Mets Game 23: Win Over Marlins

Mets 4 Marlins 3

Mets rally in the bottom of the ninth and win their third in a row — and that, my friends, is called a winning streak.

Mets Game Notes

Omar Quintanilla, Kirk Nieuwenhuis, and Curtis Granderson get the biggest hits of the evening in an exciting bottom of the ninth to give Jeurys Familia his first career MLB win.

Zack Wheeler pitched well against the aggressive Fish — all the way through 6 innings and 110 pitches — but was saddled with a no-decision.

Gonzalez Germen pitched very well, too, until he gave up back-to-back homers to Jarrod Saltalamacchia and Garrett Jones. I know, that sounds like I’m being snarky, but in truth, right up to Saltalamacchia’s blast, I was thinking, “Germen is doing a heckuva job here.” Based on what we’ve seen from Terry Collins in the past, I was very surprised to see Germen still in the game to face Jones with Scott Rice ready in the bullpen. After throwing 37 pitches, Germen is unavailable until Sunday.

Speaking of unavailability, there was talk of Rice being unavailable today because he had pitched on back-to-back days. Normally I’m the first to call out overuse, but I’m curious about where this thinking came from regarding Rice, as he’d thrown only 6 pitches on Wednesday and 7 pitches on Thursday, which meant he should have been fine to throw on Friday. However, we don’t know how many pitches he threw in the bullpen warming up for those outings, and, perhaps more importantly, we don’t know what information Rice is providing to Collins / Dan Warthen / the Mets trainers. Rice’s mechanics are — like many pitchers — flawed, as he puts significant strain on his elbow and limits shoulder rotation with his dart-throwing motion, so I wonder if part of his arm is barking.

Usually sure-handed and often spectacular Adeiny Hechevarria must have been on drugs, because he muffed two ground balls that for him, were routine. Of course, both plays were ruled as hits rather than charged as errors by the official scorer.

In the top of the ninth, Daniel Murphy let a line drive go off his glove for a hit to start the inning, he kicked the next batter’s grounder to Ruben Tejada for a force-out, and, as if that weren’t enough, he flubbed the third ball hit in the inning (again, to him) such that he might’ve killed the double play had it not been for Tejada saving his butt with a perfect exchange and rifle relay to first. #MurphysLaw?

I was surprised to see Saltalamacchia go to first instead of second on Travis d’Arnaud‘s sacrifice bunt in the bottom of the ninth. With Lucas Duda running, there was a good shot to get him at second, and, with Hechavarria’s slick footwork and strong arm, there still might’ve been enough time to get d’Arnaud at first regardless of whether Duda was out.

Yet another manager makes the mind-blogging decision to play the infield in, early in the game, with Eric Young, Jr. on third base, no score, and David Wright at the plate. Once again, Wright ripped a single through the drawn-in infield to drive in Young. I get that today’s managers are push-button proletariats who carry out orders from the brainiacs in the front-office think tank, but aren’t the people down on the field there for a reason? Such as to take note of the fact that one of the five fastest men in MLB is on third base, which means bringing in the infield is a really bad plan? As mentioned previously, the only way you prevent Young from scoring is if Wright hits an absolute bullet right at someone — and even then, it either has to be a line drive that’s caught on the fly, or a one-hopper that is perfectly fielded, perfectly exchanged, perfectly thrown to the catcher, who then must be perfectly positioned, catch the ball perfectly, and apply the tag perfectly. Too much can go wrong with that much speed on third base — a team is better off staying back and expanding range, especially so early in the ballgame.

What is it about Steve Cishek against the Mets? It seems like every time he enters a Mets game, we hear about how he’s converted 101 straight save opps, or hasn’t allowed a hit in three weeks, or is challenging Don Drysdale‘s consecutive shutout innings record, and yet, inevitably, he craps the bed and resembles Sean Green? It’s mystifying … or, is it, Metstifying?

Oh my goodness the Mets are in second place! Is that the sound of seven angelic trumpeters heard in the distance?

Next Mets Game

The Mets and Marlins do it again on Saturday night at 7:10 PM. Jenrry Mejia faces Kevin Slowey.