On the day that Darryl Strawberry had his uniform number retired, he turned into a jinx in the broadcast booth, as the Diamondbacks scored four times while Strawberry chatted with Gary Cohen and his two former teammates and wound up with a 10-5 win Saturday afternoon at Citi Field.
Sean Manaea had two very quick innings but it all fell apart on him in the third. He allowed two walks, three stolen bases and gave up a grand slam in a 37-pitch inning. Manaea had quick innings again in the fourth and fifth and he went back to the mound for the sixth, where he retired the first two batters he faced before giving up back-to-back hits and getting yanked. His final line was 5.2 IP, 6 H, 6 R, 5 ER, 2 BB and 10 Ks.
Josh Walker allowed an inherited runner to score and four more of his own to dash any slim hopes of a comeback.
Mark Vientos homered for the Mets first run, their only score until they plated four in the ninth inning to make the score somewhat respectable. Pete Alonso hit a two-run homer in the ninth for the big hit.
The Mets look to win the series with Jose Quintana on the mound for Sunday’s 1:40 p.m. start.
Twelve hits is not a bad day. I’d think if you scored five runs a game you’d win a lot of games. Another couple of long balls. It would be great for Quintana to get the rare series win.
Gut Reaction: Vientos is making the most of his opportunity going 2-4 and a homerun with a 1.028 OPS. Pitching sunk the Mets today.
The bullpen will be our Achillas Heal this year . Unless they can find some help it won’t matter how many hits we have in a game . See Friday’s game !! . Our starting pitchers even on a decent day can only go 5-6 innings at most.
I attended the game at Citi Field yesterday, seats behind the Mets dugout. Based on my observations of McNeil’s body language, he reminds me of Jason Bay. Pressing, depressed, and desperate, despite his 2-hit game (one a swinging bunt). Crowd gave him a big round of applause after he legged out his 15′ tapper. While kind of the fans, pity applause on an infield single tells you how poorly he’s doing. Maybe he’ll have a late surge like last year when the games didn’t matter, but it would be helpful for him to perform from April-June.
Polar Bear and Lindor seem to be fine regardless of their slow starts. Small sample size, but Vientos needs a lot more ABs at 3B.