26
2012
Mets Fry Fish In The Rain, Rally For 3-2 Victory Against Bell
An article by 
Jon Niese gave the Mets seven strong innings today and Captain Kirk put the exclamation point on a rally in the ninth for a Mets win this afternoon, 3-2.
Summary
Run support is key for starters, and for a while, it looked like today would be another wasted strong start by a Mets starter. Jon Niese started and pitched for seven effective innings, allowing only 4 hits and 2 ER over that span, striking out 6 and walking none. Gaby Sanchez took him deep in the third and the second run crossed on a double play in the fifth. 62/94 pitches for strikes for Niese today, who is really earning that new paycheck. Ramon Ramirez took over to pitch the 8th and 9th and did not disappoint, allowing 2 hits and striking out two while keeping the Marlins scoreless. He vultured the win in this one, bringing his record to 2-1.
The offense, or the lack thereof, was the story for the first eight innings of the game. The Mets scratched out only one run against Ricky Nolasco in the first. A lead-off triple by Captain Kirk in the bottom of the first led to a Tejada sac fly. The game went by fairly quickly from there, with Niese settling into a relatively nice rhythm and Nolasco matching him pitch for pitch. Choate pitched a clean 8th for the Marlins. Bell took over in the ninth and the fun began.
Wright walked to lead off the ninth and Duda grounded out down to first, leaving Wright at second. Ike Davis, Josh Thole, and Justin Turner were all walked in succession to force in the tying run, making it 2-2. After a Scott Hairston force at home, Captain Kirk came through with a 2-out single, the only actual hit allowed by Bell in the inning, which scored Thole for the Mets victory.
Honestly, the Mets did a great job pulling off this comeback, and made it three in a row for the sweep against the Marlins. Good enough defense led to good pitching for the Mets, who turned only one double play today – and it was Jose Reyes on the opposite end of it.
The Mets took advantage of a wild Marlins bullpen this season and literally found a way to walk their way to victory. At the very least, it was not a walk off walk which would have prompted me to use the word walk way too many times.
Hero Of The Game
Captain Kirk, who scored the first run for the Mets and drove in the last.
Notes
The Mets are now 3-0 against Jose Reyes. They held him to 1-12 in this series. They improve to 11-8 overall.
Good to see some effective relief pitching from Ramon Ramirez.
Gaby Sanchez is a serious Met Killer.
With Davis batting sixth today, it looks like Wright might be batting cleanup more often now.
We saw some Valdespin action in LF today.
“Here is a really intriguing stat. The Mets are 0-15 with the bases loaded to begin the 2012 season – the worst start in franchise history.”
I pointed out the above stat in my last recap – on Tuesday night. Captain Kirk broke that streak, making the Mets a potent 1-16…uh.
The most entertaining point of the day: All nine starters for the Mets this afternoon were home-grown players. Thole, Davis, Murphy, Tejada, Wright, Valdespin, Kirk, Duda, and Niese.
On Deck
Chris Schwinden will go for the Mets in the series opener in Colorado tomorrow at 8:40. Carson was optioned down to AAA. The Rockies will counter our starter with Drew Pomeranz, the young lefty whom the organization has high hopes for.
About the Author: Satish Ram
I am a Senior Writer and Editor here at MetsMerized - where I specialize in Minor League coverage. I have been on the staff since 2007 and I am currently in my third semester of college in New York City. You can find me at www.facebook.com/SatishRam or @SilverHeatMMO. Feel free to message me - I love talking about the Mets or baseball overall with anybody.
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CAPTAIN KIRK!!! Yeah baby how sweep it is!!!
Mets 3rd walkoff win and I believe they only had 2 all of last year.
Give credit to Terry Collins the Mets play hard they have scratched and clawed this entire series” This said by the Marlins announcers.
Where to begin? Yes the offense continues to be a concern (Ike hang in there your better than your current batting average). Murphy you have played well overall at 2nd but you might want to work on that tag play at 2nd some more.
Niese a great start to keep us in the game. Turner’s at bat was simply Amazin. The positives once again has to be the pitching mainly Niese. Also the Mets pitchers in this series overall especially keeping the table setter Reyes off the bases for the most part. Ozzie has already said he has considered swapping Reyes with Bonifacio and don’t be surprised if after this series he does it. Also huge props to Turner for fighting through that at bat vs Bell in the 9th and finally Capt Kirk ripping that Bell pitch for the game winner.
Mets are 10-5 vs the NL East.
On a side note though the book remains to be written on what any of these kids will be that were drafted under Minaya’s watch it’s nice to see them at least getting a chance and hopefully some of them which I been following since September of 2009 can finally pay off to be players we can actually build around. As usual only time will tell.
LGM!!!
I couldn’t be happier with this game. I was totally invested in it during those late innings, and my hatred of the Fish, their mercenary squad, and their phony, frontrunning fans is so great that I was jumping up and down during that Turner at-bat. 10-5 against the toughest division in baseball. And the only NL East team that beat up on us is currently 10 games over 500. I still don’t expect much from this team, but I’m gonna have fun with ‘em while I can.
So nice to see trash-talking Heath Bell implode. I need to find Ozzie’s press conference after this one…
LGM
Ask any of us on Tuesday and this result would of been far-fetched. After the double-header sweep, the injuries and the threat of Reyes returning, this team showed a lot of heart. Are there some serious issues on offense and did Miami give some of the games away, absolutely, but the end the team showed that are willing to scrap and claw for for any opportunity. LGM!
