3 Up, 3 Down: Mets Rally Past Phillies

3 UP

Thank You, Phillies

The Philadelphia Phillies helped give the New York Mets one of the greatest and most remarkable weeks in team history. On Friday, we saw Tylor Megill, Drew Smith, Joely Rodriguez, Seth Lugo, and Edwin Diaz combine on the second no-hitter in team history.

While not on par with the co-no, coming back from six down in the ninth is also one of those moments you talk about for years to come.

The roots of this win were laid in Arizona, and we saw it come to play with Starling Marte busting it out of the box for an infield single. Really, it was quite fitting Marte began the rally with the infield single and then cap it off with the go-ahead RBI double.

The Mets batted around and scored seven runs in the inning. Remarkably, three of those runs were with two outs. Simply put, the Mets absolutely stunned the Phillies. You could hear it in the competing broadcasts with Gary Cohen getting excited with each call, and the Phillies’ Tom McCarthy‘s tone growing more melancholy.

In some ways, this rally was reminiscent of the Mets five-run ninth against Curt Schilling in 1999. That win against the Phillies was a testament to how resilient that Mets team was, and it was part of a very special season. The same can be said for this win and this Mets team.

Alonso’s Power Is Back

Like many players, Pete Alonso saw his power diminish with the new baseballs. It’s the same story every year with Major League Baseball. They purchased Rawlings, and they vacillate between the extremes of a super ball and a dead rock being hurled by pitchers.

With Alonso’s power, you can only keep him grounded for so long. In the series against the Phillies, Alonso homered twice knocking in five RBI. Despite Alonso’s “struggles,” he’s third in the National League in homers, and he is tops in RBI.

What’s even more promising with Alonso is he has developed an approach when he’s having trouble hitting it out. We’ve seen him adapt to pitching to drive the ball the other way for base hits. Overall, this is a mature player making a more mature approach at the plate and becoming an even more lethal weapon.

Extension Time

Chris Bassitt made headlines saying he wants to sign an extension with the Mets and stick around for a long time. With the way he is pitching, the Mets would be crazy not to take him up on his offer. After all, Bassitt is tied for the Major League lead in wins.

On the season, Bassitt is 4-2 with a 2.45 ERA, 0.955 WHIP, 2.2 BB/9, and a 9.3 K/9. In all six of his starts, he has pitched into the sixth inning. Overall, that makes him not just a very good pitcher, but also a pitcher who eats up innings.

Bassitt is one of the many reasons this Mets team is very good. The fact he’s arguably the top performing pitcher on a staff this loaded speaks to the type of season he is having. You keep these pitchers around, and that goes double with a pitcher who handles New York as well as he does.

3 DOWN

Ice Cold

Over his last six games, Eduardo Escobar is 2-for-23 (.087), and since April 22, he is 9-for-59 (.153). Escobar has gone from an incredibly hot start to a batter with .222/.333/.359 batting line. Worse yet, he has a -2 OAA at third.

On that front, Dominic Smith has followed his 4-for-4 game by going 1-for-14 (.071) at the plate. That includes him having an opportunity to get a big hit in the ninth inning the past few games. He struck out both times. We can argue the Mets haven’t giving him the reps to succeed, but he’s not delivering when he does get his chances.

Finally, while Mark Canha had a big base hit in that rally, he has just two hits over his last 15 at-bats (.133). On the bright side, his defense has improved considerably with his having a 2 OAA in left.

E6

While Francisco Lindor has gotten off to a better start than he did last season at the plate, and even his outs are very hard hit, he has not been the same player in the field. He’s gone from leading the National League in OAA in 2021 to having a -1 OAA rating as one of the worst shortstops.

Case-in-point, Lindor turned a would be double play ball into an error turning helping turn Taijuan Walker‘s start into a nightmare.

On the bright side, even with these surprising struggles, he still rates as the third best shortstop in the National League by WAR.

Bad Start

As noted above, Walker wasn’t helped by a Lindor error in his start. However, that is only part of the story. Walker had already helped get himself into trouble by walking the lead-off batter that inning. There also wasn’t any ability to blame his defense when he allowed back-to-back homers to Bryce Harper and Nick Castellanos in the fifth.

All told, Walker allowed seven runs (six earned) over four plus innings. That raised his season ERA from 0.00 to 4.91. It hasn’t been the best of starts to the season for Walker. He’s only gone five innings once, and he’s already had an IL stint.

For Walker, he has a very tenuous rotation spot as it is. Tylor Megill has been pitching lights out, and at some point in the season Jacob deGrom will return from the IL. Add David Peterson making the most of his opportunities, and sooner or later, there may be an issue over how long Walker can stay in the rotation.

Obviously, that time has not come yet. However, it is something to keep an eye on over the course of the next few months.