Starling Marte’s Heroics Propel Mets To 5-4 Game One Victory

Early Sunday afternoon, the New York Mets (24-23) faced off against the Cleveland Guardians in the first game of a split-admission doubleheader. After rain postponed yesterday’s game, it was a sunny afternoon at Citi Field for Game 1 where New York emerged victorious 5-4. Big days by Max Scherzer and the hero of the game, Starling Marte, propelled the Mets to a game over .500 for the first time in a couple weeks.

It was a pitchers’ duel for a while between impressive rookie Tanner Bibee and Scherzer. However, after leaving four runners on base in the first three innings, New York broke the 0-0 tie in the fourth.

After a nice, long at-bat by Daniel Vogelbach resulting in a walk, Gary Sánchez tallied his first hit of his Mets’ career. Still with two outs, Eduardo Escobar lined a single into right field to score the game’s first run. This was the first time in the last 14 games that the Mets scored first.

Scherzer’s day came to an end after six terrific innings. He allowed no runs and only three hits to go along with one walk and five strikeouts over 86 pitches of work. This terrific performance lowered his season ERA to 4.01. This is the type of pitcher that we saw a lot of last year as Scherzer has now has allowed only one run and five hits over his last 11 innings of work (last two starts).

New York picked up runs in consecutive innings during the sixth and seventh. In the sixth, Sánchez got his first RBI as a Met thanks to a shallow fly ball that served as a sacrifice fly. Previously, Pete Alonso and Brett Baty singled to set the opportunity up.

Then, to lead off the seventh, Brandon Nimmo rocketed a deep home run onto the Shea Bridge in right-center field. The tape measure shot was clocked at 108.8 mph off the bat and went 442 feet. New York led 3-0 after seven innings.

Things unraveled quickly in the eighth inning. Adam Ottavino‘s struggles continued as he allowed two runs. Then, David Robertson, who has been one of the best relief pitchers in baseball this season, served up a two-run home run to the first batter he faced – José Ramírez. Just like that, New York went from leading 3-0 to losing 4-3.

Luckily, the recently resurgent and home run happy Mets responded right away. After a Baty walk, in an at-bat he was down in the count 1-2, Marte lined a two-run home run to right field. Marte, who was struggling immensely, exploded with a much needed, and subsequently game-winning performance Sunday afternoon.

Robertson was back on the mound for the ninth hoping to erase the two-run eighth inning home run by Cleveland from his memory. He was able to get out of the inning clean, with the victory, and ensure the Mets a 5-4 Game 1 win.

Player of the Game: Starling Marte

Coincidentally enough, earlier this morning here at MMO we published an article analyzing Marte’s dire struggles so far this season. Well, Sunday afternoon he showed out in a big way. Marte went 3-for-4 including the game-winning eighth inning home run.

Even his only out of the day was a hard hit ball (95.9 mph and .390 xBA). Regardless, Marte showed up in a big way this afternoon and propelled his team to victory. A 2022 version of Marte would do wonders for the Mets going forward.

On Deck

It is a very quick turnaround for these Guardians and Mets. Game two of the split-admission doubleheader is scheduled to begin at 7:10 pm ET on ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball. The probable pitching matchup for that game Shane Bieber (3.20 ERA) versus Justin Verlander (4.76 ERA).