Mets Live to Play Another Day With 7-3 Win Over Padres

A night after being pounded by the Padres, Jacob deGrom kept the Mets’ playoff hopes alive with high heat and a bevy of beautifully placed sliders.

The lanky right-hander tossed six innings of two-run, five-hit ball, fanning eight, including three consecutive punch-outs of Manny Machado. It wasn’t vintage, but it was good enough.

Brandon Nimmo had a banner day going 3-for-4 with a ribeye, reaching base on his first at-bat, a leadoff line-drive single. After being erased by Starling Marte’s ground out into a double play, Francisco Lindor placed a solo shot into the left-center seats for a 1-0 lead going 2-4 on the night.

DeGrom retired the first six batters until surrendering a game-tying home run to Trent Grisham in the third, and the nail biting began. Prematurely on my part, but after Max Scherzer’s meltdown, can you blame me?

San Diego starter Blake Snell’s shaky command garnered a pair of back-to-back walks, which New York cashed in on off of Nimmo’s go-ahead RBI single to left.

In the top of the fifth, deGrom was bitten by a free pass to Grisham, who was bunted to second by Austin Nola. Jurickson Profar then laced deGrom’s 2-2 slider for an RBI base hit to knot it up at two.

Alonso, pissed off in the dugout after his prior at-bat after striking out and leaving Lindor on base, launched a first-pitch cutter into the left field seats putting the Mets on top 3-2.

In the top of the sixth, deGrom was in a groove, retiring the side in order on nine pitches. The Mets left two on in the bottom frame via Darin Ruf’s HBP and Nimmo’s free pass, for a total of 20 on the night.

Even though deGrom looked sharp, Mets’ skipper Buck Showalter opted to lift his ace in the seventh, rightfully so, after 99 pitches for his lights-out closer Edwin Díaz. The resilient righty, who usually arrives from the pen to the sound of trumpets, retired three out of four Padres on a series of sliders and four-seam fastballs, leaving Nola standing on second after base on a single that was deflected off the glove of Lindor.

New York’s offense gave their relief pitchers a five-run cushion in the bottom frame with a four-run rally initiated by Lindor’s leadoff single. A wild pitch by Padres’ reliever Adrian Morejon put Lindor on second, and a pair of walks to Alonso and Mark Canha loaded the bases. National League batting champ Jeff McNeil doubled in two runs, Eduardo Escobar singled in another, and Daniel Vogelbach put one more on the board with a sac fly to right.

Díaz came back for seconds in the eighth, getting Machado on a grounder to the mound. He walked Bell on four pitches and fanned Jake Cronenworth on three. Showalter, thinking ahead for game three, pulled the ex-Mariner for Adam Ottavino, who struck out Brandon Drury – looking at his 95 MPH sinker.

In the top of the ninth, Ottavino erased Ha-Seong Kim swinging on a third strike slider. He then proceeded to put four of the next five batters on base with a hit by pitch and three conventional walks, the last of which to Machado, bringing in a run, narrowing the lead 7-3, giving Mets‘ fans more drama that they needed like a hole in the head.

Seth Lugo was then summoned to prevent Josh Bell, the tying run at the plate, from giving the entire population of Queens a massive coronary, which he did with a ground out to first off of a 81 MPH curve.

Sunday’s rubber match brings Chris Bassitt and Joe Musgrove to the mound. With Joely Rodríguez removed from the roster due to a shoulder issue, look for his replacement Taijuan Walker to be at the ready early if Bassitt doesn’t have it.