Clint Eastwood would have loved this game; it was the good, the bad and the ugly.
The good: Noah Syndergaard made his major league debut and was mostly impressive. For five-plus innings, he arrived as advertised, if a bit wild. He mowed down the Cubs in the first two innings, but ran into trouble with two outs in the third, when Kris Bryant hit a grounder to Daniel Murphy at third, but a wide throw pulled Lucas Duda off the bag. Syndergaard then walked Anthony Rizzo and Miguel Montero, but escaped further damage when Jorge Soler flied out to left. He was also able to dodge trouble in the fifth, when Bryant hit a two-out triple, Rizzo walked again but Montero flied out.
The bad: a number of issues. The Mets’ offense was non-existent against Jake Arrieta. Syndergaard’s sixth inning was where things fell apart, as he surrendered a leadoff single to Soler, a Starlin Castro RBI double and a home run by Chris Coghlan to end his night. And Alex Torres who had his fourth poor outing in a row.
The ugly: Curtis Granderson running the Mets right out of the fourth inning. He had led off with a five-pitch walk — in fact his two walks were the only damage to Arrieta to that point. Murphy followed with the Mets’ first hit, a dribbling single to shallow left. With the play right in front of him, Granderson inexplicably tried to go to third. The throw from Coghlan nailed him by about the width of Lake Michigan and when Michael Cuddyer hit into a craven double play, you just kinda knew the Mets were shot right there.
Once again, Matt Harvey is called upon to be the stopper. Happy Harvey Day…
PS — It couldn’t have helped to find out Juan Lagares was unavailable due to a muscle strain. Buddy Carlyle is also battling a sore back/hamstring.
Sometimes I don’t think you guys watch the game that you are writing about. This is the second time this year that this happened… Murphy took his time and then threw a soft toss to Duda and Bryant beat it out. He didn’t pull Duda off the bag.. That’s what makes it more frustrating. Murphy needed to throw a bullet and he took his time lolly gagging at 3rd..
That’s exactly right. Murphy played it like he had all the time in the world and soft tossed to Duda. It looked like he handled it like a ball hit to 2B not 3B. It was embarrassing and should have been an error.
I’d move the offense to the ugly…
I don’t know why Collins likes Murphy so much, since he is always talking about “playing the game right” (except for the obvious fact that Murph hits a bit better than most Mets—which isn’t saying much). Had Murphy been running—instead of Bryant—he wouldn’t have run hard to 1B and been out, even with a weak throw. As for Murphy’s hitting, his OPS+ numbers the past three years have been 103, 108, and 110, making him a bit above average hitter.
A. Torres struck out three straight batters on Saturday when Niese left the bases loaded and no one out. But yes, he has been shaky lately otherwise.
I wrote this in the chat. Time to start giving the kids their due and let the old foggies catch up. Tomorrow I want to see:
Herrera, Granny, Flores, Duda, Cuddyer, Murphy, Plawecki, Kirkkk
Herrera was leading off in AAA and this team needs a spark. This is more a demotion of players that probably wouldn’t care anyway like Cuddyer and Murphy, but let’s start seeing some new combinations because the old ways aren’t working.
Further, a microcosm of most of this season and especially lately: leadoff batter walks on five pitches. Second batter has a 3-1 count. Note: 7 balls and 2 strikes thrown by pitcher so far. Second batter swings at a low pitch on 3-1 grounding into double play. Second batter is supposedly one of our “better hitters”. I wonder if said second batter doesn’t seem to care much this year.
For what it’s worth, I was just reading BBTF about last night’s game and the Cub fans there were raving about Syndergaard.
I think he had an excellent start, made very fragile by terrible defense and an offense that apparently got off the plane in some city other than Chicago. Welcome to the Mets, Noah.