Friday night’s game between the Mets and Red Sox was suspended following a downpour of rain and a lengthy delay. At the time of the stoppage, the Mets held onto a 4-3 lead with one out and nobody on in the bottom of the fourth inning.
The Mets actually fell into a three-run deficit within the first two innings as Kodai Senga failed to strand Boston baserunners early. Jarren Duran scored on a fielder’s choice in the first inning before Yu Chang plated two with a double off the Green Monster in the second inning.
The Mets displayed impressive resiliency, though, as they erased the 3-0 Boston lead in a hurry. Brandon Nimmo made Kutter Crawford pay by sending a hanging curveball over the right field wall in the top of the third for a two-run homer. Daniel Vogelbach hit a two-run shot of his own the following inning, sending a much more difficult pitch above the strike zone into the right field bleachers.
That was all the two teams were able to play Friday night due to the rain, with play resuming at 2:10 p.m. ET on Saturday afternoon from the same point in the game where it stopped.
Needing the bullpen to piece together 5 2/3 innings, the Mets called on Grant Hartwig to start things back up and he dealt with the tough task by putting together two scoreless innings and keeping the Mets’ lead intact. David Peterson followed him by giving up a run over 2/3 of an inning, but Dominic Leone, Brooks Raley, and David Robertson combined for three more scoreless innings to finish out the game and secure a 5-4 Mets win.
The lone run given up by the bullpen was in the seventh inning after the Mets had already made it a 5-3 game on an RBI infield single from Brett Baty. Peterson allowed a leadoff triple to Triston Casas after Mark Canha had trouble fielding the ball in right field. Peterson was then relieved for Leone, and the runner on third scored on a Rob Refsnyder sacrifice fly.
Daniel Vogelbach SOCKS a 2-run shot to right to give the Mets a 4-3 lead! pic.twitter.com/txhdMVPsCy
— SNY (@SNYtv) July 22, 2023
Looking to blow the game open in the eighth inning, the Mets loaded the bases with nobody out after three straight singles. However, the opportunity to score was squandered after a Francisco Álvarez infield pop up and a Brett Baty ground ball double play kept it a one-run game. Then in the ninth inning, the Mets failed to score yet again after putting runners on first and second with nobody out.
The Mets brought in Robertson for the bottom of the ninth, hoping the Mets’ offensive woes with runners on base didn’t come back to hurt them. Robertson made sure there were no dramatics with an easy 1-2-3 inning to give the Mets the win, improving the team’s record to 46-51.
Player of the Game
Brandon Nimmo continued his power surge by hitting his 15th home run of the season to open the scoring for the Mets in this one. The two RBIs on that homer made the difference in this one-run Mets’ win. He also added on another hit with an opposite field single, going 2-for-5 in the game as he continues his impressive offensive season.
On Deck
Action will pick right back up tonight with the second game of the doubleheader at 7:10 p.m. ET. Max Scherzer (8-3, 3.99 ERA) will take the mound for New York, hoping to put together another fantastic outing after giving up just one hit and no runs in seven innings against the Dodgers his last time out. For Boston, it will be James Paxton (5-2, 3.51 ERA) on the mound who, unlike Scherzer, will be hoping to move on from his last outing in which he gave up six earned runs in three innings against the Cubs. The game will be broadcast on PIX11.
