Jose Reyes
Was it too much rest? Was it Julian Edelman? Maybe it’s just that Matt Harvey still isn’t quite right. Whatever the case, this was another disappointing start for Harvey.
Through the first five innings, he was fighting it. He needed 97 pitches to get through those innings. His mechanics weren’t sharp. He was laboring. He was walking batters. He was getting hit hard. He didn’t have a 1-2-3 inning until the fifth.
In the second, he allowed a leadoff walk to Domingo Santana who then scored on a Jett Bandy double. On the play, Curtis Granderson had trouble both tracking it down and picking the ball up. Ultimately, it didn’t matter, but it was an ugly play.
Hernan Perez homered to start the third giving the Brewers a 2-0 lead. To be honest, the score probably should have been worse than that. They were really lucky to still be in the game.
They initially took advantage. Neil Walker brought the Mets within one with a fourth inning home run. The Mets then put together a two out rally in the sixth after Michael Conforto just missed hitting one out to deep center.
Asdrubal Cabrera doubled and moved to third on a wild pitch. Jay Bruce walked. Cabrera would score on an ensuing Walker RBI single. The rally ended when the Brewers put on a pickoff play, and Bandy caught Bruce sleeping. The play prevented the Mets from potentially taking the lead. They wouldn’t get close again.
Coming off a strong fifth, Terry Collins decided to stick with Harvey to start the sixth. What was a decent start Harvey could possibly build off of turned into a nightmare.
Eric Sogard and Orlando Arcia would hit back-to-back homers giving the Brewers a 5-2 lead. With that, a Harvey who was probably done after five innings was officially removed from the game.
It’s hard to tell why Harvey was still out there. It’s possible Collins thought Harvey found something and thought Harvey had another inning in him. Perhaps, he was trying to save his pen with Jeurys Familia going on the DL after his surgery today to repair the aneurysm in his throwing shoulder.
Whatever the case, Harvey struggled, and he got tagged with the loss. Brewers starter, Matt Garza, who was able to pitch the sixth, got the win.
The Mets bullpen behind Harvey would struggle. Josh Edgin allowed a double to Jonathan Villar. After a walk to Perez, there were runners at the corners with one out. Edgin would strike out Travis Shaw on a 3-2 pitch. Perez ran on the pitch, and he forced a run down allowing Villar to score.
Rafael Montero came on to pitch the seventh. While he looked pretty good, he still allowed a home run to Bandy to make it 7-2.
It wasn’t until Paul Sewald came on in the eighth that the Mets bullpen didn’t allow a run. The Mets could’ve used a little better effort from their bullpen as their offense came alive in the ninth.
Walker continued his terrific night leading off the ninth with a single. Overall, he was 3-3 with two runs, a walk, a homer, and two RBI. He’d move to third on a Granderson double, and he’d score on a T.J. Rivera RBI single. Granderson would score on a wild pitch to make it 7-4.
That would be the final score. You can’t win when the opposing team had as many home runs as you have runs scored. It was a night that had some promise, but it all fell apart in the bottom of the sixth.
Game Notes: Lucas Duda returned from the DL, and he was 1-4 with a double. With Duda being activated and Cabrera ready to play, Jose Reyes sat, and Rivera played. Rivera was 1-3 with an RBI and a walk.
At this point, it’s almost become rote. The Mets have a lead late in the game, and Terry Collins inserts Juan Lagares into the game as a defensive replacement.
The move makes a lot of sense. Not only is Lagares a Gold Glover in centerfield, but the Mets also lack another true defensive center fielder. Another thing the Mets lack is a true defensive third baseman.
With David Wright‘s injury problems, the Mets have been forced to play players out of position. The results have been poor. The Mets collection of third baseman have a -1 DRS and -2.7 UZR which rank 20th and 27th in the majors respectively.
The main culprits there are Jose Reyes and Wilmer Flores. Reyes has a career -8 DRS and -4.5 UZR at third base. Flores has a career -10 DRS and -1.9 UZR at third. Simply put, neither player is a third baseman.
We all saw that on yesterday’s game. Flores doesn’t have good range at third, and he’s iffy with his throws. In the sixth, he spiked a throw to home plate when he had Christian Arroyo dead to rights. It took a good play by Kevin Plawecki to save him from the error and to record the out.
There was no one to bail Flores out in the ninth. In what could’ve been a game ending double play, Flores threw the ball offline. A Neil Walker stretch prevented the ball from going into right field, big it couldn’t get the force out at second. As we know, this came back to haunt the Mets in a 6-5 loss.
