Lucas Duda lined a 2 out single in the top of the 6th inning scoring Curtis Granderson and David Wright. The Mets go on to beat the Nationals on opening day in Washington by the score of 3-1. The pitching match-up was Nationals new arrival Max Scherzer and the Mets Bartolo Colon….Both pitched extremely well. Colon yielding first blood when Bryce Harper broke a scoreless tie in the 4th with a solo homer (1). Scherzer had not allowed at hit going into the 6th. He walked Granderson for the second time in the game when a bloop by David Wright was misplayed by Ian Desmond and the Mets had 2nd and 3rd with 2 outs. That brought up Duda who lined the 2 out single scoring Granderson and Wright and the Mets took the lead for good. In the 7th Travis d’Arnaud made it 3-1 with an RBI triple high off the wall in left-center scoring Juan Lagares who had reached on Desmond’s second error of the game. Colon gets the win going 6 strong innings allowing 3 hits, the 1 run (earned) he walked 1 and struck out 8. Scherzer went 7 2/3’s allowing all 3 runs (unearned) on 4 hits while walking 2 and striking out 8 as well. Carlos Torres pitched a scoreless 7th, Jeurys Familia pitched a scoreless 8th . Jenrry Mejia became suddenly unavailable due to a sore elbow in the 9th. Jerry Blevins retired Harper and Buddy Carlyle came on and notched the emergency save, his first major league save. Colon is 1-0, Scherzer drops his NL debut and is now 0-1. The Mets are now 35-19 lifetime in season openers and are 35-11 since 1970. Tuesday is the obligatory off-day, Wednesday night the Nats and Mets meet again. 2014’s rookie of the year Jacob DeGrom goes for the Mets, Jordan Zimmermann goes for Washington.
Mack’s Mets – the premier site for information on the New York Mets talent pipeline and dialogue on Mets prospects, Mets news, and Mets opinions.
4/6/15
April 6th 2015 Mets 3, Nationals 1
Lucas Duda lined a 2 out single in the top of the 6th inning scoring Curtis Granderson and David Wright. The Mets go on to beat the Nationals on opening day in Washington by the score of 3-1. The pitching match-up was Nationals new arrival Max Scherzer and the Mets Bartolo Colon….Both pitched extremely well. Colon yielding first blood when Bryce Harper broke a scoreless tie in the 4th with a solo homer (1). Scherzer had not allowed at hit going into the 6th. He walked Granderson for the second time in the game when a bloop by David Wright was misplayed by Ian Desmond and the Mets had 2nd and 3rd with 2 outs. That brought up Duda who lined the 2 out single scoring Granderson and Wright and the Mets took the lead for good. In the 7th Travis d’Arnaud made it 3-1 with an RBI triple high off the wall in left-center scoring Juan Lagares who had reached on Desmond’s second error of the game. Colon gets the win going 6 strong innings allowing 3 hits, the 1 run (earned) he walked 1 and struck out 8. Scherzer went 7 2/3’s allowing all 3 runs (unearned) on 4 hits while walking 2 and striking out 8 as well. Carlos Torres pitched a scoreless 7th, Jeurys Familia pitched a scoreless 8th . Jenrry Mejia became suddenly unavailable due to a sore elbow in the 9th. Jerry Blevins retired Harper and Buddy Carlyle came on and notched the emergency save, his first major league save. Colon is 1-0, Scherzer drops his NL debut and is now 0-1. The Mets are now 35-19 lifetime in season openers and are 35-11 since 1970. Tuesday is the obligatory off-day, Wednesday night the Nats and Mets meet again. 2014’s rookie of the year Jacob DeGrom goes for the Mets, Jordan Zimmermann goes for Washington.
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22 comments:
I'm a HUGE A's fan but I am really glad I found your blog! I totally support the Mets, they remind me of the A's - overshadowed by the Yankees and now they have Harvey who I think could beat out Kershaw for the Cy Young and my main man is totally Bartolo! I love Terry Collins for giving him the nod today! That was way cool of him! Anyways, I'll be back to visit again and I'm making a Blogroll (is that one word or two??) of blogs I follow so I'll add yours! Nice site!! Go Mets! Go A's!!! :-)
~ Jen
http://bbstmlb.com
Jen -
Thank you for your visit.
Mack
I'll take the victory though I never felt the team was in control of this game.
Positive - Colon... Duda... d'Arnaud
Negatives - back to 5 hits per game - loss of Mejia
Watch for Familia and Montero to step up duties
I want everybody who thought or thinks the Mets should trade for Ian Desmond to take note. Two errors today. Ian Desmond cost the Nationals the game today. Defensively, I'd rather have Flores at short. Heck, defensively, I'd rather have Bartolo Colon at short. People just don't pay much attention to the defense on teams other than their own. I've been unfortunate enough to have Desmond on my fantasy squad a number of times in a league where defense counts. He is so bad defensively that I have had to bench him for huge portions of the season because his defense costs more games than his bat wins. He is not the answer at short. Stop even considering him. Please.
