Mets Game 40: Loss to Blue Jays
Blue Jays 2 Mets 0
Mets lose today to Morrow as well as yesterday.
Mets Game Notes
Brandon Morrow was absolutely dominating; if this is how he looks all the time then he’s a superstar in the making. Imagine if the Mariners held on to him, and paired him with King Felix – wow. Like Ricky Romero in game one, Morrow established and controlled the tempo and rhythm, and peppered all four quadrants of the strike zone with hard running fastballs. He mixed in a nasty, hard-breaking curve and similarly filthy slider that rarely finished above the dirt but started at the knees. He was consistently around 92 MPH on his fastball the entire game, then in the 8th against Justin Turner he reached back for a little extra and cranked one by Turner that was clocked at 97 MPH. Generally you don’t see starters increasing their velocity that late in the game, but Morrow never showed any sign of tiring.
Rookie hurler Jeremy Hefner was sparkling in emergency relief of Miguel Batista, who left the game with back issues. Hefner kept his fastball down, and showed some nasty breaking pitches. His command was a little spotty on the curves and sliders, but they had impressive vertical, late break. His fastball doesn’t have too much movement, but he kept it around the knees and it had a bit of sink.
After a hot start, Andres Torres is crashing to the ground — both on offense and defense. His error in the fifth set up the two Blue Jays runs, and at bat he’s not as patient as he was originally, and he’s hitting everything in the air.
Similarly, Kirk Nieuwenhuis continues to swing and miss; though his defense remains stellar.
We heard all about Jose Bautista‘s booming bat, but what about that howitzer of an arm? While it’s true Yunel Escobar never tagged Mike Baxter, that throw was still impressive — as was a similar one earlier in the game that nearly nailed Lucas Duda.
Duda and Baxter had two of the Mets three hits on the day; the other one was struck by Ronny Cedeno.
Not much else to say — Morrow was tremendous, spinning a three-hit shutout.
Next Mets Game
The Mets will try to avoid a sweep on Sunday by sending Dillon Gee to the hill against Henderson Alvarez. Game time is 1:07 p.m.
– For all of his failing, Pel was ALOT better than Schwinden. Hopefully Schwinden is NOT in line for a recall. As is Batista/Hefner look like a better combo for the short term than CS.
-Andres Torres as bay inches closer to returning, hopefully Torres inches closer to the bench.
– tejada’s injury has been a huge blow. defensively and offensively.
As GOOD as the Mets have been, I think they can reel of a big summer run if tejada gets back, Davis gets his timing and DM and DW keep raking.
as for the game the ump’s call takes away from the dumb baserunneing that Baxter did yesterday. He’s the tying run, there’s nobody out. you got to be a dope to put yourself in position to get thrown out at that point in the game. If it were Bay everyone would be screaming for his head but it was Baxter, the latest sub that Met fans love so I guess its ok?