The Mets (74-60) were defeated by the Miami Marlins (56-79) by the score of 6-5 tonight at Marlins Park.
Offense:
Tom Koehler, who the Mets have had much success with in the past, did a good job of silencing the Mets bats before they finally broke through in the sixth inning.
Yoenis Cespedes led off in that sixth inning, and tripled to center field to give Michael Conforto a prime RBI opportunity.
Conforto failed to record a base hit, but managed to get Cespedes across the plate with a groundout to short.
Travis d’Arnaud was next to bat, and drew a walk. He advanced to second on a groundout from Juan Uribe, and then scored on a base hit from Kelly Johnson to cut the Miami lead to 3-2 at the time.
In the seventh inning, Yoenis Cespedes did what Yoenis Cespedes’ do, and drilled his 29th home run of the year, a two-run bomb to central to give the Mets the lead for the first time of the evening.
With Miami taking the lead in the late goings, and the Mets backs up against the wall in the ninth, the Amazin’s rallied and were able to tie the game at five apiece.
With two outs, Travis d’Arnaud, Juan Uribe and Kelly Johnson hit three singles in a row to give the Mets new life, however, they failed to take the lead after this and would go on to lose, definitely a hard one to swallow.
Pitching:
Jacob deGrom got the start for the Mets, and though he didn’t have his best stuff and was hit hard at times, he was able to limit the damage, going six innings, allowing three runs on nine hits, while not walking a batter and striking out three.
All of the runs against deGrom came in the fourth inning. Martin Prado doubled to lead off the inning, and was subsequently driven in by a single up the middle that deflected off of Ruben Tejada‘s glove and trickled into center field.
After back-to-back singles from Derek Dietrich and Marcell Ozuna to load the bases, J.T. Realmuto hit a sacrifice fly and Miguel Rojas singled in a run to make it 3-0 Miami.
In the seventh inning, after the Mets made it 4-3, Sean Gilmartin served up two singles to lead off the frame before handing the ball over to Addison Reed.
Reed didn’t fare much better upon entering, as Martin Prado drove in the tying run against him, and with the bases loaded, he forced in a run by walking Marcell Ozuna to make it 5-4 Miami.
Hansel Robles and Tyler Clippard pitched the eighth and ninth innings respectively, and kept the Marlins off the board.
Erik Goeddel then pitched a scoreless tenth inning, and recorded one out in the eleventh before Terry Collins brought in Eric O’Flaherty to finish off the frame.
O’Flaherty, who has struggled mightily as a Met thus far, got Christian Yelich to hit into a fielder’s choice for the first out, but surrendered the final blow as Martin Prado laced a ball down the first base line to give the Marlins the victory.
I try not to disagree with Terry Collins’ decisions usually because he is the manager and I am not, but you really have to wonder why he would bring O’Flaherty in in such a crucial situation.
He’s done nothing to deserve pitching in such a big spot, and certainly hasn’t shown he is capable of pitching with the game on the line. It especially hurts because now, Washington is within only five games of first. Gotta take the final two games of the series now. Stay positive Mets fans.
On deck:
Bartolo Colon (12-11, 4.42 ERA) takes on Brad Hand (4-4, 4.54 ERA) as the Mets look to even up the series tomorrow night. First pitch is scheduled for 7:10 PM.
