been terrible.
13. The Mets defense on Wednesday set the sport back. It was just that bad, inexcusably so.
14. Davis can be terrible all he wants, but he has no one to blame but himself. He sure can’t blame Alonso.
15. The state of umpiring in the game is really bad. We’ve seen Mets pitchers get really squeezed. Walker was ejected AFTER he was removed from the game. Kris Bryant still hasn’t touched first.
16. Luis Guillorme is the epitome of a grinder. Down 12 with two outs in the ninth, and he battles in an at-bat and gets a hit.
17. If Brandon Nimmo has an issue, the Mets should just get him on the IL. Get him the rest to allow him to come back as their best offensive player.
18. If Kevin Pillar is struggling this much, the Mets should at least throw Albert Almora at least one start.
19. Edwin Diaz has great stuff, and he can be absolutely dominating and unhittable. That said, it’s really difficult to trust him when he implodes like he did in the 10th inning.
20. It’s hard to take people seriously when they support runners on second in extra innings and seven inning doubleheaders, but they get bent out of shape about uniform colors.
New York Mets manager Luis Rojas rolled the dice a number of times in the game against the Chicago Cubs, and he kept getting lucky. Really, it was a number of just interesting, weird, and outright wrong decisions.
With J.D. Davis incapable of playing third, the Mets finally relented and put him on the bench. The Mets also sat Jeff McNeil. That led to Luis Guillorme at third and Jonathan Villar at second, instead of the reverse, which would’ve been the better defensive alignment.
So, naturally, right off the bat, Rojas’ (or front offices’) decision looked genius when Guillorme robbed Ian Happ:
? @lguillorme13 pic.twitter.com/icoaKiVyNq
— New York Mets (@Mets) April 22, 2021
This helped Joey Lucchesi get through the first two innings unscathed. Unfortunately, the Cubs would get to him in the third.
After walking two with one out, Lucchesi was on the verge of escaping the inning unscathed after a Happ flyout. Lucchesi had some bad luck with he got hit by a Willson Contreras comebacker driving in a run.
Kris Bryant then hit a two run double giving the Cubs an early 3-0 lead. That would prove to be it for Lucchesi as he would be lifted in the fourth for a pinch hitter.
The Mets responded in the fourth immediately. Dominic Smith doubled, and then Pete Alonso followed with yet another homer to pull the Mets to within 3-2.
Another one for PEEEETE! #LGM pic.twitter.com/ys5HaAhjfT
— New York Mets (@Mets) April 23, 2021
The Mets would have a chance to build on this but couldn’t. Michael Conforto would double, and Villar drew a walk. That was it as neither Kevin Pillar nor Nimmo, who pinch hit for Lucchesi, could drive home the tying run.
At the time, Lucchesi had only thrown 60 pitches, and the Mets bullpen had been worked hard the past few nights. Rather than err on the side of caution, Rojas went to recently called up Sean Reid-Foley.
Reid-Foley was phenomenal pitching three scoreless. A pitcher who has struggled all of his career with control walked none and struck out four.
In the seventh, Rojas got lucky again. With one out and one on, Rojas tapped Davis to pinch hit over McNeil against Ryan Terpera. It worked as Davis hit a game tying RBI double, which should’ve been a triple as the ball got away from Jake Marisnick.
After a scoreless seventh by Trevor May, Rojas made the very curious decision of having Aaron Loup start the inning with the first Cubs LHP due up sixth.
The decision looked like an immediate disaster with Marisnick hitting a lead-off triple. Loup bore down getting Austin Romine to pop out, and Happ to strike out.
Rojas then went to Miguel Castro. Why Castro didn’t start the inning is anyone’s guess. Castro came up big striking out Contreras to end the inning.
Rojas then made yet another curious move. He only used Castro for the one batter. He would wind up double switching Edwin Diaz into the game which was setting the stage for Diaz to pitch two innings.
Notably, Diaz is not accustomed to two innings, and he’s not great with runners on base. With his being set up to pitch the 10th, and there being the ridiculous runner on second rule, that’s an important consideration.
The Mets got to the 10th partially because James McCann threw out another runner. On the play, Bryant had the bag stolen, but he came off the bag for a nanosecond. McNeil, who was double switched into the game with Diaz, kept the tag on leading to Bryant being called out.
In the 10th, Villar started the inning on second because Rob Manfred hates baseball. He’d quickly be on third due to a wild pitch. After McNeil struck out, Guillorme and Francisco Lindor walked loading the bases with one out.
Dominic Smith had the chance to deliver a huge hit. He hit the ball hard, but right at the second baseman David Bote, who started the inning ending 4-6-3 double play.
The Mets would not get another opportunity as Rojas’ luck finally ran out.
Diaz started the 10th, which meant a runner on second. His first pitch of the inning hit Matt Duffy. Bote would lay down the sacrifice. On the bunt, Alonso had a play at third, but he’d slip leaving only the out at first.
Rojas ordered the intentional walk to load the bases, and Jason Heyward came up as a pinch hitter. Diaz would throw one down the middle, and Heyward ripped a game winning single.
With that, the Mets suffered their first sweep of the season. They lost to a bad Cubs team and really looked bad in the process. At least, they are still .500 and in first place.
Game Notes: Trevor Hildenberger was sent down to make room for Reid-Foley. Mets were 1-for-8 with RISP stranding seven.
For two nights in a row, J.D. Davis made errors which cost the New York Mets dearly. In back-to-back nights, his defense was a direct cause of Taijuan Walker and David Peterson being unable to navigate through five innings.
The problems with Davis at third are multi-faceted. He sometimes has difficulty hitting balls hit right at him. He doesn’t have range. While he has a strong arm, he seemingly has the yips where he is taking multiple steps before releasing the ball.
