In summary:
The pitching was good until it wasn’t; the offense was never good. Mets lose 5-1.
The good:
Robert Gsellman is good! The SoCal native fit in perfectly to the Mets rotation in his first start on Sunday — both the hair and the slider. The hard-throwing righty was the victim of Terry Collins’ late hook (haven’t we all at some point?), but his first six innings were as good as you could have hoped from him. He got himself into trouble in the seventh inning when he allowed three straight hard-hit balls by the Phillies and Hansel Robles let them all saunter home with ease. Speaking of…
The bad:
Hansel Robles really shouldn’t be pitching in meaningful spots anymore. Yes, he looked shiny in July, but it’s August now and the erratic flamethrower can’t control his pitches. The Mets are (theoretically) in a playoff race; Collins can’t be waiting for Robles to figure things out.
The Sunday lineup was in true form yesterday too, barely getting past the rules for number of starters who have to play in a spring training road game — and that was before Asdrubal Cabrera left the game early. After scoring 12 runs on Saturday night, the Mets couldn’t take advantage of a less-than-impressive Vince Velasquez and put up just one run: a sacrifice fly by Curtis Granderson in the bottom of the first. They had baserunners, but — stop me if you’ve heard this one before — they just couldn’t bring them around to score.
The ugly:
Neil Walker sat with a bad back. Yoenis Cespedes sat with a bad quad. Cabrera left with a bad knee. And so steadily march the sands of time toward our impending death.
Scoreboard watching:
Pirates won. Marlins lost. Cardinals lost. Giants won. The Mets are 2.5 games back. Nobody wants to win the NL Wild Card.
Photo credit: Andy Marlin – USA Today Sports