Mets Game 44: Win Over Pirates
Mets 3 Pirates 1
Mets take the series in Pittsburgh with an early afternoon victory.
Mets Game Notes
Jonathon Niese rebounded from his worst outing of the year (maybe his career) with perhaps his best outing of the year. He pitched into the eighth inning — 7 2/3 innings to be exact — and allowed just one run on five hits and two walks. What was unusual was the number of ground balls he induced — a season-high 13 — and the contrastingly low number of fly balls (5).
Also of note: MetsToday reader “Dave” emailed me the following info prior to the ballgame:
SAMPLE SIZE ALERT! Niese during day games: 4 G 0.935 WHIP 2.75 SO/BB
0.489 OPS 1 HR. Niese during night games: 4 G 2.059 WHIP 1.70 SO/BB
1.074 OPS 7 HR. Interestingly his K/9 actually goes UP at night, but so do his walks. It will all likely even out over the course of the season, but I love little quirks like this in baseball.
Niese’s daytime numbers improved over the above with this latest performance. Does it mean anything? Not sure, but it’s worth watching. The K/9 going up at night doesn’t surprise me too much, as it’s probably slightly more difficult for hitters to see under the lights. Why the walks go up, though, is another story.
On offense, Ike Davis finally connected with a hard base hit that didn’t look like an accident. But it was pulled into right field, so not sure if it’s an indication of anything.
Two hits, a run scored, and an RBI from Kirk Nieuwenhuis. Is it time to make him the everyday center fielder for at least the short term, or what? It would seem to me that Andres Torres has played himself out of the starting lineup, for the time being anyway.
David Wright‘s slump continues; he was only one for four. As a result, what we all feared happened: his average fell below .400. It’s time to dump him before his stock plummets too far.
Next Mets Game
The Mets return home to play a four-game set against the San Diego Padres. Game one begins at 7:10 p.m. on Thursday night. The pitching matchup is Jeremy Hefner vs. Eric Stults.
Nice bounce back by Niese. Let’s see if he can do it at night next time. Yes, it’s the Pirates O, but it would be great if Frankie Frank and Parnell could perform in this manner more often than not. One other observation from this series – while I don’t root for any opponents, it was very refreshing to see McCutchen execute a feet-first pop-up slide on a stolen base. What happened to this skill – is he the old player in the league that can do this? Why wouldn’t everyone slide like this on every play?