Mets Game 77: Win Over Nationals
Mets 5 Nationals 1
Gee, Dillon has the Nats’ number.
Mets Game Notes
Dillon Gee‘s mastery of the Washington Nationals continues, as he gains his third victory against them — accounting for half his win total for the season. Gee did his usual mix and match of fastballs and sliders, dropping in a healthy heaping of change-ups, to keep the Nats off-balance. Also encouraging was his velocity; Gee was reaching 92 MPH on occasion with his four-seam fastball.
At the same time, I have to wonder how much of it was Gee and how much was it a hangover for the Nationals, who seemed lethargic in general and played a bit sloppy in the field. It was like they were playing in slow-motion, while the upstart Mets were contrastingly full of energy and playing with intensity. There was a point in the sixth inning when I wondered if even Davey Johnson had thrown in the towel, leaving reliever Craig Stammen out to dry.
The Mets took full advantage of three errors by the Nationals, and in fact, could have made this game a laugher if they’d done a better job with the bats in the fourth frame. For the second straight game, the Mets had a huge opportunity to score in the fourth — they had the bases loaded and one out and came away with only one run scored (and it scored before the bases were juiced). The huge dropoff of capable hitting after David Wright is embarrassing.
Next Mets Game
The rubber match begins at 1:10 p.m. on Sunday afternoon. Zack Wheeler faces Gio Gonzalez.
Really, overall, shouldn’t the Nats record be on some level be seen as worse than the Mets given the talent base? We are talking about WS bound in the eyes of sum before the season looking incompetent at times in a division that even the Mets might be competitive in if they had more hitting.
This base to base business is problematic but if the bottom of the order consistently hit singles or got walked, the team would be better off than they are now.
On another note, what’s going on with Valdespin? He’s batting .200 w/o a position. Have the Mets decided on a plan with regards to JV1? Or is he just this generation’s Joe McEwing?