Executive Summary
The starting pitchers combined to walk 10 batters. Yoenis Cespedes walked off in the tenth inning. Mets 2, Marlins 1.
Discussion and Analysis
Miami entered last night’s contest one game ahead of the Mets in the Wild Card standings, with the Marlins a game and a half behind St. Louis for the second spot in the Coin Flip Game. By all reasonable standards, the starting pitchers presented a mismatch: Future Cy Young winner Jose Fernandez — who’s never allowed more than two runs in any start versus the Mets — against former Met prospect Rafael Montero, he of the career 4.45 MLB ERA and 3.25 career ERA in the minors. The kind of pitcher who (particularly this year) would have made a 2016 start before August 29 if the Mets believed in his ability to retire big-league hitters.
Montero produced on results, if not on process. Over five innings, he walked six but gave up just two hits (the first to the immortal Ichiro Suzuki with two outs in the top of the fourth inning) and no runs. Montero thus became the second Mets pitcher since Zack Wheeler in May 2014 to walk six in a single game. Jacob deGrom pinch-hit for Montero in the fifth because the Mets were, seemingly as always, playing with a short bench due to injuries serious enough to cause absences from the starting lineup but not severe enough to merit a DL stint.
A procession of middle relievers shepherded the Mets through the sixth through tenth innings, allowing just one manufactured run off Addison Reed in the eighth. Reed retired the first two before Ichiro Suzuki hit a line drive to right-center. Alejandro De Aza made a nice play to cut it off and gun it to second base. Yet Ichiro, at age 42, was still fast enough to comfortably slide under the tag for a double. The next batter, 28-year-old rookie Xavier Scruggs, scorched his own liner to left field. Cespedes took two steps toward it before realizing it was past him. Statcast awarded Cespedes a mere 67.5% route efficiency on the effort. Injured quad or not, Cespedes looked like he’d rarely seen the outfield on the play. Scruggs’s double scored Ichiro for the first run of the game.
The Mets immediately tied the game in the bottom of the eighth. Leading off against former Marlins closer AJ Ramos, Jose Reyes pulled a double that would have been a triple against most right fielders’ arms. Reyes chose not to test Ichiro’s legendary cannon. De Aza hit a deep fly ball to left, and Reyes smartly tagged up to reach third with only one out. With Cespedes at bat, Ramos uncorked a high fastball that went all the way to the backstop. Reyes scampered home with the tying run.
Cespedes’s dinger in the tenth was a no-doubt bomb to left-center. It’s difficult to overstate his importance to the otherwise-impotent Mets lineup. He’s gonna opt out at season’s end, so let’s enjoy him while we still can.
Contemporaneous Thoughts
If Rafael Montero throws a no-hitter tonight, we're shutting down @BP_Mets. Tomorrow, after I post tonight's recap.
— Scott D. Simon (@scottdsimon) August 30, 2016
GKR-isms
“[Montero] grew up on a part of the Dominican that didn’t play a lot of baseball.” — Gary
“There comes a point in the season where the team that’s gonna to help you win that day is gotta be the team that you put on the field.” — Gary
“He’s got a lot of stuff that you really wouldn’t like if you’re a hitter. He’s a chatterbox.” — Keith, on Jose Fernandez
Coda
Rotation stalwart Seth Lugo will need to provide innings tonight. He faces Tom Koehler, whose 5.04 DRA tells us the Mets might score more than two runs.
Photo Credit: Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports