The Mets (14-5) dropped the rubber game tonight against the Yankees (11-8) by a score of 6-4.
It wasn’t Jon Niese‘s finest outing, as he allowed six runs (four earned) on eight hits, while walking one and striking out three. Though Niese was hit hard, he wasn’t helped by his defense at all. He falls to 2-1 on the season.
Curtis Granderson kicked off the game by hitting his first home run of the year, giving the Mets a very early 1-0 lead.
The Mets would tack on another run later in the inning, after Juan Lagares singled and was driven in by a hard struck double from Daniel Murphy that nearly took out Mark Teixeira and rolled all the way to the wall.
Alex Rodriguez hit his 659th career home run in the latter portion of the first, a solo shot over the right center field fence, cutting the Mets lead in half.
In the bottom of the 2nd, the Yankees put up a four spot, with back-to-back doubles from Gregorio Petit and Brett Gardner.
Chris Young then hit a seeing-eye which scored Gardner. A-Rod was next to bat, and he drilled a double to left field. Michael Cuddyer committed an error throwing the ball back into the infield, which allowed Young to score. 5-2 Yankees.
After a pair of strikeouts to start the third inning, Lucas Duda singled and was subsequently driven in by a Michael Cuddyer double. Daniel Murphy doubled himself, and cut the lead to 5-4.
That score would stand pat until the bottom of the fifth, when the Mets committed two errors allowing the Yankees to push across another run. This was the story of the game for the Mets, as they played very sloppily, totaling four errors.
The Mets best, and last, opportunity to really try to tie this game came in the top of the sixth. Daniel Murphy walked to lead off the frame, but was erased on a fielder’s choice by Eric Campbell. However, the next batter was Wilmer Flores who skied a ball to right field. Forgetting how many outs there were, Campbell was doubled off at first.
The eighth and ninth innings were innings I was dreading when watching the game. I knew that if we couldn’t tie this game off of Chasen Shreve, Chris Martin and Justin Wilson, we would have to face the very strong back-end of the Yankees bullpen which is comprised of Dellin Betances and Andrew Miller, who have been practically untouchable this year. My fears came true, as Betances and Miller came on respectively and shut down the Mets, and sealing the win for the Yankees.
One silver lining of this game for the Mets is how well Erik Goeddel pitched in his two innings of relief, and Alex Torres has pitched since Jerry Blevins went down. In such a sloppy game for the Mets, these two were definitely bright spots.
It always stinks losing to the Yankees, but they’ve been very as well. After taking 3 out of 4 from Detroit, they were very aggressive against us, and we came up short. Our poor defensive play really was our demise tonight, and leaves many question marks surrounding Daniel Murphy’s career as a Met. He continues to under-perform in the field, and apart from tonight, at the plate as well. Dilson Herrera has been tearing it up at Triple-A, and with Murphy’s contract expiring after this year, his days in Queens could definitely be numbered.
Anyway, this series doesn’t lessen my faith in the Mets this season. We’ll get them in September on our own turf. 🙂
On deck:
The Mets travel to Miami and open up a three-game series against the Marlins tomorrow night with Dillon Gee (0-1, 5.60 ERA) taking on Jarred Cosart (1-1, 3.63 ERA)
