After Stephen Strasburg absolutely dominated the Mets hitters all night on Wednesday, it seemed like 2-1 might be an insurmountable deficit.
Strasburg was dealing right out of the gate, making the Mets look silly, striking out hitters left and right with his filthy hook that was falling right off the table.
I should have known not to worry, especially with how the Mets have been playing the last several weeks, but I guess it’s just in my DNA.
The Mets, like they’ve done 35 times this year, came back from behind to beat the floundering Washington Nationals by a score of 5-3. The Mets are now 59-11 when scoring four or more runs in a game this season.
Yesterday, I wrote an article and spoke about unlikely heroes. Tonight, another one presented himself. Kelly Johnson played difference maker as he blasted the tying home run off of Strasburg in the eighth inning.
Then Yoenis Cespedes, who I truly believe is a superhuman, appropriately hit the go ahead home run to lead the Mets to victory. He just makes it look so easy. To him, the pitchers are throwing beach balls.
It’s been such a Jekyll and Hide season for the Mets. The wins the last three nights would never have been possible even just two months ago.
Going from worst the first half of the season, to first from July 25th on in almost every offensive category has made all the difference.
Had the Mets been down tonight that late in the game earlier this year, they would have just lied down and took the loss. Well guess what? Not anymore.
On winning teams like this one, everyone does their job. The bullpen, which had looked horrendous the last few weeks pitched 11.1 innings this series and allowed just one earned run.
Kirk Nieuwenhuis hit a huge home run last night to help win the game, and Kelly Johnson did the same thing tonight. It’s not just the sexy names that are getting the job the done, everyone is firing on all cylinders.
“At this point in the season, two or three weeks left, you’re looking pretty good if you have a six-or seven-game lead,” Johnson said. “Hopefully those games we play them in New York won’t matter and we can celebrate early.”
The team has such a great chemistry, and believes it can win every single night. And hell, they can. They just came into the Nationals home ball park and completely shell shocked them.
“This has been the three biggest games of my career.” Terry Collins said in his post game interview. “We’re legitimate, this is not a fluke.”
Much of the reason behind the Mets’ success has been slugger Yoenis Cespedes. Kelly Johnson, who delivered a clutch home run of his own, had nothing but positive things to say about the Cuban phenom.
“It’s like he’s some throwback player, like your dad used to tell you about Clemente or Mantle,” said Johnson. “He’s so cool.”
“I don’t know how it works, but he should be in the discussion for the NL MVP.” The Mets captain, David Wright, said after the huge offensive output Cespedes has delivered since the Mets acquired him.
Nobody could have predicted that on September 10th, the Mets would have a commanding seven game lead in the NL East. This is the most exciting team I’ve ever had the pleasure of rooting for, and I truly believe we can go all the way. We aren’t called the Miracle Mets for nothing!