Also, everyone who has been saying all off season that Colon is the weakest person in our rotation and can't wait for him to be traded or released, I think he earned his keep last year and today. Don't be surprised if he is, once again, one of our better starters. I hope Harvey and deGrom will be Amazin' all year, but Colon is steady. If I were targeting a pitcher to trade--our weakest link, if you will--I'd want to move Niese. He's our only lefty and he's cheap, but he's always been inconsistent. The fact that he's a cheap lefty is going to bring more in return than Colon ever could. Or Gee, for that matter.
Stubby....I thought the exact same thing.
Stubby,
Don't judge a player from one game. Over his career, Desmond's defense has been either very, VERY close to league average, leaning to just above. He's also won 3 Silver Sluggers in a row. Over those same 3 years, his combines offensive and defensive WAR has been between 4 and 5. I think that's a fairer assessment of this player's worth to a team. Flores has a lot of potential, but as of now, it's still potential.
I wasn't thrilled that Colon got the opening day gig. Terry said that when Parnell gets back, the closer job is his again because he was the closer when he got hurt and never lost the gig due to performance. I just felt that with that reasoning, Harvey should've taken the ball on opening day. He's back and he's SP1.
That said, baseball is wonderful for so many reasons and one of them is that you just can't predict the endings. Only in baseball could a out of shape 41 year old start and win against the league's best team who's putting their 210 million dollar starter up on the hill. I love the irony of baseball.
Also, if I'm the Nationals, right now I'd rather have Tanner Roark in my rotation, Tyler Clipperd as my 8th inning set up man, and 210 million dollars more in my pocket over the next 15 YEARS!
And nothing against Max, he's a awesome pitcher, but with the rotation they already had, I just don't understand their off season.
Darno did great. Duda did too. Flores needs to relax and take a strike.
This was a great way to start the season and so much of what you see in spring just doesn't matter when the season gets going. The best performances--guys like Kirk, Lagares, Flores--were non factors where guys who struggled mightily--Colon, Familia and d'Arnaud--were spectacular, winning the game for the Mets.
It's hard to take away too much from one game. Flores isn't going to be THAT lost at the plate and Colon IS going to get roughed up every once and a while. Just enjoy the win, sip a cold one tonight knowing a soon-to-be 42-year-old journeyman and a ragtag cheap Mets team just beat the 210 million dollar man and (supposedly, that's what they tell me) baseball's best team. Try to win this series. I think it's such a tease that we don't have baseball tomorrow. Not cool.
Here's one for size: Max Scherzer signed a contract worth over twice what the entire Mets payroll is.
Steve, numbers are just numbers. I don't think my assessment--based upon how many weeks of head-to-head Desmond has cost me in roto--is at all unfair. Granted, fantasy ain't real life. But neither are stats. I'll tell you this. I started last year with Desmond as my every day and, at the break, I was next to last in an 18 team league. I benched him in the second half (eventually cut him) and went with whatever I could find on the wire any given week. Brock Holt was probably at short for me more than any other player in the second half. And I won my league's title. One of the guys I passed had picked up Desmond on waivers and, from that moment on, sank like a stone. Desmond is a DISASTER in the field. He is the living proof that stats (especially the newer sabermetrics) do NOT tell the whole story of a player. I would steer as far clear as I could (both in fantasy and real ball) or at least move him somewhere (DH comes to mind). You put a glove on his hand and point him to short, you are NOT going to win a title. Some players are just born losers. Desmond, as a shortstop, is one of them.
I wasn't responding to your comment, Stubby. It was just a recap of what I thought of the game, directed at no one.
Personally I'm not a fan of Desmond. I really looked at his game when there were rumors about attaining him and I think his game is incomplete and he's a huge dollar commitment after this year (plus whatever prospect we would have had to surrender) for someone who, well, has tendencies to do what he did today.
I wouldn't call Desmond a loser as a shortstop. He's probably the second best offensive shortstop in baseball and unlike the other, he's stayed healthy. He makes a lot of errors but ready for Flores to do that too. Flores is absolutely going to have days like Desmond's day today along the way.
Remember when Colon was fat and old?
Remember when Duda wasn't clutch?
Remember when TDA couldn't hit?
..............Ya Gotta Believe.............
(Im still a mets fan, so I expect the worst regarding Mejia, but this team can compete)
Stubby, I was happy to see Bartolo throw a great game today against a depleted offense. Well done. But last season, despite what you write, he did have the worst ERA of all the Mets starting pitchers. And his 4.09 ERA was quite a bit worse than Niese's 3.40. True Facts.
James Preller
James, Colon also won 15 games--tops on the staff. Niese won 9. True facts.
Stephen, I knew you weren't responding to me. My comment was to Steve from Norfolk.
Desmond committed 24 errors last year--the most errors for a shortstop in all of baseball. Only one full season has he ever committed less than 20. The resoundingly unpopular Ruben Tejada committed 8 errors last year and has never committed more than 15 in a season. Flores committed 5 errors across three positions in a small sample. Four of them came at short. Add in the one error committed by Quintanilla and all Mets shortstops combined committed just a bit more than half of the errors Ian Desmond did. Sure, Flores is going to have bad "days", defensively, but Desmond is having a bad career. I don't want those stone hands anywhere near my team.
