Today was Harvey Day for the Mets — but it wasn’t just any ol’ Harvey day… It was the first time any catcher that wasn’t John Buck caught a pitch from Matt Harvey this season. Oh, but it wasn’t just any catcher either — it was Travis d’Arnaud. I will say this — d’Arnaud has not looked as comfortable behind the plate so far as I thought that he would, and he struggled with some passed balls in the minors during his recent rehab stint…
Anyway, Harvey’s velocity was a tick slower than normal and he made an obvious effort to pitch to the inside corner of the plate. All in all, it was a good start, just somewhat below-average by the standard he set earlier in the year. He pitched six innings and allowed two runs, both in the fifth off a soft grounder and a sacrifice fly. Harvey really didn’t do much wrong in the inning — outside of drilling Logan Forsythe to begin the frame. In the sixth, d’Arnaud allowed a passed ball to create tension for a second, but Harvey induced a fly out to end the inning with Jedd Gyorko stranded on second.
The Mets jumped out a lead early when Marlon Byrd doubled home Justin Turner, who tripled in the previous at-bat, and scored again in the fourth when resident RBI machine Wilmer Flores hit a sacrifice fly. After Omar Quintanilla doubled in the top of the seventh, Harvey was removed in favor of pinch-hitter Andrew Brown, who blasted an RBI double to give the Mets a 3-2 lead. Scott Rice and Gonzalez Germen combined to pitch the seventh inning without issue. Unfortunately, a run off Gonzalez Germen in the eighth left the Mets in a 3-3 tie yet again.
Wilmer Flores, Juan Lagares, and Travis d’Arnaud were the three men up against Huston Street in the ninth — three rookie batters…and unfortunately, save for a d’Arnaud walk, they could not make any noise. Pedro Feliciano went on to allow a walk-off home run to Will Venable in the bottom of the ninth to end the game. Tough…
The Mets finish up their series with the Padres with a combined 42 strikeouts for their promotion…42% is a nice positive bonus to take out of this series, right? We’ll try to get em against the Twins tomorrow at 1 PM.
