Pete Alonso drew a bases-loaded walk in the bottom of the ninth inning to send the Mets to a 5-4 win over the Phillies Friday night in the first of a three-game series in Citi Field. The Mets have won five of their last seven games, with three of those coming against the Phillies. New York and Philadelphia now hold identical 72-68 records.
The game-winning rally started with two outs. After Amed Rosario and Brandon Nimmo failed to do damage against changeups that caught a lot of the plate, Juan Lagares drilled a hard single when faced with the same pitch and same location. J.D. Davis hit a better change for a single to put runners on the corners. After a pitching change, Jeff McNeil was hit by a pitch on an 0-2 count to load the bases for Alonso.
Of course the game didn’t seem like it was heading to the bottom of the ninth, as the Mets scored twice in the bottom of the eighth to give them a 4-2 lead. With Seth Lugo seemingly unavailable, the Mets turned to Edwin Diaz to close out the game. Diaz threw some really good pitches, both fastballs and sliders, but hung a slider that was ripped by J.T. Realmuto for a game-tying two-run homer.
Alonso and Wilson Ramos delivered RBI hits in the eighth inning for the Mets. Earlier, Michael Conforto crushed an upper deck home run.
Aside from the dramatic ninth inning comeback after the Diaz meltdown, perhaps the nicest thing was the performance of Brad Brach who threw 1.1 innings of scoreless relief. With Diaz and Jeurys Familia being so unreliable, it would be extremely helpful for Brach to add a third decent reliever to Lugo and Justin Wilson.
I figured out a way for Broken Volkswagon to redeem himself for his idiotic preseason moves. Please Please trade Diaz back to Seattle for Kelnec even up plus the Mets can pay a portion of Diaz’s contract. He sucks and I’d love to see him never ever put on a Mets uniform again or throw another pitch for the Mets.
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We will take the win and move to 4 back of the cubbies. Great patience by Alonso who tried to do too much on that one swing that I thought he forgot a single and not a slam was all we needed for a W. Kudos to Matz with yet another good start. If we can get on a 5-6 game winning streak we could make up some ground. Keep the faith.
Gut reaction in September 2019 I don’t want to see Familia or Diaz pitch in a High Leverage situation. I always want to see Alonzo hit in a High Leverage situation. How can you not have JD Davis start in Left Field and McNeil at third base?
“Diaz has to be good for us to get to where we want to go,” Callaway said. “We’ll continue to run him out there in those situations when Lugo is not available or Wilson is not available, and if he doesn’t get the job done, we won’t get the job done.”