By metstradamus | April 8, 2021 5:29 pm
It wouldn’t be Mets if it wasn’t weird.
The Mets went into the ninth inning of their home opener down 2-1, perilously close to wasting a great pitching performance all around. Taijuan Walker was impressive through six innings, giving up two runs on four hits and four walks, only victimized in the sixth as he pitched to Jesus Aguilar with a runner on third and two outs instead of pitching around him, but Walker being aggressive and going after hitters were what made his day spectacular, and the Mets will certainly take a bunch more starts like that from Walker.
The bullpen was similarly effective as Miguel Castro’s pitches were moving without wildness, Trevor May bounced back with a strong 8th inning (his fastball to strike out Starling Marte had some spice on it), and Edwin Diaz’s ninth inning was uneventful, which is preferred. If Marte doesn’t make a great catch on Dom Smith’s sac fly in the 5th, then the drama that was about to envelop the 9th would not have been necessary.
Starling Marte, of the Marlins, catches this ball hit by Dominic Smith (not shown), of the Mets, with the bases loaded in the fifth inning. Thursday, April 8, 2021
Opening Day At Citi Field
Jeff McNeil led off the ninth, as he was hitting 7th in the order after a day off on Wednesday. Now many, including me, would be incredulous at the fact that McNeil, who has been an excellent hitter for the Mets and has been scalding the ball against the Phillies albeit with no results, would be jerked around the lineup and hitting behind the free-swinging Jonathan Villar. There is consideration for balancing the lineup by alternating lefties and righties with the useless three batter rule in effect, but it just seems wrong to have McNeil hitting so low in the order. It seems like a waste.
So when McNeil hit his game tying bomb to the Soft Drink Section to tie it and threw his bat so high that Steve Cohen had a conversation with it over a beer, I was projecting a little of my anger at the situation to McNeil as I saw him take an extra long look to the dugout after hitting that seed. I almost thought that Ray Knight was going to come out to give McNeil a high five and tell him to shake hands with Luis Rojas and not ignore him.
I was happy to see the McNeil exuberance and bat flip. He was tossing aside all of his spring struggles with that flip - expect a red hot McNeil going forward.
ReplyDeleteThat was some catch off Smith - had they listened to me years back (who does, though, really?) that fence would have been 402, not 408, and it would have been a grand slam.
This team may have big power for years to come - Cohen should consider that sort of fence tweaking knowing they already pulled them in twice.