Okay, was I the only one who thought if we take this game we take the series? Or that we all knew Christian Scott would throw a good game? Probably not. Scott threw 5 2/3 innings, giving up six hits, four earned runs, two walks and two K, with 99 pitches, 65 of which he threw for strikes. Ran out of gas in the 6th with Jessie Winker’s single putting runners on the corner before giving up a three-run dinger to close the gap to 5-4.
Adam Ottavino relieved to get the last out of the inning but then when he started the 7th, Mendoza pulled him after getting the first two outs with no one on base. Enter Jake Diekman, say good bye to the game. He needed just one out. So instead he uses 10 pitches but still loses the lead off batter on a walk. The next hitter doubles to tie the score at 5-5.
You just blew the save and still need just one more out. Nope – next batter singles in another run to make it 6-5 Nats. Guess they should have let Ottavino stay for just one more batter. Bottom of the 8th Garcia hits his second HR of the game to close out the scoring in the Nationals’ 7-5 win. The Mets did pull a nifty 3-6-3-5 DP to halt the bleeding, but they went down in order in the top of the 9th. They had a good offensive night with Tyrone Taylor crashing a 413 foot HR to left to open up the scoring in the third. In the fourth Mark Vientos went 435 feet to dead center and drove in J.D. Martinez for a 3-0 lead. In the fifth Lindor hit one 414 feet to left center and drove in Ben Gamel who had doubled ahead of him. That was it for the Mets offense but quite honestly the way Scott was pitching, five seemed Francisco Lindor like it would be enough. Then I remembered our overworked pen.
11 AM game start tomorrow as Jose Quintana faces Jake Irvin for either a series win or split. Keep the faith!
Sorry to come back on board after taking the last six weeks off from the site. It’s just that I think the Mets have it backwards when it comes to Butto and Scott re: who should be in the bullpen and who should be in the rotation.
Scott wasn’t allowed to pitch many innings in any of his minor league starts when he was sent back down (was 5 his max?), the fear was he would be reaching a career limit in the near future. Butto; on the other hand, the concern for that isn’t there, and he has been kept stretched out when sent down. He also has a better success rate as a starter then Scott.
Why Mendoza sent Scott back out after the 5th inning is beyond me. Houser should have sent out for at least the next three innings or even finish up the game if things went well. I put this loss on Mendoza’s and Hefner’s shoulder. I also think that Butto has earned the right to be in the rotation while it should be the former college reliever who should be in the bullpen for the duration of the season.
Good points. I think Mendoza lost the game by taking Ottavino out regardless of how well lefties hit him. Short
of Ottavino giving up a home run Diekman should have simply started the next inning or come in if Abrams got
on. 21 walks in 25 innings sucks. They need a reshaping of the BP or they might end selling at the deadline. I’d even take Megill in the pen at this point. Stearns needs to get the jump on the rest of the teams and land some strong BP pieces now. He is not afraid to move pieces around. We are not an elite team but a pretty strong as a wildcard contender and with Senga knocking on the door
to return, we can make some noise.
Agree with the Butto/Scott thing. Was just messaging with JP about this a couple of days ago. If they’re so concerned about Scott’s IP, the bullpen seems to be a way to do that.
The only thing about that is that we saw in the minors in the beginning of the year that Scott would get jumped for homers early in the game. That might not be the best thing for a reliever.
I didn’t get to see the game but looking at the box score, it just seems hard to justify keeping Diekman on the team.