Jacob deGrom was humming along toward his first complete game shutout since 2016 before coughing up two solo home runs in the ninth inning. The shutout and complete game bids were spoiled, but the consolation was a rare blowout win for the Mets led by deGrom’s sensational pitching performance and huge days at the plate from Pete Alonso and Jeff McNeil.
deGrom went 8.1 innings, striking out 10, walking none and hitting triple digits on the radar gun. He was dominant with an impressive mix of secondary pitches and fastballs, up until the very end. Notably, he made effective use of a sharp sinking change up. One guess who was catching tonight? When Tomas Nido is behind the plate, the Mets pitchers, particular the right-handers excel. If only our brilliant front office full of Ivy League statisticians could take note of this glaring trend. Speaking of right handers, Robert Gsellman entered the game to get the final two outs without incident. This is no small feat given the way this bullpen has performed of late.
The biggest shock of this game is that the Mets beat up on Julio Teheran who has traditionally baffled Mets hitters. Alonso continues his unrelenting march toward a Rookie of the Year trophy with might have been his best game of the season. He reached base in all six at bats with two walks, two doubles and yet another home run. McNeil did a tremendous job setting the table in front of him, going three for five with a home run of his own. Michael Conforto also contributed a home run and a double. Every Met in the starting lineup got at least one hit as the team also touched up the Braves pen.
All in all, a nice win for the Mets. The NL East rivals meet again for the rubber game in Atlanta tomorrow night with Steven Matz opposing the young lefty Max Fried. Let’s go Mets!
This was a nice cleanse after last night disgusting beat down by the Braves the Mets responded with their own barrage tonight. It was refreshing to see the Mets beat up on Teheran, who even in his worst years owned the Mets.
The top of the lineup did much of the damage as Alonso had three extra base hits and had a 4th taken away from him by a terrific play by Donaldson and Alonso just lit up statcast all night long getting on base six times. McNeil set the table and even hitting a bomb of his own and even stealing a base earlier in the game. Conforto hit a big double and his homer was just a absolute shot that went to the chop house. Cano had some good st bats as well and in his three games back has looked like his good self.
DeGrom was a monster today facing the best offense he’s faced all year and he ate their hitters up by dominating them with an array of filthy sliders, changeups(the best the pitch has been this year), and his fast ball was just explosive dotting the inside corner all night long and pitching inside very effectively. I don’t know why Mickey allowed him to throw 115 pitches in a blow out just another bit of idiocy from Mickey as was bringing in Gsellman instead of letting Nogosek get his feet wet I mean just stupid. It was the perfect spot to get Nogosek in to start the ninth and save some of deGrom’s bullets so ridiculous.
All in all other than Mickey’s stupidity annoying me it was a fun games to see deGrom dominant and the Mets three young stars in Alonso, McNeil and Conforto kill it. I’m not all that confident in Matz tomorrow but let’s bask in today’s win.
Matt Ehalt’s tweet:
“I kid you not, Mickey said he has to use Gsellman in case of a rally since they can’t lose that game.
It was 10-2 at the time.
10-2.”
P.S.: It appears he’s taken this tweet down, LOL. Too much like a fan, huh Matt?
Then this (I guess you can’t run from what you post):
“Clarity on this: I misheard Mickey.
He said he wanted to stand runners because Jacob pitched so well he didn’t deserve any more runs to score.
(This raises question of why is one player’s stats being a factor in decision making).
But, I goofed. That’s on me.”
Even as he is confessing to err, Ehalt can’t help throwing a dig.
+1 except your statement about saving pitches for the future. It just doesn’t work that way. Think about it,if you want to do 30 pushups and when you do 25 easily you don’t stop so that next week you can do 35 pushups if you want to. You build up on your 30 pushups to 35 push ups. That said, I enjoy your posts in they got reaction, they’re well-thought-out.