Gut Reaction: Phillies 1, Mets 0 (4/9/16)

Raise your hand if you predicted a pitching duel between Bartolo Colon and Vince Velasquez. Well, that’s exactly what we witnessed in Colon’s first start of the 2016 season. Unfortunately, the Mets lost the duel 1-0.

• The aforementioned Colon carried over his dominance of the Phillies from 2015, striking out seven over six innings. His lone blemish was a change left over the plate to a not-usually-anymore-but-sometimes-dangerous Ryan Howard, which Howard sent over the wall. That homer was the first the Mets pitching staff has given up this season. He also had a very Bartolo-like circus over-the-shoulder catch on a bunt pop up, resulting is a large Bartolo smile.
• Yoenis Cespedes, Curtis Granderson, and Travis d’Arnaud continued their competition to see who could start off the season the worst, as the trio went 0-11 with five strikeouts. Cespedes continued to look particularly bad, laying claim to three of those Ks. D’Arnaud, however, did throw out his second runner in as many games, perhaps showing results for the work he’s reported to have put in this past off-season into one of the worst aspects of his game.
• Wilmer Flores got the start at third base as part of the rest plan for David Wright. He, of the 4.1 career BB%, walked twice (something he did only once in 2015). He was otherwise quiet at the plate, though he looked solid at third base.
• If you were hoping for some offense after the phenomenal Velasquez left the game, you were sorely mistaken. The usually awful Phillies bullpen held the Mets to no hits and three Ks in three innings of work.
• The Mets mustered just three hits and were struck out twelve times by the Phillies staff in this one. Get ’em tomorrow, boys.