Dillon Gee put together quite a start tonight for the New York Mets when he baffled the Nationals over nearly eight innings of work. His only blemishes were two solo home runs given up — one in the bottom of the third to Wilson Ramos and another in the bottom of the eighth to Steve Lombardozzi. He surrendered just six hits overall and walked one batter while striking out three. He was in control for most of the start and almost looked to be on track for a complete game before giving up the second home run.
Scott Rice came in to pick up the third out of the inning in the eighth before LaTroy Hawkins shut the door with a perfect ninth inning, getting Adam LaRoche looking to end the game. Rice was able to strand two inherited runners from Gee on base to keep the Mets in the lead.
Gee was afforded a little run support — a two-run home run by Ike Davis early answered Ramos’ shot and an RBI single by Andrew Brown in the eighth turned out to be a well-needed insurance run for the Mets.
The story of the game really was Gee, however, who induced 14 groundouts today. Daniel Murphy and Travis d’Arnaud each had a pair of hits in this game with one of them being a double, and Eric Young stole his 32nd base. Gee improves to 10-9 on the season with a 3.63 ERA and Hawkins picks up save number six.
Zack Wheeler takes on Dan Haren tomorrow night at 7:05 as the Mets look to take the series behind their young star. It’ll be the last game before September call-ups. Over his last three starts, Wheeler is 1-1 with a 2.79 ERA and 24 strikeouts in 19.1 innings pitched.
