The Mets came into this game looking to win their first road series since mid-April. Remember mid-April? When we thought the Mets might still be good? Seems a long time ago, doesn’t it? They would send Jacob deGrom to the mound to recall that era of good feeling.
In any case, the Mets started off on their task right away. Jeff McNeil launched the first pitch of the game over the right field cutout and into the bleachers for an instant 1-0 New York lead. They would have had a 2-0 lead, if old buddy Curtis Granderson hadn’t scaled the left wall to rob Pete Alonso of his 31st home run. That would prove large as the Marlins tied the game in the bottom of the second. Starlin Castro led off with a bloop single to right. Granderson drew a walk. After Cesar Puello struck out, Bryan Holaday walked to load the bases. deGrom whiffed pitcher Sandy Alcantara on three pitches, but Miguel Rojas hit a liner to McNeil in right for a base hit, bringing in Castro. Granderson also tried to score, but McNeil’s one-hop throw to the plate thwarted his attempt at a stand-up slide. The Mets would pull ahead in the fourth. Robinson Cano led off with a base hit, Wilson Ramos walked and Todd Frazier hit an infield single to load the bases. Adeiny Hechavarria hit a slow roller to short to score Cano. deGrom walked to reload the bases and McNeil forced Ramos at home. Michael Conforto hit an infield single to second to score the Mets’ third run.
Their fourth run scored in the sixth, courtesy of some comic Miami fielding. I mean, Casey Stengel, Polo Grounds, 1962 Mets-style comic. Hechavarria led off with a grounder to short that Rojas butchered. Somehow it was scored a base hit. Luis Guillorme pinch hit for deGrom and hit a solid single to right — deGrom having an abnormally high pitch count over five innings. McNeil then hit a double-play grounder to first, which Garrett Cooper scaled way over Rojas’s head and into left field, allowing Hechavarria to come home. Justin Wilson pitched around a leadoff single by Castro to notch a scoreless sixth. Elieser Hernandez relieved Alcantara and was greeted by a long homer to right off Cano’s bat. Jeurys Familia started the seventh, got one out, then gave up a single to Rojas and walks to Neil Walker and Cooper. That was all manager Mickey Callaway needed to see, waving in Seth Lugo to avert further damage. Lugo struck out Brian Anderson looking and got Castro on a grounder to short. Amed Rosario — in, with Lugo on a double switch — roped a double to left center leading off the eighth. McNeil got clipped by a fastball from Wei-Yin Chen and Conforto flew out to right center, moving Rosario over to third. Alonso drilled one to dead center, well deep enough to plate Rosario.
Robert Gsellman was handed the eighth, with a five-run lead and allowed only a Puello single. Cano led off the ninth with single — his fourth hit of the day — but was erased when Ramos hit into a nifty double-play started by Rojas. Gsellman came back out for the bottom of the ninth and got Rojas on a flyball leading off and Walker on a pop to short. Cooper hit a hanging slider just over the right field fence for a homer. Anderson scalded a double into the right field corner. Castro finally grounded out to Frazier to end it.
The Mets head to Minnesota next to face the red-hot Twins. It’ll be Zack Wheeler vs. Michael Pineda Tuesday night at Target Field.
On the radio after the game, Jeff McNeil was interviewed as the player of the game. When asked to talk about the homerun, he said Mickey Callaway told him to go up there looking to hit the first pitch to right field with authority. Good call Mickey.
I noticed that Cano was hitting .216 on the road coming into this game with a .228 BABIP. While I realize that’s alot of bad luck, both his homeruns this weekend were on inside sliders, that he yanked down the line. I hope that doesn’t mean he now has slider bat speed, but four hits, is four hits. Welcome to the five hole Robby, should have been there earlier.
On Familia, he isn’t this bad, but the guy needs to redo his mechanics or something. How can a veteran of so many years lose his release point and his command? Trade him back to the A’s so they can fix him again. It’s not like we would know him well enough, or something like that.
Diaz and Familia: my guess is that the explanation their down spirals starts with Injury. You don’t have to love these guys, but their 6 plus combined ERA would generally point to injury.
Familia looked to be throwing fairly hard yesterday. He’s always had a very athletically complex delivery, and he was “falling” all over the place yesterday. He was struggling with location. To some extent, he got squeezed by the Umpire, but the Ump was probably having a difficult time “finding him” with the scattershot location.
A two game winning streak plus Cano hits two home runs. We were on a roll.
Now that we won two of three against the lowest scoring team in the majors, let’s see what we can do against the highest scoring team.