If last night’s game was for Clint Eastwood, tonight’s would please James Taylor: walkin’ man.
The Cubs beat the Mets on a literal walkoff, as Chris Coghlan took ball four from Jeurys Familia with the bases loaded to untie a 1-1 game. This one can once again be hung on the Mets’ dearth of offense, wasting an outstanding Matt Harvey performance. Harvey struck out nine, walked two — one intentionally — and left the game with a 1-0 lead. Harvey’s life right now closely resembles Tom Seaver’s from the ’70s: he left everythiong out on that mound, but the offense was as unsupportive as a deadbeat dad.
The Mets had a great chance to take a lead in the first inning vs. Jason Hammel. After Curtis Granderson sent Coghlan to the wall in left, Daniel Murphy drew a walk and Michael Cuddyer followed with a single. Lucas Duda then got hit in the big toe by an errant fastball. Wilmer Flores sent one to left that — on a good weather day — would get the run home, but not this night. A lake-effect gale was blowing in from left and Flores’s would-be sac fly was nabbed a little bit behind third base. Kevin Plawecki then struck out.
From that point until the sixth it was all on the pitchers, nothing to choose between the two of them. In that sixth inning, the Mets were finally able to claw out a run. Granderson led off with a hard single to right center and Murphy followed up with a double to left. The Cubs played their infield back, conceding the run that resulted from Cuddyer’s groundout. Harvey nailed down the seventh.
In the eighth, the Cubs tied things up. Carlos Torres had come in to spell Harvey, and was most ineffective. With one out, he gave up a single to Addison Russell and with Dexter Fowler at bat, promptly wild pitched Russell to second. Fowler hit a rifle shot to right field, scoring Russell and it was only overzealous baserunning on Fowler’s part that kept the game tied.
In the ninth, Torres allowed a leadoff single to Anthony Rizzo. Matt Szczur pinch ran. Starlin Castro then squirted a hit-and-run base knock into left and speedy Szczur made it safely to third. Terry Collins then ordered Miguel Montero intentionally walked, before bringing in his closer, Familia, to preserve the tie. At first, Familia was up to the task, then suddenly wasn’t. He struck out his first hitter, Jorge Soler, before issuing the winning base on balls to Coghlan.
Hear that sound? That’s Washington catching up…
As i stated the chatter, this loss is 100% on Flores in my opinion.
Twice he came up with a runner at 3rd less than 2 outs, one in the 1st and one in the 6th, and both times he failed. This is what we get for installing him as the #5 hitter.
Without the wild pitch, after Fowler’s hit there are runners on the corners. Would they have been able to turn the DP on Bryant’s grounder to short?
Was not a fan of bringing in Torres to pitch the 8th. I really didn’t like having him pitch the 9th. But TC wasn’t going to use Familia to start the 9th in a tie game. Carlyle wasn’t available, Alex Torres has not been good in his last three and Robles and Gilmartin both had been used the past two games.
Too bad he doesn’t have enough confidence in Goeddel
The bats are dead. It happens. They need to string their hits together like Name mentioned about Flores.It would have been nice if Plawecki delivered also. It is better to be 1.5 games in first place than in second place. The troubling aspect is that they need better offensive players. They are near the bottom in all offensive categories. There doesn’t appear to be any immediate solutions but something needs to be done because Wright and TDA are still awhile away. It looks like they need to ride out this hitting famine.
Waking up this morning after a truly brutal display, three things stand out:
1. This team’s execution of bunts is deplorable.
2. No one is hitting, but in who do we have confidence that they will wake up soon?
3. Collins will ride a horse to death. He is not a manager to try anything unique. Does Collins take out Rizzo for a pinch runner in the bottom of the ninth? Not a chance!
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I haven’t seen a pitcher other than Colon execute a Sacrifice..??? I have seen Harvey miss 3 of them—with 2 disasters, including last night
Sacrifices
2 – Gee
1 – Colon, Harvey, Niese
I went through each pitchers batting and these are the percentages.
Gee: 2/3
Niese: 1/3
Colon: 1/3
Harvey: 1/5
deGrom : 0/1
I’d guess that their combined 5/15 is easily the worst in the NL
The failure to execute a bunt on this team is absolutely other worldly. it shows a lack of preparedness and failure to play solid fundies. It is part of my evidence that all we hear about how much of a great leader he is, is pure crap. The failure to bunt extends beyond the pitchers as well. It is shameful to be unable to move the runner over. In the end it hardly matters, with runners on second and third and no out, we managed 1 run.
Back to bunting. The first problem is that our pitchers get into the bunt position far too early. As a result it is easy to to call a curve or slider, both pitches that are much harder to bunt. Essentially we are giving them the plan. Even the threat of swinging the pole will bring out a fastball to a pitcher in the box. And fastballs are far easier to lay down. we also face horrific execution. Hey, if you are gonna announce that you are bunting, then you better be able to handle what they throw…and that clearly is not the case. This is a systemic failure and one that is an embarrassment.