Honestly, this is a player who is crossed up right now, and it is an adventure when he is out there. Right now, his play is on par with Todd Hundley in left field or Mike Piazza at first base. Put another way, the Mets are putting a player in a position to fail, and despite Davis’ best efforts, he’s failing miserably.
This is not a direct reflection on the effort. We all saw the reports of Davis working with Gary Disarcina and Francisco Lindor. There is really nothing to doubt the effort. That said, there is every reason to doubt he can play third base or any position.
Since joining the Mets in 2019, Davis has a -19 DRS at third base. That is the worst at the position by a significant margin. In fact, on just his play at third base alone, he’s the fifth worst defender in the majors. When you include his -9 DRS in left field, he surpasses Jurickson Profar as the worst fielder in all the majors.
The Mets were attempting to hide him at third, and they thought putting him next to Lindor would help. Seeing him in action this year and over the past three years, it’s not working. It can’t work.
Also, keep in mind, the Mets are not just trying to hide Davis’ glove. Because they refused to make the hard decisions, they put Pete Alonso at first pushing Dominic Smith to left field. That put Brandon Nimmo to center. Of all those moves, Nimmo in center seems to be the only one working well. That’s the Mets getting lucky.
The Smith in left field is another factor. The Mets left side defense is atrocious. He and Davis combined are working to neutralize Lindor. Honestly, what is the point of getting Lindor if you’re going to surround him by terrible defenders? That’s like putting a great sound system in a Ford Pinto.
The bigger problem is the Mets pitching staff. We saw it with Walker and Peterson, and we will see it with Marcus Stroman. In fact, we will also see it with Jacob deGrom. The Mets have a ground ball pitching staff. That issue will further compound it self when Carlos Carrasco and Noah Syndergaard return from the IL.
Overall, the Mets have built a team based on ground ball pitching. That is why you could believe you can get away with Smith in left and Nimmo in left. That’s all well and good. However, you can’t assemble a ground ball staff and put literally take the worst defensive third baseman in the majors and make him the starter.
The Mets decision is compounded by the fact they have Luis Guillorme, who is a great defender. We also see Guillorme is hitting to start the season. He’s a grinder who is just never going to give up. Case-in-point is Guillorme’s at-bat last night. The Mets were down 12 with two outs in the ninth, and he got a base hit after battling in a seven pitch at-bat.
Overall, when you look at how the Mets built this team, Davis cannot start. When you look at how mightily, he’s struggling, Davis cannot start. When you see his numbers over the past three years, Davis cannot start. When you see the other options available, Davis cannot start.
Yes, this is getting redundant, but then again, so is the Mets insistence on trying to make Davis an everyday player. They tried. Davis tried. It’s not working, and they are putting an entire season at risk by doing so. It’s time to make Davis the strong bench player he was always meant to be and allow Guillorme and/or Jonathan Villar play in his stead.
David Peterson had no-hit the Chicago Cubs for the first 3.1 innings. That was despite a moving and ever changing strike zone.
The Mets had a 2-0 lead, and things looked great. After all, Francisco Lindor hit his first homer with the Mets:
Número uno.@Lindor12BC | #LGM pic.twitter.com/U1BJeJqRBX
— New York Mets (@Mets) April 21, 2021
Not only would the Mets lose this one, but they would lose bad. Adding salt in the wound was how embarrassing a loss it was. The fourth inning defense was just about the worst you’ve ever seen:
The Mets just keep hurting themselves in the field. This reel is from the last two innings alone… pic.twitter.com/xZyjC90hmw
— Anthony DiComo (@AnthonyDiComo) April 22, 2021
It was 2-1 Mets after the Cubs hit three consecutive singles. With runners on first and second, Javier Baez hit what should’ve been an inning ending double play. Instead, J.D. Davis, the worst defender in baseball, booted it.
That error not only allowed the inning to continue, but it opened the floodgates. It also precipitated just a series of gaffes.
Michael Conforto threw one away. Lindor booted one and then threw it away. After all was said and done, the Cubs scored seven runs. Gary Cohen called it a circus, and he was being kind.
In the fifth, Lindor had a bloop, and Pete Alonso had a blast. That’s putting it mildly. Alonso killed that ball:
Pete with a side of TATER. ? #LGM pic.twitter.com/F9BCmwTs0J
— New York Mets (@Mets) April 22, 2021
At that time, they had hope. It was just 7-4. The problem was the Mets weren’t done playing just awful baseball.
Lindor and Jeff McNeil got crossed up on who should play a ball. That turned into a Willson Contreras double. James McCann had a catcher’s interference.
One potential inning ending double play ball deflected off Robert Gsellman‘s leg and into center. Another was hit to Davis who took his time and STILL nearly threw it into the outfield.
That was just the three run fifth.
In the sixth. Trevor Hildenberger walked the bases loaded before allowing a grand slam to Javier Baez. At that point, it was 14-4, and frankly, it seemed like the Mets were lucky to be that close.
It got to that point Guillorme pitched. That’s right, their second best defender pitched while Jonathan Villar took over at short with Davis at third.
Guillorme allowed two runs making it 16-4. The sad part is this ruined Guillorme’s 0.00 ERA entering the game.
Perhaps, the most impressive part of the game was Guillorme. With the Mets down 12 and two outs in the ninth, Guillorme battled, and eventually, he pulled off the single. The Mets wouldn’t score that inning.
The Mets lost, but at least they played Davis at third. That, and not winning games or supporting their young sinkerball pitcher, is what’s really important.
Game Notes: Brandon Nimmo sat out with a sore hip. Luis Guillorme is hitting .417/.563/.417, but he can’t start over Davis.