The obvious question that arises is why was Flores still on the field. The Mets had a 3-2 lead in the ninth inning. Their closer, Jeurys Familia, is a sinker ball pitcher who generates a number of ground outs. With that being the case, isn’t it incumbent on Collins to put his best defensive infield out there?
Matt Reynolds, who is generally regarded as a good defensive infielder, was available on the bench. Certainly, he’s a better defender than Flores at third. Much better actually. Why wasn’t he in the game?
Keep in mind, this was another game Collins over-managed. He used four relievers to pitch two innings. He went to the extreme on the matchups to the point where he removed his eighth inning reliever, Addison Reed, because a left-handed batter was coming to the plate. He did that despite Reed pitching extremely well against left-handed batters during his time with the Mets.
If Collins is willing to empty his pen, why not his bench? What’s the justifiable reason for keeping the better infielder on the bench with a sinker ball pitcher on the mound? There is no good reason.
Look, we can all agree that it’s the players in the field who win or lose games. Certainly, Flores helped lost this game with his error. Familia was the one who gave up the subsequent hits. However, ask yourself whether Collins put his team in the best position to succeed in the ninth inning.
The answer to that needs to be a clear and unequivocal, “No.”
Imagine believing you need to use multiple relievers every inning. Imagine using the same relievers. relievers day after day after day. Sooner or later it catches up to you. That moment was today for the Mets.
It spoiled what was a good day for Tommy Milone. Despite being released by the Brewers and his not having started a game since April 25th, he pitched well.
Milone pitched five innings allowing six hits, two runs, two earned, and two walks with five strikeouts. He exited the game in the sixth after allowing back-to-back singles to Buster Posey and Christian Arroyo.
Fernando Salas came on for Milone and allowed one of the inherited runners to score. That run scored when Justin Ruggiano followed a Nick Hundley single with a deep sacrifice fly. From there Salas slammed the door shut.
Gorkys Hernandez grounded to the third baseman Wilmer Flores. Instead of trying for the around the horn double play, Flores went home. Kevin Plawecki made a terrific play picking up Flores’ short-hopped throw to tag out Arroyo, who just stopped running on the play. Salas followed this out by striking out Mike Morse to end the rally.
With Salas ending the rally, Milone was in position to earn his first win in a Mets uniform – a win he didn’t get. Milone was in that position because he helped his own cause. In the fourth, Milone hit an RBI single off Matt Cain to expand the Mets lead to 3-1. The single scored Curtis Granderson, who had a pretty good game himself.
It started with an opposite field double in the first inning to give the Mets a 1-0 lead. He also reached on a Buster Posey error to get the aforementioned rally started.
The other run was courtesy of Jay Bruce:
Cain threw Bruce a middle-middle changeup and Bruce took it for a ride. It landed deep in the bullpen. pic.twitter.com/5TYgdVGfyr
— CitiFieldHR (@CitiFieldHR) May 10, 2017
After losing one to the rainout, Bruce finally got his 10th home run back. The third inning homer also snapped a 1-1 tie. The game was tied because Posey hit yet another homer off the Mets.
The Mets had a chance to put the game away in the sixth. With a perfect Juan Lagares bunt down the third base line, the bases were loaded against Giants reliever George Kontos with one out. Kontos then recorded back-to-back strikeouts of Asdrubal Cabrera (pinch hitting for Salas) and Jose Reyes to keep it at 3-2.
The Mets similarly fizzled in the seventh. Bruce and Neil Walker hit back-to-back one out singles. Granderson popped up, and Flores lined out to kill that rally.
The Mets bullpen tried to keep it at 3-2. Josh Edgin (one batter) and Hansel Robles combined to pitch a scoreless seventh. This continues Robles’ 14 inning scoreless streak.
Addison Reed and Jerry Blevins pitched a scoreless eighth. Blevins came on with two outs in the eighth because Brandon Belt was announced as a pinch hitter. Blevins probably came on because Terry Collins was probably having a panic attack thinking about the possibility Blevins may not pitch in a game. He also completely disregarded Reed’s numbers against left-handed batters.
Reed career .236/.296/.353 off LHB. In 2016, LHB hit .210/.264/.269. Good thing Terry got him out of there.
— Mets Daddy (@MetsDaddy2013) May 10, 2017
The Mets would rue the town blown opportunities to tack on runs as Jeurys Familia blew his first save of the season.
Ironically, it wasn’t Conor Gillaspie who got to him. In fact, Familia dispatched with him easily. In fact, it was Flores who got to Familia. After Joe Panik walked, Flores threw off line to second. Instead of an inning ending double play, there were runners on first and second. Hunter Pence singled past a diving Flores to tie the game at 3-3. Posey then walked, and Arroyo hit a bases clearing double to make it 6-3.
