Now this is how they drew it up. The Mets got wondrous pitching from Jacob deGrom and offense from a lot of guys not named Jay Bruce to give the Yankees a thorough 7-1 spanking.
deGrom scuffled a bit in the first two innings, stranding two runners in each. The Mets had a hard time solving Masahiro Tanaka in the early going, as well. The power returned, however, and from a couple of unlikely sources. With two outs in the third, deGrom bounced a single through the shortstop hole for the Mets’ first base hit. One full count later, Alejandro De Aza hit a balloon shot into the second deck in right field and the Mets were off and running. In the fifth, Travis d’Arnaud pulled a liner into the left field stands. For his part, deGrom settled in nicely, retiring twelve straight Yanks until Mark Teixeira hit a long double in the sixth. In the bottom half of the seventh, the Mets blew the Tanaka’s doors off. Wilmer Flores led off with a base hit to left and took second when Brett Gardner spiked his throw back to the infield. Michael Conforto then bombed a double over Gardner’s head — a welcome sign that Conforto’s opposite field stroke might be returning. d’Arnaud grounded out, sending Conforto to third. Matt Reynolds hit a Texas-Leaguer over the drawn in infield and the Mets’ lead bulged to 5-0. deGrom then squirted a dribbler through the middle for his second hit of the game. That was it for Tanaka, who gave up eight hits and seven runs in six and one-third innings. Richard Bleier entered the game, looking to get his first out of the series. It took awhile. In a most welcome sign, Yoenis Cespedes pinch-hit for De Aza and hit a one-hop bullet that literally knocked over second baseman Starlin Castro. Reynolds trotted home with the Mets’ sixth run. Neil Walker then hit a double past Gardner, scoring deGrom with run number seven. After that, Jon Niese made his first reappearance for the Mets and was stellar, the only blemishes on his record being a single by Jacoby Ellsbury in the eighth and a window dressing home run by Didi Gregorius leading off the ninth.
After winning last night, the Yankees posted a video to their Facebook page with the title “We own the Citi.” After tonight, you have to ask who owns who?
Finally some good pitching and timely hitting. Cards and Marlins lost so the Mets are within 1.5 games of the wild card.
The next five games is with the DH. Cespedes should take that spot in order to rest the quad. DeAza is red hot, with a .755 OPS in his last 54 AB’s and a 852 OPS in his last 25 AB’s and 971 OPS in his last 17 AB’s. It would make a lot of sense offensively and defensively to start him in center field the next five games. That leaves the slumping Granderson (535 OPS in 55 AB) and Conforto (682 OPS in 36 AB) to split time in LF with Bruce in RF. After these 5 games the Mets will need to revaluate Granderson/Conforto/DeAza. I like the theory that if you hit you start. Reynolds hit again so start him at shortstop. Nice win, it is August so lets turn on the offensive switch again.
It is amazing that the Mets are only 1 1/2 out of WC. It feels like they’ve failed every big test all season long, yet here we are with a legitimate shot.
Let’s hope Cespedes gets healthy. Why he pinch-hit last night is hard to figure.
Equally amazing is the Mets have five lefty-hitting corner outfielders (though I’m not up-to-date if Nimmo got sent down or not): De Aza, Conforto, Granderson, Bruce, Nimmo.
It’s also interesting that Nimmo, a guy who has actually played some CF over the past few years, seems to be the last in line when it comes to playing in CF. Not a big issue, but they must really feel like he can’t do it out there; which is odd, considering that they’ve thrown Conforto in center. Curious.
We won’t think about next year yet, but if Cespedes returns — and I’d think the club needs to extend him two more years to get it done, with promises that he’s in LF — Conforto will be out of a job. Or does that fact push the Mets to let Yoenis walk and Conforto play?
Always good to beat the Yankees.
Possibly you could move a left-handed hitting outfielder to 1B. Duda, if healthy, could be trade bait. The options might not be ideal, but there are options.
Did anybody else notice that Yankee reliever Anthony Swarzak looks like a basset hound?