Yoenis Cespedes’s two-run blast was the only support that Noah Syndergaard needed, as Thor blanked the Giants offense for the 2-0 victory.

ALL (BATS) QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT

Both Jeff Samardzija and Syndergaard came out dealing, setting down the other side in order in each of the first two innings fairly easily. In fact, those first 12 batters saw only 36 pitches combined. The first batter in the game to reach base was Syndergaard himself, who worked an eight-pitch at-bat and an eventual walk with two outs in the third inning. Nothing came of it, though, as Jose Reyes flew out in foul territory to end the inning.
Syndergaard allowed a walk himself to Trevor Brown with one out in the bottom of the third. Brown took his first steal attempt of the season, which was unsuccessful, as Rene Rivera cut him down for the second out. Samardzija struck out to end the inning. It was the same story in the next inning. After the Mets went down in order once again in the top of the fourth, Eduardo Nunez reached base with a one-out single- the first hit of the game. Nunez, who’s got a decent amount of speed, attempted to swipe second, but Rivera nabbed his second baserunner in a row, easily beating the shortstop. Syndergaard then got Brandon Belt whiffing on a 93 mph slider for the final out of the inning.
Samardzija banged out two more one-two-three frames for his fifth and sixth hitless innings of the game. The final out of the inning came on a Joe Panik glove flip to first base to barely catch Reyes. Between Brandon Crawford’s diving stop to get Reyes in the first inning and Gregor Blanco’s tough catch on his foul pop in the third, Reyes got really unlucky in his first three at-bats (although at least two of those outs might have had something to do with the step — or two or three — that he’s lost over the past few years.) Syndergaard pitched scoreless fifth and sixth innings as well.

THE BIG BLAST

Curtis Granderson broke up Samardzija’s no-hitter in the top of the seventh with a leadoff double. Two pitches later, Cespedes ended his shutout:

That’s Cespedes’s third home run in his last nine PAs. (It took him 71 PAs to get his last three.)
That proved to be all that the Mets would need, and Thor and Jeurys Familia finished off the rest. Syndergaard faced six more batters, just walking Belt in the bottom of the seventh before inducing a double play from Crawford to end the inning. After an easy nine-pitch inning in the eighth, Syndergaard ended his scoreless outing with two hits, two walks, eight strikeouts, and just 98 pitches on his arm.
Familia finished off the Giants in bottom of the ninth, moving the Mets back to .500.

NOTES

-Sunday’s game was likely most impressive of Syndergaard’s young career. By game score, it was his best, with a tally of 86. That narrowly bested the score of 85 that he logged with his eight-inning, three-hit, nine-strikeout performance on July 28, 2015 against the (much weaker) Padres.
-The Mets will continue their road trip Tuesday against the Cardinals when Jon Niese takes on Jaime Garcia in St. Louis.
Photo credit: Lance Iversen – USA Today Sports

Steven Matz took a no-hitter into the eighth inning against a punchless Padres lineup as the Mets moved back over .500 with a 5-1 victory on Sunday.

A DOMINANT OUTING

Although Sunday’s start would prove to be arguably the finest of Matz’s young career, the game began inauspiciously for the lefty. On a brutally hot day in Queens, with the sun still near its noontime peak, Matz started San Diego’s leadoff hitter, Travis Jankowski, with a strike before tossing four straight balls for a foreboding first batter walk.

Although Matz struck out Wil Myers on a 3-2 count, a clumsy pickoff attempt on a Jankowski steal caused a balk and allowed the speedy centerfielder to advance to second base. With Yangervis Solarte batting, Jankowski tried to swipe third. Although he was called out on the play, video evidence seemed to indicate that T.J. Rivera had failed to get the tag down, and the Padres challenged the play. As the umpires waited for the verdict, it seemed as though the Padres would have a runner on third, and their two best hitters – Solarte and Alex Dickerson – would have cracks at advance him home.