At that point, Rafael Montero came into the game. Note, he didn’t make his way into a 6-1 game, but today, he relieved Familia. Because he has a sick sense of humor, Montero recorded two quick outs to get out of the inning.
Flores redeemed himself a bit in the ninth. After the Mets put two on with two outs in the ninth, he came up. Flores hit one that deflected just off Ruggiano’s glove and the top of the wall. It made it 6-5, but it was too little too late. Kevin Plawecki grounded out to the catcher ending the game.
The winning streak is over, and the Mets fell to a game under .500.
Game Notes: Michael Conforto sat with a hamstring issue. With Bruce in right and Juan Lagares in center, Granderson played left. With Conforto sitting, Reyes returned to the lead-off spot.
It started early for the Mets. Steven Matz was injured before Opening Day, and the Mets again wondering what is really wrong with him. Seth Lugo pitched in the World Baseball Classic, partially tore his UCL, and he is going to try to rehab it rather than having Tommy John surgery. Indirectly, this led to Rafael Montero pitching like, well, Montero. It also led to a less than inspiring performance by Adam Wilk.
Noah Syndergaard is gone for an extended period of time with a torn lat. Matt Harvey has been suspended three games for failing to show up at the ballpark. Yoenis Cespedes and Lucas Duda have not played in a few weeks, and there are just rumors that they are soon to return. Travis d’Arnaud is yet again on the disabled list himself, and as usual we are unaware when he can return. Once again, Asdrubal Cabrera has been hobbled in the early part of the season leading everyone to wonder when the Mets finally put him on the disabled list.
Jeurys Familia was suspended for the first few weeks of the season, and he was not sharp immediately upon his return. Addison Reed struggled in his adaption to closer and again in his transition to the eighth inning reliever. Fernando Salas just struggled, and Josh Smoker has probably struggled more than Reed and Salas combined.
Jose Reyes was hitting .095 midway through April. Curtis Granderson entered the month hitting just .128. Neil Walker is under the Mendoza Line against right-handed pitching, and he entered the month of May hitting just .195. Wilmer Flores cannot his right-handed pitching. Juan Lagares can’t hit any pitching.
The end result was the Mets losing six in a row and 10 of 11. Already, people were starting to wonder if this team was similar to the 1992 or the 2009 Mets teams. Despite all of this, the Mets are back at .500 and second place in the National League East. How did it happen?
Well, for starters young and under utilized players have stepped up. Michael Conforto went from the bench to one of the best hitters in baseball. For the second straight season, T.J. Rivera has taken complete advantage of an unexpected opportunity being given to him. Josh Edgin has become a dominant LOOGY in the bullpen. We have even seen Paul Sewald step up pitching terrifically after some initial hiccups.
Then there are the veterans who have had career best seasons so far. Jay Bruce is on base to put up career best numbers in every offensive category. Jerry Blevins has been used almost every game, and he is putting up better numbers than he did last year’s career best season for him. Rene Rivera is hitting over .300. Hansel Robles is 4-0 with a 1.56 ERA in 16 appearances.
More than there, the Mets have exhibited some professional pride. Reyes is hitting .282/.341/.564 with three doubles, a triple, two homers, nine RBI and a stolen base over his last 10 games. Granderson has hit .250/.368/.625 with three doubles, a homer, and four RBI over his last five games. Walker has hit .276/.364/.414 with four doubles and four RBI in the month of May.
In addition, the bullpen has been much better of late. Familia has had five straight scoreless outings. Reed has allowed just two hits with no runs in the month of May. Terry Collins has been more judicious in his use of Salas, and Salas has not allowed any runs in his last five appearances. With Blevins, Edgin, and Robles continuing their outstanding seasons, this has become the dominant bullpen everyone envisioned it would be to start the year.
With the combination of the resurgent veterans and the outstanding young player, the Mets are winning again. In the month of May, the Mets lead the majors in runs scored. They are fifth in the National League in homers. However, unlike last year, the Mets do not need homers to score runs. The Mets .320 team batting average and .517 slugging with runners in scoring position is second best in the majors, and its .419 OBP with runners in scoring position is the best in baseball.
Despite all the noise around the Mets, this team is playing its best baseball of the season. Once their pitching gets relatively healthy, and their current pitchers pitch close to their true talent levels, this team will once again be one of the best teams in all of baseball. Until then, this current group of Mets will make sure the Washington Nationals will be within shouting distance allowing the Mets to compete for the division.
