July 30th 2015 -- Padres 8, Mets 7

Thursday afternoon at Citi, Justin Upton hit a 3 run homer off Jeurys Familia in the top of the 9^th inning. The Padres come from behind and beat the Mets 8-7. The Mets went into the top of the 9^th with a 7-5 lead.  Familia got the first two outs of the 9^th when a rain delay came.  When the game resumed the Friars got singles by Derek Norris and Matt Kemp. Upton followed with the three run bomb, his 18^th to give the Padres the lead.  The Mets constructed a 7-1 lead. The Mets took a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the 1^st when Curtis Granderson doubled to center. Moved to 3^rd on a fly out by Ruben Tejada and scored on a sac-fly by Daniel Murphy.  In the 5^th Kevin Plawecki singled and was erased on force play by Niese trying to bunt.  Juan Lagares walked and then Granderson hit his 16^th home run to right center clearing the bases for a 4-0 lead. Niese was sharp on the day. In his last outing he was distracted by his wife being in labor. Thursday the new Father pitched with a purpose.  Niese ran into a speed bump in the 6^th. He allowed an RBI single to Matt Kemp to make it 4-1. Then with the bases loaded and 1 out he got Jed Gyorko to ground into an inning ending double play. In the 6^th Juan Uribe hit his first Met homer, a solo shot to make it 5-1.  Lagares hit a sac-fly scoring Michael Conforto and it was 6-1.  Tejada’s RBI single scored Plawecki and it was 7-1. Derek Norris was a one man wrecking crew on the day. He went 5 for 5 including a grand slam in the 7^th off Hansel Robles to pull the Padres to within 7-5. Bobby Parnell got into the bases loaded jam. Hansel Robles yielded the slam, for Norris his 12^th homer on the year.  In the 9^th Upton powered the Padres to the 8-7 win. The game was delayed a second time and much longer after the top of the 9^th. When play resumed Craig Kimbrel retired the Mets 1-2-3 to notch his 30^th save. Niese went 6 innings allowing 6 hits the 1 run (earned) walking 1 and striking out 6. Familia takes the loss falling to 2-1. Familia is in a horrible slump blowing his 3^rd consecutive save.  Marcos Mateo gets the win he’s now 1-0. With the loss the Mets drop to 52-50 on the year and 35-18 at home. The Nats won on Thursday afternoon so the Mets fall to 3 games out, going into this weekend’s series. Friday, the Nationals come to Flushing for a 3 game battle for 1^st place. Friday night Matt Harvey (9-7 3.16) goes for the Mets, Gio Gonzalez (8-4 3.83) goes for Washington.