Don’t know how this season will pan out but have to agree with the declaration made in ST: This will be a fun team to watch. I know I enjoyed the heck out of that Marlins series, watching the mostly young’uns play.
Sometimes, it’s not all about who has the best talent. Even if we don’t, it’s still worth tuning in to see how some of this young talent will develop at the ML level.
Great to see them beat the Fish, I have never cared for them since the phoney distaste for Reyes at 3b that year and the fact they ruined our season(s) in Sept.
Great win, great to see Niese once again show why he a talented LH pitcher for us and hope this streak of good pitching continues in HR happy Coors Field.
Glad Jose didn’t hurt us but I wish him success against the rest of NL and NL East.
The youth movement is in full swing. Love it.
HOW SWEEP IT IS! It’s like I mentioned earlier today, the Marlins pen is TRASH and there’s virtually no one (maybe Mujica) that they can rely on. Sure, the Marlins will get better in time, but don’t expect their pen to. Don’t let the big names blind you. It should remind some of you of a certain team that collapsed twice….who were they again?
Anyway, great win by the Amazins. Big series win they needed after the ugly 2 series Vs ATL & SF. With the road trip in Colorado & Houston, let’s just hope they get back on the right track. I knew Niese would be something special, but man is he impressing more and more. Thank goodness they didn’t send him to Oakland for Gio. Now if only Gee can follow Niese’s footsteps by stepping it up, we can go places with this pitching staff.
Does thie mean The Captain stays when Torres gets off the DL?? It better. Torres and Bay should enjoy watching Kirk from the bench.
Torres should never be allowed to simply replace Kirk unless what we’ve seen till this point is all illusion. Let Torres be the bench guy.
well, torres doesn’t really matter. One of them will just be in LF when they both play. It is when Bay comes back that someone (hopefully torres!) loses their job.
From what I’ve heard recently, when Torres returns, Kirk will be moved to LF and Torres will take over CF. Doesn’t make sense to me though. If you ask me, switch Duda to LF & Kirk to RF if you wanted Kirk to play corner outfield.
I can’t believe what I’m seeing from Daniel Murphy at 2B. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a bad outfielder becoming a second baseman and to me he was mediocre at best at 1B. It just makes no sense but there’s no denying he’s showing a lot of improvement, it’s unbelievable and I still gotta be convinced more so i’m not 100% sold yet. I saw an interview where he credits Tejada for communicating a lot with him and helping him along during the game. That’s another thing i didn’t think would work – the communication factor between those 2. But hey, it’s working so far.
Another thing is when the team got off to that fast start and everybody was going nuts after 2 weeks i took the stance to wait and see how the would react to their first adversity. Well it happened and the recovered nicely, very nicely. But I’m still skeptical of a lot of things especially the overall defense (even though Kirk is another pleasant surprise in CF) They’re not strong, I gotta see more cohesiveness, and I don’t believe you can clod yourself to a pennant race. They still have to be a lot sharper on defense.
Bayonne, you get an ‘A’ for honesty, but an ‘F’ for thinking that a coach of adolescent kids (that’s you, Bayonne) knows more than squat about major league skills. It’s better late than never, but you never, never, never gave Murphy a chance. You led the hit parade on Murphy by knocking him on Day One. By the way, you didn’t mention that Murphy had a total of ELEVEN PUT-OUTS in the outfield during his entire minor league career. Omar and his crew, headed by Willie and Jerry, saw potential in Murphy but they rushed him and then panicked when Murphy showed some learning curve difficulties. Murphy has always been a great talent but he needed experience. Now he’s getting it.
By the way, despite your numerous accolades for our shortstop, he isn’t likely to be our guy in 2-3 years. He’s too slow and has little real pop. One of our minor league kids coming up through the system will make him expendable. Ruben will make some modest trade bait. lol.
Ladies and Gentleman, Des has come out of hiding and STILL with his hate for Ruben Tejada as strong as ever. It has been updated to now say he won’t be our SS in 2 or 3 years.
this guy is just too much, and how old are you? Go back into hiding, you make me puke.
Derek Jeter Effect: When a players looks pretty at a position, people assume he is really good at. However, the reality may be the the player in question is really not playing the psoition well.
The reverse of that could be called the Miguel Cabrera Effect: When a guy doesn’t look pretty or prototypical for his position and people just assume he’s bad at. Player in question may in fact be perfectly adequate (if not better) despite people’s perceptions and bias.
one thing about this youth movement is, most of the guys aren’t really young. Not sure what difference it makes, but some of the guys like Duda are already mid-20s (having played college) so should be more mature mentally and physically. and he had a lot of time last year to get over being a wide-eyed rookie.
and the pitching staff is pretty experienced, and IMO that is a much riskier area to be rolling with the kids!
Even the real young guy (Tejada) has been in the majors for a while, so has that experience. That really just leaves Kirk as a true rookie (what is he, 23? 24?) getting his feet wet.
While we’re at it, how about props for Justin T.? I mean, the guy only had like a 12-pitch AB against Bell, consistently fouling off pitches in the low-mid 90s until he walked in the tying run. If that wasn’t one f the best examples of the proverbial walk being as good as a hit, then I don’t know what is. I really hope Turner stays a Met for a long time to come. We can win with guys like him, ‘ya know.