The Mets got great pitching and just enough hitting to eke out a 2-1 win over Dodgers ace Clayton Kershaw Friday night.
- Noah Syndergaard did his best Zack Wheeler impersonation, going six innings and allowing just one run before having to be removed for a high pitch count.
- The Mets rallied for the win off Dodgers closer Kenly Jansen. With a two-strike count against Duda, Jansen threw two pitches above the belt. Duda, shocked that they didn’t throw him a breaking ball in the dirt, fouled the first pitch off before dropping a double to LF. Wilmer Flores followed with a gift hit on a ball back to the pitcher to put runners on the corners before Kevin Plawecki delivered a SF.
- Jeurys Familia came on in the ninth to nail down the win for his 22nd save. Bring on the All-Star game.
- Flores finished with three hits. The first a well-placed bleeder past a drawn-in infield, the second a solid single to left field and the third the error in the ninth. Ruben Tejada added two hits against Kershaw.
- Plawecki delivered his 12th RBI in 36 PA with RISP. He has an .883 OPS in those situations.
- With Erik Goeddel and Jenrry Mejia set to be activated soon, Hansel Robles made his case to stay in the majors with two solid innings where he retired all six batters he faced. It will be curious to see if Robles’ 97 mph heat wins out over Sean Gilmartin‘s Rule 5 and lefty status. Or Alex Torres‘ lefty status. Or Carlos Torres‘ status as a good pitcher last year.
Flores, Tejada, and Mayberry were the 3 guys to get hits off Kershaw. Who would have thought?
Sure was nice to see Justin Turner back, in the middle of a great season for him. Sure could have used him this year to pick up the slack at third.
Oh well, kind of like beating a dead horse at this point.
I liked Turner in his role with the Mets, but I never expected him to have this kind of success.
I thought Darling made a great point about JT last night. He noted that TC says Mets need to lighten up (oh, the irony!), and darling noted that JT always played that way. Loose and smiling.
It was hard to believe that the Mets beat Kershaw and Jantzen. I especially liked that Geren didn’t wake TC up (it was after 1AM in NY and the cross country flight made him tired) and Robles pitched 2 innings without any absurd matchy match.
Statistically, JT had always offensively had a higher OPS than half the NL second baseman.( I have produced those stats in the past) In no way am I saying he should have started over Murphy but he should never have been non tendered. I love his recent quote: In a feature by ESPN.com’s Mark Saxon on the eve of the Mets-Dodgers series, Turner contrasts his own hitting approach with Alderson’s philosophy by saying: “I mean, he came over from Oakland. He’s a ‘Moneyball’ guy. I don’t know if ‘Looking to walk’ is the right way of saying it, but he talks about on-base percentage. I’m never looking to walk.”
I was fully in favoring of nontendering Justin Turner.
Over his 3 years, he hit an unremarkable .265/.326/.370 for a 95 OPS+ with below average defense. He was due for a raise in 2014 and probably would have made between 1.5-2 million.
In 2014, we had a player who ended up hitting .263/.322/.358 for a 95 OPS+ and filled the same role as Justin Turner, but he only cost the Mets the minimum. His name was Eric Campbell.
As it turned out, Justin Turner managed a historic season last year, having posted the 4th highest season BABIP in the last 15 years. And this year he is going ballistic with the HR ball. But to expect that would be like the Rockies expecting Carlos Torres to become a useful reliever or Marlon Byrd having his huge season in 2013.
The right decision was made to cut Turner, because his production was replaceable.
Justin Turner was at minimum salary in 2013 when he was non tendered. I don’t agree with your dollar arbitration estimate but will concede that it was a salary dump from a cheap franchise that won’t pay for a bench. Campbell wasn’t on the radar when the decision was made . If you want to say that an unknown Campbell of 2014 was a legitimate replacement then I will argue back that faulty player evaluation by the Mets resulted in poor prognosis of Turner’s potential and back it up with the 2014 and 2015 statistics. Both these arguments would then be faulty. So my point is that the Mets are indeed a cheap franchise in non tendering Turner.
” If you want to say that an unknown Campbell of 2014 was a legitimate replacement”
My point was that an unknown like Campbell was able to replicate Turner’s production.
“faulty player evaluation by the Mets resulted in poor prognosis of Turner’s potential and back it up with the 2014 and 2015 statistics”
I don’t see how in any shape or form anyone could have seen Justin Turner breaking out or any argument why he was worth paying more than the minimum at the time of his non-tender.
Turner would have been in his first year of arbitration in 2014.
It’s funny how Turner wants to dump on BB and OBP but in addition to his .404 BABIP, he also set a career-high in BB% last year.
Good points, but why wasn’t Tejada non-tendered this past winter? His .237/.342/.310/88 OPS+ made him not worthy, and Tovar or some free agent could have taken his place for less than the $1.88 million Tejada received.
I think this is a legitimate question and the only thing I can think of is that the org’s distrust of rookies is so big that they’d rather pay Tejada than give Tovar a shot.
Tejada can play SS. Look at the contracts of some players who can play SS.
Tejada is still a bargain this year. Next year, maybe not.
I doubt anyone would have predicted Turner’s recent success. I think Alex Torres is gone.