The New York Mets (87-67) defeated the Cincinnati Reds (63-90) by a score of 12-5 on Friday night at Great American Ball Park, taking the second game of the four game set and reducing their magic number to the lonely number one to clinch the NL East.
Pitching:
All hail the mighty Thor. What a performance from rookie Noah Syndergaard. Thor pitched one of the most dominating and powerful performances of his short career. Syndergaard’s final line on the night was 7.2 innings pitched while giving up five hits, two runs, no walks and striking out 11. Thor laid down the hammer as he gets ready to pitch into the post-season.
Syndergaard, who has struggled on the road this year has now won two of his last three road starts. He threw 104 pitches on the night, 74 of which were strikes, and has improved his overall record on the year to 9-7 with tonight’s win.
Eric O’Flaherty and Bobby Parnell came in for relief of Syndergaard in the eighth and did not fair too well. The two combined to give up four hits and one run a piece to retire the third out in the inning. Tim Stauffer came on in the ninth and didn’t fair too much better giving up a lead off home-run to Adam Duvall and was relieved by Hansel Robles with two outs in the ninth. Robles made quick work of Brandon Phillips to end the game.
Offense:
Well hello Lucas Duda, the hot streak is on and coming at a great time. Duda connected for two bombs tonight, both times with two men on base for a total of six RBI’s. Maybe the “monster is out of the cage,” and just at the right time we head into the playoffs.
Duda though wasn’t the only Met tonight to jack a three run homer, as Curtis Granderson got in on the fun as well with his own in the eighth inning. The “Grandy-Man” was in a home-run drought of his own as he had not hit one out since August 31st against Philadelphia. Curtis’ first RBI of the game came in the seventh on a double that scored Ruben Tejada.
David Wright, Daniel Murphy, Yoenis Cespedes, and Noah Syndergaard all collected two hits for themselves as well for the night. The Metropolitans combined for a total 14 hits on the night while scoring 12 runs. The team was an extremely impressive 8-11 with runners in scoring position on this night.
Notes:
What an offensive explosion and pitching performance for this team. Any lethargy that was shown as of late has seemed to have gone away over these last two nights in Cincinnati. At a time where the team really needed to come out and take care of business to punch their ticket into the playoffs, they are doing just exactly that.
With the Philadelphia Phillies beating up on the Washington Nationals tonight, the magic number for the Mets is now at one. It is a very good possibility that this team will clinch this division by the end of the weekend, and for the first time since 2006 make a run at a World Series championship.
On Deck:
The Mets look to clinch the NL East tomorrow and take the series against the Reds as they send “The Dark Knight”, Matt Harvey (12-7, 2.80 ERA) to take on John Lamb (1-3, 4.60 ERA)
It will be interesting to see how Harvey is handled tomorrow with everyone being mum on how long he may go tomorrow, but for once that should be the least of our problems as this team looks to clinch the division tomorrow evening.
