In what could have been considered a must-win game against the division-leading Washington Nationals, Logan Verrett was mostly up to the task. The Mets’ offense was mostly not. Verrett, pressed into duty by Steven Matz’s elbow bone spur, threw a decent five innings, victimized mainly by Daniel Murphy’s second inning home run. In all, he surrendered four hits, four walks and two earned runs while striking out one batter.
The Mets’ bats, however, shuddered before the might of Max Scherzer. Scherzer pitched one out into the eighth and was pulled after 108 pitches and allowing only his second hit of the game. He struck out ten and walked one — basically, your typical Max Scherzer outing. For some reason, though, Nationals’ manager Dusty Baker played it like the seventh game of the World Series. Old buddy Oliver Perez came on to face the pinch-hitting Curtis Granderson and gave up a base hit. Baker then pulled Perez in favor of Blake Treinen, who induced the pinch-hitting Travis d’Arnaud to hit a slow grounder to third for the second out and moving both runners into scoring position. Baker then hooked Treinen in favor of his de facto closer Shawn Kelley who struck out Alejandro De Aza to quell the brief threat.
In the bottom of the eighth, the Nationals salted the game away when Sean Gilmartin walked Bryce Harper just ahead of Murphy’s second homer of the night. Oh, those tack-on runs…In the top of the ninth, the Mets finally broke their 24-inning scoreless streak when Yoenis Cespedes singled and James Loney hit an agonizingly superfluous homer. Hope stirred again briefly when Kelly Johnson doubled, but young Brandon Nimmo stood with the bat on his shoulder to end the game.
The Mets are still in third place, now six games behind Washington and will welcome the Chicago Cubs to Citi Field tomorrow night.
Lord help us.
Here is a line copied and pasted from another blog page that sums up how and why I feel so badly about tonight’s game – “Murphy is hitting .429 with four home runs and 11 RBIs in nine games against the Mets.”
Why oh why didn’t the Mets retain this player! Murphy is the new Chipper Jones!
One opinion, one fact, and one comment:
Opinion: Murphy is a big part of the Nationals success, but not quite the major reason. The major reason is the diversity of the offense with aeveral players contributing nightly and good pitching.
Fact: Listened to the game on radio once more, and around the eighth inning as Rose was saying how the Mets hadn’t scored in 22 innings or since Flores was thrown out on the squeeze play, Lewin said that Collins was asked why this team doesn’t hit and run or sacrifice more. Collins referred to the failed squeeze as an example and said this team is not equipped to play that way. I would like to say that I couldn’t believe his state of mind, but I really wasn’t surprised.
Comment: This team has no energy. Don’t like the catcher that was second to Posey last year in OPS hitting eighth, I don’t care what his numbers are. Don’t like Nimmo’s OBP in the seven spot, don’t like Loney at cleanup. Teams’ management approaches aren’t just to win tonight’s game, but to build up for the rest of the year and going forward. That is lost on the Mets. This team will never win with this guy.
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Had to share this found in a comment by Syndergod on MMO:
http://m.710wor.iheart.com/onair/the-wor-sports-zone-with-pete-54272/lady-gaga-aids-as-wors-pete-14864785/
Hysterical!