The Mets (85-65) defeated the Braves (60-91) by a score of 4-0 Monday night at Citi Field in New York.
Pitching:
Jon Niese started for the Mets and was fantastic. No, there are no typos in that sentence, he really was good! He tossed 6 scoreless innings, allowing only 3 hits and 2 walks while striking out two. Terry Collins removed him after throwing only 88 pitches because Scott Boras told him to. Not really.
Addison Reed pitched a perfect 7th inning, which ended on a line drive right back at him which he caught.
Tyler Clippard made his return to the mound in style, tossing a sparkling inning. He allowed a hit and struck out 2. He also tossed a wild pitch that looked something like this:
Jeurys Familia came in to pitch the ninth up by 4 runs, so it was not a save situation. He allowed a base hit, but that was it, as he pitched a scoreless night. He finished by striking out Cameron Maybin swinging at a 92-mph splitter that was pretty much not fair.
Offense:
The Mets got to getting runners on base pretty quickly in the first inning, loading the bases on a Curtis Granderson walk and singles by Daniel Murphy and Yoenis Cespedes. Lucas Duda then popped out, which brought Travis d’Arnaud to the plate.
He grounded a ball to the third baseman who threw it to second for the out, however Daniel Murphy thought that was the third out so he started walking back towards the dugout instead of getting to third and was tagged out. Oh, Murph. The run did score, however, so the Mets led 1-0 at this point.
The second inning starred Michael Conforto, who hit an impressive opposite field home run to give the Mets a 2-0 lead.
The Mets remained quiet until the 7th inning, when pinch hitter Michael Cuddyer led off with a base hit up the middle. Eric Young Jr entered as a pinch hitter, and Granderson came to the plate. He hit a line drive to left-center field which was bobbled by the center fielder Cameron Maybin which allowed the runners to be on second and third with no outs. Daniel Murphy then slammed a double down the right field line to score two, give the Mets a 4-0 lead, and make up for his base running blunder from earlier. Oh, Murph.
Yoenis Cespedes ended up with 3 hits, two of which were doubles. Wilmer Flores also recorded a base hit.
Notes:
Jeurys Familia threw his slider a lot more in tonight’s outing. Since he started throwing that splitter, he has shied away from the slider, which has worked to this point, but three un-hittable pitches are better than two.
After the Mets dropped back to back series against the Marlins and Yankees, they got off to a good start at home against the Braves with the win.
On Deck:
The Mets will send Logan (nice name!) Verrett (1-0, 1.91 ERA) to the bump to face off against the Braves’ Matt Wisler (5-8, 5.63 ERA) Tuedsay night. The game is at 7:10 pm at Citi Field.
