In a sentence:
The split-squad road team pulled off an improbably win after an all-nighter and took the first game of the series from the Reds 5-0.
The good:
The Mets weren’t supposed to win this game. It was the day game after a night game, hungover on celebratory champagne with your starters rehabbing strained hamstrings (two of these are true, but they all sound right). And yet here they are, a game out of the second Wild Card spot having won six of their last eight games and 12 of their last 16.
On paper, the lineup was questionable at best and the team was running on little-to-no sleep: the team plane had arrived at about 2:30 a.m. and Matt Reynolds stumbled into the hotel around 6 a.m. But the National League Wild Card doesn’t care about things like eight hours a night and the Mets made it work.
Reynolds, just recalled from Las Vegas as the 51s’ season comes to a close, led off the scoring with a solo shot to right in the top of the third. Kelly Johnson copied his MO in the top of the fifth and put the Mets up 2-0. The seventh inning was more of a group effort as Travis d’Arnaud walked, James Loney singled and Reynolds singled in the third run of the game. Asdrubal Cabrera singled in Loney and Alejandro De Aza’s sacrifice fly drove in the fifth and final run of the day.
And while the bats feasted on the less-than-impressive Cincinnati bullpen, Bartolo Colon, ageless wonder that he is, performed admirably as always (if you had Colon being the most stable part of the Mets’ rotation before the season started, start playing the lottery). The 43-year-old hero went six innings, giving up just five hits and one walk while striking out two Reds.
The bullpen similarly did their job as Hansel Robles got through a scoreless inning (he gave up a hit, but zeros on the board for Robles is a miracle these days), Jerry Blevins got through 0.2 innings with two hits and Fernando Salas, fill-in closer, closed the game with four outs.
The bad:
David Wright once said Daniel Murphy thought he was invisible on the basepaths, but that might be a symptom of the Mets’ second baseman role in general. Wilmer Flores, fast by literally nobody’s standards, was thrown out once at second base and once at third trying to stretch extra-base hits. Thankfully his TOOTBLANs didn’t end up affecting the game, but someone should probably sit him down and walk him through baserunning basics.
The ugly:
Listen, the Mets won with a lineup that wouldn’t have gotten past the commissioner’s office during spring training. Stop complaining for a day.
Photo credit: David Kohl – USA Today Sports