Noah Syndergaard, who has comfortably established himself as the Mets best starter this season, was opposed by Chase Anderson as the Mets went for the sweep of the Brewers on Sunday afternoon. Anderson nearly tossed a no-hitter against the Cubs in his last outing, while Syndergaard was coming off a win in a pitcher’s duel against Max Scherzer on Tuesday.
For the third time in three games, the Brewers got on the board first. Scooter Gennett reached on a David Wright error with one out in the first, and after Ryan Braun grounded out to move Gennett to second, Jonathan Lucroy drove him in with a single to right. The run was unearned, but Syndergaard was very quickly in a one-run hole.
That deficit would not last long, however. In the bottom of the first, Curtis Granderson popped up and David Wright grounded out before Michael Conforto blasted a fastball from Chase Anderson 425 feet into the visitor’s bullpen for his eighth home run of the year. The home run pushed Conforto’s TAv to a tremendous .338, despite his mid-May swoon. That mark places him 16th in the majors among hitters with at least 100 plate appearances.
Conforto got the Met offense started again in the fourth, leading off the inning with a walk. Yoenis Cespedes followed that up with a bloop double that was misplayed in left field by Braun, and the Mets were in business with runners at second and third and nobody out. Neil Walker struck out after a seven-pitch battle with Anderson, but Asdrubal Cabrera came through with a two-run single to right that put the Mets up 3-1.
Meanwhile, Noah Syndergaard was cruising through the Brewers lineup, striking out two in the second, three in the third, two in the fourth, two in the sixth and one in the seventh. A line drive off the bat of Ramon Flores caught Thor in the glove and the arm in the fifth, but he waved off the trainers and worked escaped without allowing a run. In the seventh, the Brewers put men on first and third with nobody out but failed to score again. Despite struggling with his fastball control early, Syndergaard finished with seven innings, 11 strikeouts, no walks and no earned runs allowed, lowering his ERA on the season to 1.94. He has a 0.82 ERA and 27 strikeouts (and two home runs) in his last three starts.
Jim Henderson replaced Syndergaard in the eighth and dispatched the Brewers with little difficulty. Even without his best juice behind his fastball (he sat between 91 and 93 mph), Henderson allowed only a single to Braun and struck out one while preserving the Mets’s two-run lead. The Mets threatened in the bottom of the eighth against Brewers’s closer Jeremey Jeffress, but failed to score after putting runners on first and third with two outs.
Jeurys Familia entered for the ninth inning and continued his perfect streak to start the season. He induced three weak groundballs, one of which went for an infield hit, but polished off the Brewers by inducing a double play off the bat of Alex Presley. The save, Familia’s 15th, puts him one behind Francisco Rodriguez for the second longest converted save streak to open a season in Met history.
The win completed the Mets’s first home sweep against Milwaukee since 2002 and kept them 1.5 games back of the Nationals for first in the NL East. The Nats and Mets will start a three-game set Monday with Colon, Harvey and Matz opposing Gio Gonzalez, Stephen Strasburg and Tanner Roark. Hopefully the bad taste of last week’s series was wiped away with three comeback victories against the Brewers.
Photo credit: Noah K. Murray – USA Today Sports