In a game where both teams had Win Expectancy rates of 89% or greater in the late innings, the hero of the game was … Jeurys Familia! After Edwin Diaz tried his best to lose the game in the 9th inning, Familia came on with the tying run on second base and got the final out of the game, giving the Mets an 8-7 win over the Phillies and a win in the rubber game of the series. The Mets are now 6-3 against the Phillies this year, after going 11-18 against them the past two seasons.
The Mets trailed, 4-2, when they came to bat in the eighth inning. Kevin Pillar hit a leadoff homer, Jonathan Villar made a fantastic baserunning play to tie the game and Pete Alonso delivered a three-run double and it looked like the Mets were going to coast to a big win.
But Diaz came on in a non-save situation and after blowing away the Phillies on Saturday night, he had nothing but trouble on Sunday. He gave up an RBI triple to cut the lead to three runs. An out and a walk later, he appeared to give up a gopher ball to Rhys Hoskins to tie the game. But after a replay review, the HR call was reversed, as the ball hit the top of the railing in the OF and bounced back onto the field.
Hoskins was placed on second base, although the runner on first was not put on third but instead allowed to score. The Phillies, already upset over last night’s running out of the basepaths call, were none too pleased about this review. However, it certainly seemed to be the right call based on video we saw from ESPN.
Familia came on and got ahead of Bryce Harper 0-2. His next pitch seemed like strike three but it was ruled a ball. Two pitches later, Familia got a swinging strike to end the game and pick up the Save. It was his first Save as a Met since July 14, 2018. After the way he pitched the last two years, there was no expectation from me that he’d ever get another Save in a Mets uniform.
Back to Villar in the eighth inning. He followed up Pillar’s homer with an infield single. He was getting big leads and one time seemed to have a great jump but the batter hit a foul ball. After an out, Jose Peraza came on as a pinch hitter and hit a bullet that went off the first baseman’s glove and trickled into shallow right field. Villar went first to third on the ball. But when Hoskins nonchalantly threw the ball to the second baseman, Villar raced for home. And the second baseman bobbled the ball and didn’t even end up making a throw to the plate.
The Phillies brought in Jose Alvarado and the Mets got revenge from Friday night. Jeff McNeil hit his first pitch for a single to put runners on the corners. Then Alvarado lost the ability to throw a strike, as he gave up back-to-back walks to Francisco Lindor and Michael Conforto, the latter giving the Mets a one-run lead. And most of the pitches that Alvardo threw weren’t even close to being strikes. Girardi again went to the pen and Alonso greeted David Hale with a missile to deep right center that cleared the bases.
Luis Rojas made a couple of curious bullpen decisions. In addition to bringing on Diaz in a non-save situation after he pitched the day before, Rojas went to Miguel Castro in the sixth inning, earlier than you would expect, once David Peterson was removed after throwing 88 pitches in five innings. After a rough start, including a gopher ball to the leadoff batter, Peterson settled in and pitched well. But he was unable to go deep in the game, an issue given that the Mets were already planning to throw a bullpen-type game on Monday. Castro served up a three-run homer to give Philadelphia a 4-2 lead.
The Mets ended up using five relievers, with Jacob Barnes earning the win.
Before Diaz’ meltdown in the ninth inning, the story of the game was going to be the offense. With leading hitters Brandon Nimmo and J.D. Davis out with injuries, the Mets pounded out 17 hits, with three of the five struggling batters posting multi-hit days. Dominic Smith had two doubles, Conforto had three hits and a walk and McNeil had a four-hit game.
In addition to his big night at the plate, McNeil made a couple of nice defensive plays, including one where he fielded a rocket and started a double play. And if that wasn’t strange enough from a defensive point of view, Nimmo came on late in the game and played center field, with Pillar moving over to left.
This was the first time all year the Mets won when the other team scored first. And they had five hits with runners in scoring position. It was just an unusual night all around.
Didn’t see much of the game as tonight we were celebrating Easter, but was following in and off on Gameday. Some observations:
1. I have never seen more perfectly placed pitches than the six thrown to Bryce Harper in the ninth by Familia. Perfection and he didn’t get the third strike that was in the zone.
2. Diaz lives in the middle of the plate too often.
3. Conforto is finally heating up. Just one person can be a bid difference with theMets starting pitching. Imagine more than one.
Conforto, O’Neil, Smith… the pendulum swings. Peterson bailed out with real defense (O’Neil) and responds! Pete very clutch… starting to establish himself as Mets superstar. Bench contributes.
Lindor… egads. Please give McCann a night off… maybe two… his swing can’t look any worse. Rojas managing via chaos.
McNeil
Gut Reaction: the offense woke up and the bullpen imploded.
Villar had a nice heads up base running theft to score a run.
Rojas decided with a four run lead to use primary set up man and his closer to secure the win even though they pitched yesterday and tomorrow they are to St Louis for a four game series. That didn’t make sense.
I second the comments of Metsense (and Brian) regarding Rojas’s use of his bullpen. Why oh why does he keep bringing in Diaz in non save situations? Brian; your the numbers guy, but it seems that Diaz is lousy when he comes in to eat innings and there is no chance for him to “earn” a save.
Don’t the Mets have a coach in the bullpen to see who has/hasn’t got it? Diaz certainly didn’t; and I’m just a fan and outside observer who could see that.
