The New York Mets (14-7) pummeled the San Francisco Giants (12-12) by a score of 13-1 in the opener of a three game set at Citi Field Friday night. The Mets set a franchise record for 12 runs in the third inning in what was a rout over the potential playoff contending Giants.
Pitching:
Steven Matz hurled six shutout innings tonight in what ended up being a lopsided victory over the Giants. Matz gave up seven hits (all singles), walked three, and struck out four. Matz wasn’t perfect tonight and noted that he did not have an effective curveball working but he was still plenty good enough to shut down an excellent Giants lineup.
Jerry Blevins came on in the seventh inning in what ended up being straight mop up duty and would surrender a home run to Angel Pagan to break up the shutout. That would be all for the Giants offense on the night.
Logan Verrett pitched another scoreless inning in the eighth.
Antonio Bastardo finished the game off with a scoreless ninth.
Offense:
Holy smokes! It all started off so innocently as Curtis Granderson coaxed a leadoff walk from Jake Peavy in the bottom of third inning. David Wright followed with a walk of his own to put runners on first and second with no out.
Michael Conforto then decided to blast a double in his fifth straight game to put the Mets up 1-0. Yeonis Cespedes would then smack a single on a line drive to CF Denard Span to make it 3-0. Lucas Duda would then walk. Neil Walker would do “Neil Walker things” of late and hit a clutch double to make it 4-0.
Asdrubal Cabrera crushed a double to make it 6-0. Kevin Plawecki then walked. Steven Matz would strike out for only the first out of the inning. Curtis Granderson singled to make it 7-0 and start the line over again.
The Cap would then single on a line drive to load the bases. Conforto then singled to make it 8-0 and leave the bases loaded again. Yoenis Cespedes put the exclamation point on the history books with a GRAND SLAM over the LF wall to make it 12-0 all in the third inning. Whew! Wow! What an inning.
The Mets would add on to their lead in the bottom of the 7th when Juan Lagares smacked a pinch hit single to bring in Asdrubal Cabrera to make it 13-1.
Notes:
Yoenis Cespedes returned to the lineup after being out with a lower leg injury.
The Mets have won seven straight games and twelve of their last fourteen and for the moment are tied with the Nationals for first place in the division.
On Deck:
The Mets will play their second game of a three game set tomorrow night at home versus the San Francisco Giants. The game has a start time of 4:05 PM. Jacob deGrom (2-0, 1.54 ERA) looks to continue his early season success against San Francisco Giants starter Matt Cain (0-2, 6.43 ERA) as the Mets will be searching for their eighth straight win.