It doesn’t matter how poorly the Giants are playing this season. If Zack Wheeler is going to pitch like he did tonight, he is going to beat even the best offensive teams.
Through six innings, Wheeler allowed just two hits and one run. The only issue was the four walks, but with the stuff he had there was no way the Giants were capitalizing. His slider was sharp, and he was getting his fastball up to 98 MPH. The only damage against him was a Buster Posey fourth inning solo homer.
By the time Posey hit that homer, the game was effectively over. The resurgent Mets offense jumped all over Jeff Samardzija.
In the first, Eduardo Nunez misplayed a Neil Walker ball into a two RBI “triple.” The ball was likely going to land and score one run, but it was not a triple.
Jose Reyes singled home Walker, and Rene Rivera doubled him home. Just like that it was 4-0.
In the second, back-to-back doubles by Michael Conforto and T.J. Rivera made it 5-0. In the seventh, Conforto put the final nail in the coffin hitting a solo home run to left-center field.
Now, despite having a 6-1 lead in a May game against a terrible offense, Terry Collins managed the eighth inning like it was the eighth inning in the seventh game of the World Series.
After a scoreless seventh, Collins let Hansel Robles start the eighth. After Robles hit Justin Ruggiano, Collins brought in Jerry Blevins to pitch to the left-handed hitters Joe Panik and Brandon Belt. Collins went to Blevins despite him being used way too frequently early this season despite the score being 6-1, and despite left-handed hitters hitting just 1-19 off Robles.
After Blevins got the two lefties, Collins went to Addison Reed to face Hunter Pence because of a little known MLB rule that if Pence hits a home run in Citi Field in the eighth inning of a game played on May 9th with the Giants down by five runs, the home run counts for 10 runs.
This ladies and gentleman is why Collins has stuck around long enough to pass Bobby Valentine for the second most games managed in Mets history.
Naturally, given how close this 6-1 game was Collins went to Jeurys Familia to close it out in the ninth. Somehow, the official scorer did not give Familia a save for this one. In any event, thanks to Collins pulling out all the stops, the Mets are back to .500.
Game Notes: Josh Smoker was sent down before the game to make room for Matt Harvey whose suspension just ended. Rafael Montero remains on the roster.
This just isn’t the same Jacob deGrom. Sure, he looks the same. The stuff sure looks similar, and he’s even getting big strikeout numbers. Still, something is off with him. Tonight was another example.
The Giants entered the game as the worst offense in the National League, and yet, they jumped all over deGrom. Hunter Pence hit a two run homer in the first to make it 2-0. After the Mets battled back to tie, Buster Posey hit one in the second deck to make it 3-2.
The final line for deGrom was six innings, four hits, three runs, three earned, three walks, and 12 strikeouts. He needed 105 pitches to get through the six innings. He’s now allowed at least three runs in each of his last four starts.
Despite to relative struggles, deGrom got the no decision as the Mets offense was scoring runs again.
In the first, Neil Walker hit an RBI ground rule double scoring Michael Conforto, who had earned a lead-off walk. Given the Madison Bumgarner game started the narrative that Conforto can’t hit lefties, it should be noted Conforto has been very respectable against lefties. So far, he is 3-12 with a homer and two walks against left-handed pitching. That includes him going 1-3 with a walk tonight against Giants starter Matt Moore.
The Mets tied the score at two when they strung three hits together to begin the fifth. deGrom and Conforto singled, and deGrom scored on a T.J. Rivera double. Despite the Mets leading the majors with batting average with RISP, the Mets could not push another run across despite there being no outs.
After the Mets fell behind on the Posey homer, the Mets responded. Juan Lagares was on first with two outs after Rene Rivera, who singled, was forced out at second. Bruce Bochy then made a very curious decision. After Curtis Granderson was announced as a pinch hitter, Bochy stuck with George Kontos despite lefties hitting .333/.455/.444 off him this year. Granderson made the Giants pay by hitting a game tying RBI double.
From there, it became a battle of the bullpens. Terry Collins continued his recent habit of not letting Fernando Salas pitch to left-handed batters. This meant after Salas recorded the first two outs, Collins went to Jerry Blevins to get the final out of the inning. With Addison Reed pitching a scoreless eighth, he was in position for the win.
The Mets would load the bases off Giants reliever Derek Law with one out. After Jose Reyes walked to start the inning, Rivera singled again, and Lagares walked. Asdrubal Cabrera, who has seemingly injured everything but his pinky toe, entered the game as a pinch hitter. He’d kill the rally by hitting into an inning ending 6-4-3 double play.