Also, will someone tattoo on Rojas’s forehead to never use Diaz in back to back games. The Mets were lucky that the railing got in the way of that smoked ball.
Small sample, but Familia’s stuff this season has looked nasty. Still too high on the walks (tough harnessing that sinker), and he has had a couple of adventurous outings, but from the naked eye the hits he has given up have found an open space. I don’t recall seeing him barreled up much, if at all. While Betances is nowhere to be found, if only one of those two regained top form it could be a big boost to the pen.
Villar’s strikeout in the 6th was among the worst non-pitcher AB’s I can remember seeing.
The Phillies don’t exactly look tight in the field…it isn’t only the Mets that have defensive challenges.
Girardi is not exactly getting that Phillies team together. He has quality pieces but manages to still have a fairly loose-knit ball club. Mets benefitted from no Segura, whom I consider the Phillies’ secret weapon. No secret to Mets fans of course, but clearly excellent defensively and a very tough out.
Glad to see McNeil doing better than I expected defensively while waiting for his bat to come around. His stop on Boem’s smash was the turning point in the game… Peterson might have been toast.
Rojas is a dope. I hate managers that just want to pull the switches and think it will always work. My god, anyone could have pitched the ninth… guess he was saving Gsellman for today… maybe Reid-Foley too. Made much more sense to stick with May, burn him for Monday but keep Diaz and Familia ready for the bullpen game. Now he’s got a very depleted bullpen and a week of baseball ahead. He’s a dope.
Mets winning the series in Philly is a good sign… one 2-run pass ball away from a sweep.
I can’t kill Rojas for bringing in Diaz. Whether it’s a save situation or not they need to win the game. The results (almost) didn’t work out but if Diaz had pitched a 1-2-3 inning we wouldn’t even be talking about it. If he had brought in Gsellman or Familia and they blew a 4 run lead people would be crucifying him for that.
It shouldn’t matter if it’s a save situation specifically before you bring in Diaz. It should be high leverage or high importance situations. You can argue that this did not warrant bringing him in but there’s been a lot of talk here about not wanting to use Gsellman or Familia except in blow outs. The only other option would have been Loup. I don’t take issue with this move as much as some do.
If Diaz had a 1-2-3 inning like May did, it wouldn’t justify Rojas using both of them with a four lead especially when the bullpen is looking at next the seven days with games scheduled. In this day and age a manager has to know Leverage Index. If he used Famila, Gsellman or Reid-Foley in that low leverage situation and it turned into a high leverage situation then he could change pitchers. That would have been managing the situation. Burning the bullpen is a sign of a poor manager. A good manager shows confidence in players have performed well recently and Familia, Gsellman and R-F has. There are too many bullpen innings needed not to use these players with a four run lead.
I generally agree with you and I would have preferred having Familia start the inning with Diaz standing by to get ready, but honestly, a 4 run lead in that little league stadium that the Phillies call home is not something that I would necessarily call low leverage. The fact that someone determined the save criteria to be 3 runs shouldn’t mean that with a 3 run lead you bring in your closer and if it gets to 4, it’s low leverage. I probably would have handled it similar to how you said, but my point is that I don’t think it was terrible move to bring in Diaz to try to lock it down. Familia and Gsellman have been servicable this year, but have a track record of blowing up and R-F has a one game track record. Again, if one of them had started the inning and they lost, Rojas would be getting slammed for using them
Both Fangraphs and BR had the Mets at a 98% Win expectancy at the start of the bottom of the 9th.
Statistically, that’s low leverage.
And that doesn’t even consider the circumstance, it was the Phillies bottom of order 6-7-8-9 coming to hit.
Yes I understand, but if it was a 3 run lead what would the win probability be? I tried to search that and came up with something that said 96% (I’m not sure if that’s correct but it sounds right). In a 3 run game it is expected that the closer come in to finish it, but yet there’s not much difference in leverage there. My point is that I probably wouldn’t have brought in Diaz but I don’t think it was a terrible move. He’s made worse.
I checked a few scores that had 3 run leads going into the 9th and the win probability is between 96% and 97%. You’re right that by that logic a 3 run lead and a 4 run lead are very similar in leverage.
The real problem here is that 3 run leads are considered high leverage and qualifies for a save because the probabilities clearly don’t support it. They should more uniformly apply save as batter on deck is tying run which means only a 2 run lead if bases are empty.
The 3 run “save” run is a relic from baseball past. As Metsense outlined in excellent fashion, the modern day manager needs to weigh multiple factors in deciding when to “use” a high leverage bullpen arm. In the Sunday case in Philly, this was really a no brainer. Certainly, Diaz flopped, and that is not the manager’s fault. But, given the facts in place, it was mind-boggling poor management to put the closer into that game with that lead. I have been a Rojas supporter, in spite of our modern day instant gratification world, but that one was really inexcusable. Now, sometimes good things happen regardless. I am encouraged with what I see in Familia, and that save had to be a major boost to his confidence. He has always been a sensitive guy, but getting his moxy back combined with harnessing that sinker just a tad more can easily propel him back into the closer role. Many Met fans may cringe, but another month of this and I may well trust him more than Diaz.
What I thought was funny and sad was Villar’s strike out. He made Bartolo Colon look like Tony Gwynn.
Familia looked great, but Castro has wicked stuff and hit 101 on the gun.