I think Colon did well yesterday - a B+ grade - but the Mets were lucky and it was the depth of good relief pitching and clutch hitting that won it.
It's great, and what any winning ballclub needs.
But I maintain that a staff with Colon instead of Montero/ Matz/ Syndergaard is not the best staff the Mets can field. He will have 50% good starts and 50% blowouts.
Colon was good enough for last year's team, but last year's team was 79-83. If you want to go 90-72 you need to replace people like Colon with players that have higher upside - 90 win upside.
I may be wrong but there's a risk that Colon gets a month or two to prove himself and that will cost us 2-3 games. Of course I know there is no guarantee Montero will do better. he looked very good in ST though.
Hey, Mack. i'm not sweating the hitting (or lack thereof) after 1 game. The guy they beat was an astounding 39-8 the last 2 years.
Last year, I bet they get shut out in a game like this. This year, enough hitting to put acros! 3 runs. We're gonna hit -we're gonna score. A lot.
Colon will win his share of games because he is unflappable. Some he'll not have it and get hammered. But despite his size, there is more than meets the eye. Unlike Desmond, who is less than.
The Uniqueness of Baseball is that it's MOSTLY about the sequence of statistics, rather than the mere list of stats.
The one big hit following an error versus 3 hits spaced out... the strikeouts that follow an error versus the strikeouts that come after a homerun.
Colon was terrific yeasterday---great movement and location.... he popped some 92's, and he was deadly on 88-89 mph 2 seemers.
BTW--- DeGrom has developed that disappearing 2 seemer...and Herveyt has been using it as well---is that sourced from Warthen, or is it a by-product of Colon?
Come on, Stubby, that's ridiculous. You began by saying Colon was better than Niese last year and I refuted with ERA.
So you come back with the W stat? Really?
Matt Harvey and his 2.27 ERA won 9 games in 2013. Dillon Gee won 12. And it means nothing.
Bartolo had the 4th most run support in the NL last year. He's not terrible, but the Mets have better pitchers earning the ML minimum.
I don't see the logic in tossing effective, competitive and PROVEN players/pitchers to the curb to be replaced by guys who have no history...when you're trying to establish yourself as a WINNING TEAM.
I agree that Matz, Montero, Sindee have big upsides---but the travel from zero to Arrived is more often the Tom Glavin Route...NOT the Harvey, DeGrom, Seaver, Dwight Express to Success.
You don't want a full freight of young pitchers establishing and getting their asses kicked All At The Same Time...all at a time when you're ready to win.
All of these guys will get their shot--they're undeniable! Frankly, they're all pretty much ready for it.
I'd view it all as a big bonus---their hasn't been a team that won a championship with JUST !@ PITCHERS or JUST 5 STARTERS in quite some time (uh oh!!!---here comes a conflicting stat!!!...haha)... anyway---they will need and USE virtually every single arm this season.
@Anon
Fellas, this is why the Stat "FIP" was created. It measures the effectiveness of a pitcher based on the things only he can control, K's, BB's, HRs, etc.
By that measure, Colon did pitch better than his ERA indicates with a FIP of 3.57. He also posted the 12th best K:BB ratio in baseball last season with a 5 to 1 rate.
Niese on the other hand pitched slightly worse than his ERA would indicate. He posted a FIP of 3.67 which is actually right in line with his career norm of 3.72
I really need to do a couple posts on stats and saber. There's a lot of misinformation thrown around this comment section especially. Wins and ERA are kinda meaningless to me as both rely on things a pitcher can't control...ERA is reliant on defense and batted ball luck and wins are so much a product of offense and bullpen and not the starting pitcher.
eraff makes an excellent point about Colon's influence on a young staff.
The game isn't played on paper; its played on the field. Stats are a useful tool--nothing more. So, yes, I pull out the wins from last year because, in the standings, wins and losses are all that matters. Your team doesn't get extra points in the standings because your ERA or WAR were better than the guys on the teams that beat you.
Some players elevate the play of those around them and some don't. Jon Matlack had great stuff, but he was never more than a .500 pitcher. Blame the offenses on his teams if you like but, at some point, a pitcher has to look in the mirror and own his part of it.
It is entirely possible to be the beneficiary or victim of "luck" for a season or two. Bartolo Colon has been a winning pitcher for a very long time, now. Regardless of his peripherals, its long past time to acknowledge that he's good--not just lucky and not just a beneficiary of good run support. Niese has, thus far, had one winning season in his career. He's pretty much a .500 pitcher. After seven years, its time to stop blaming the run support or bad luck. Ask a scout. They'll tell you that, at least half the time, Niese looks like he's without focus and like he'd rather be anywhere else than the pitcher's mound.
Of the home grown Mets, how many have played in the post-season? Just Wright. Colon, Granderson and Cuddyer have been there and that means something. Its a huge plus that won't show up on your stat sheet, but a plus nonetheless. They know how to win because they've done it before. Don't underestimate the importance of that.
Stubby, don't confuse the importance of wins and losses of a team with wins and losses of an individual starting pitcher. The W-L record of a starting pitcher is irrelevant.
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