Going back to Conforto’s supposed struggled against lefties, Bochy brought on the left-handed reliever Josh Osich to start the ninth. Conforto worked out a lead-off walk.
After Osich retired the next two, Hunter Strickland relieved him. Wilmer Flores greeted him by hitting an infield single off his foot. Then Walker lined a ball to right for his first ever walk-off hit.
For all the talk about the Mets dysfunction, the Mets have now won seven of their last 10 games.
Game Notes: Despite rumors Gavin Cecchini was getting called-up, the Mets never made a roster move to put him on the major league roster. Jeurys Familia earned the win after pitching a scoreless ninth.
So far, the following Mets have been chosen to wear the crown after a Mets win:
- Asdrubal Cabrera
- Travis d’Arnaud
- Noah Syndergaard
- Jay Bruce
- Yoenis Cespedes
- Zack Wheeler
- Michael Conforto
- Jerry Blevins
- Jose Reyes
- T.J. Rivera
The 10 players wearing the crown are depicted here:
Jay III pic.twitter.com/WH15dctngd
— Meditations in Panic City (@MedInPanicCity) May 7, 2017
Looking over that photo, there is one thing that stands out – Jay Bruce is the only player to accompany the crown with a stately orange and blue king’s robe. Bruce is not only comfortable in New York, but he also wants to be its king.
If he keeps this up, he certainly will. Through his first 28 games, Bruce is hitting .291/.376/.609. If he continues this, all three would easily be career bests. He’s on pace to score 112 runs, hit 47 doubles, 50 homers, and 140 RBI. Those wouldn’t be just career bests, those numbers would amount to the best season a Mets position player has ever had.
Certainly, if he even comes close to that, he will forever be Mets royalty.
The Mets took a first inning lead when T.J. Rivera jumped all over a Tom Koehler pitch to make it 1-0. That was fun while it lasted.
Rafael Montero took the mound and was Rafael Montero. By some minor miracle, he had two scoreless before the Marlins scratched a run across in the third. Then the fourth inning happened. The 1-1 game became 6-1 in an inning Montero had just one on with two outs.
He then allowed singles to Martin Prado and Christian Yelich to load the bases. To be fair to Montero, the Prado ball was probably a ball Jose Reyes, who was playing shortstop for the injured Asdrubal Cabrera, should have gotten. Instead of getting out of the inning, the bases were loaded, and Giancarlo Stanton hit a two RBI double.
With the score 3-1, Terry Collins, like most of us, had enough of Montero. His final line was 3.2 innings, seven hits, five runs, five earned, three walks, and four strikeouts. The line looked a little uglier because Josh Smoker imploded as well allowing the inherited runners to score along with two of his own.
At that point, it was 7-1, and it appeared like the Mets were just playing out the string. Instead, they fought back.
It started with Curtis Granderson hitting a two run homer in the bottom of the fourth. The homer put the Mets within reach and made the ensuing comeback more manageable.
Part of that comeback was some terrific bullpen work. Fernando Salas, Hansel Robles, Jerry Blevins, Addison Reed, and Jeurys Familia combined to pitch 4.1 innings allowing just four hits and no walks while striking out three. This outstanding work allowed the five run seventh inning rally to matter.
It all started with Wilmer Flores hitting an opposite field single that dropped just in front of Stanton in right. Reyes doubled him to third, and Rene Rivera singled him home setting up first and third with no outs.
Cabrera then pinch hit for Blevins and knocked home Reyes. Michael Conforto loaded the bases with a single up the middle. T.J. would then tie the game with a two RBI double:
That was it for Brad Ziegler. He allowed the Mets to tie the score and put the go ahead run on third without recording an out.
Kyle Barraclough came on and almost bailed the Marlins out of the jam. He got back-to-back strikeouts of Jay Bruce and Neil Walker. From there, he lost control of the strike zone, and the Mets would break the 7-7 tie.
In the three pitches he did throw to Granderson, they weren’t particularly close. After Granderson was intentionally walked (thank the Lord we were saved from that one pitch), Barraclough threw four straight balls to Flores to make it 8-7.
With the Flores walk, a terrific comeback was complete. Just like they did last year, Reed and Familia combined to slam the door shut.
It was a terrific night where everyone pitched in to help the Mets win. Both Rivera’s really stood out. T.J. was 2-4 with a run, double, homer, and three RBI. Rene was 2-4 with a run, dlubke, and
With the win, the Mets are now just two games under .500, and they are now in third place in the East.
Game Notes: Travis d’Arnaud was put on the 10 day DL to make room for Montero.