The New York Mets (64-63) defeated the St. Louis Cardinals (67-59) by a score of 10-6 tonight at Busch Stadium. With the victory, the Mets pull within 3.5 games of the second wild card spot.
Pitching:
Seth Lugo toed the rubber for the Amazin’s tonight, and out-dueled Adam Wainwright, pitching five innings of scoreless ball, allowing just two hits and zero runs, while walking three and striking out five. Unfortunately, he left the game with a cramp in his right calf.
Jim Henderson pitched the sixth inning in relief of Lugo and served up a two-run jack to Brandon Moss to trim the lead to 7-2 at the time.
Jerry Blevins pitched a clean seventh, but Brandon Moss was back at it again in the eighth as he took Josh Smoker deep to account for the only runs of the ball game on the Red Birds side up until this point.
Smoker was replaced by Addison Reed in the eighth without recording an out. Reed gave up a run to cut the lead in half to 8-4, but escaped the inning.
Sean Gilmartin pitched the ninth and let up a pair of homers to Jedd Gyorko and Stephen Piscotty, but the Mets hung on to win 10-6.
Offense:
The Mets exploded for ten runs tonight, five of which came off the bat of Alejandro De Aza, which was more than his first two months as a Met combined.
Wilmer Flores got the Mets on the board first with a sacrifice fly in the second, and then the aforementioned De Aza drove in a pair with a shot up the middle in the fourth to make it 3-0 Mets at the time.
In the fifth, Flores reached on an error, which scored a run to make it 4-0 Mets, and then De Aza broke the game wide open with a three-run bomb, his fifth of the campaign.
In the eighth, Asdrubal Cabrera tacked on another run for the Mets with single to center. And Rene Rivera singled in two more runs in the ninth to give the Mets 10 runs on the night!
On deck:
The Mets open up a weekend series with the Phillies tomorrow night at Citi Field, with Bartolo Colon (11-7, 3.36 ERA) taking on Adam Morgan (1-7, 6.21 ERA). First pitch is scheduled for 7:10 PM.