However, the proof didn’t seem strong enough to overturn the call, and Matz found himself with the bases empty and two outs. He finished off Solarte, striking him out on a beautiful curveball, and didn’t look back. Matz rolled through the Padres’ lineup, setting batters down in order in five of the six subsequent innings, with his only further blemish through his first seven frames coming on a walk to Derek Norris. Matz had great stuff, with his fastball averaging 95-96 mph, up from its usual 94-95. The lefty also went to the curveball for 29 of his 105 pitches, nearly twice as often as he usually throws it. Matz turned to the pitch to finish off a few of his eight strikeouts and used it dozens more times to set up hard two-strike fastballs that inevitably would be met with swings and misses.

WALKER AND WILMER DO THEIR THING

The Mets didn’t have the same issues against Clayton Richard as the Padres did against Matz. Richard, who entered the game with a well below average 5.68 DRA, set down the first three Mets batters fairly easily in the first inning before allowing a home run to Wilmer Flores in the second. Wilmer worked a great at-bat, letting three balls and two borderline strikes go by for a full count. He then got his pitch, launching a ball into the left field seats for his 12th home run of the season to give the Mets a 1-0 lead.

Neil Walker followed two innings later with his 21st home run of the season. Something seems to have clicked around late July for Walker, as he’s hitting .456/.493/.691 in 73 PA since July 27 after a relatively slow start to the season. Walker is making more contact, striking out in just 8% of those 73 PAs instead of the 20% clip at which he had struck out in 358 PAs to that point. He’s improved his line drive rate immensely, and has also focused less on pulling the ball, hitting nearly half of the pitches he makes contact with up the middle since that July 27 game in which he collected three hits against the Cubs.

NO MORE NO-NO

The game held at 2-0 through the seventh inning, as did the Padres’ box score line of 0 runs, 0 hits, and 1 error. After Jabari Blash struck out swinging, Matz made his first (and only) mistake of the game:

Alexei Ramirez smashed a fastball that Matz left up down the first base line for the Padres’ first hit of the game. With Matz at 105 pitches – his fourth-highest tally of the season – Terry Collins went to the bullpen to put in Addison Reed, who allowed a two-out single to Ryan Schimpf but struck out Brett Wallace to end the inning.

The Mets notched three more insurance runs in the bottom of the eighth inning, partially due to some wild throwing by catcher Derek Norris that allowed Jose Reyes to swipe second base and advance to third and by pitcher Jose Dominguez that allowed Reyes to come home. Rivera later doubled in Ty Kelly and Jay Bruce to put the Mets up by 5.

These runs proved unnecessary but helpful in allowing the Mets to rest Jeurys Familia, who had pitched the previous day. Gabriel Ynoa, pitching in just the second game of his career, allowed a base hit to Wil Myers and an RBI single to Solarte, but closed out the game with just the one run allowed as the Mets took the 5-1 victory.

NOTES

-Matz’s one-hit performance was the best of his career by Game Score, as the 86 tally that he notched on Sunday beat 7.2 inning, 2-hit performance on May 4 of this year.
-The Mets will begin a 10-game road trip tonight against the Arizona Diamondbacks at 9:40 p.m. Bartolo Colon will pitch against Robbie Ray.

Photo credit: Andy Marlin – USA Today Sports

Jacob deGrom does his part and Neil Walker seals the Mets win for the second Sunday in a row as he blasts a ninth-inning home run off of K-Rod.

QUIET BATS

Every statistic besides the number of runs scored indicates that the Tigers should have won this game. They had 11 hits, to the Mets’ five; three walks, to the Mets’ none; no errors, to the Mets’ two; and 12 total bases, to the Mets’ 11. They went 3-for-8 with runners in scoring position, while no Met batter even batted with a runner on second or third base. But the Mets beat the Tigers in home runs and, of course, runs, and those would make the difference on Sunday.

The Mets went down 1-2-3 in the top of the first inning, and would do little of interest at the plate against Anibal Sanchez until the seventh. Curtis Granderson would bloop a two-out single here (in the third) or Kelly Johnson would line a two-out single there (in the fifth), but Sanchez would easily make his way out of the inning each time. Sanchez struck out 10 Mets over the course of the game — punching out every Met except for Michael Conforto and Alejandro De Aza either once or twice. Sanchez cruised through eight innings on just 100 pitches, tossing 70 strikes.

Despite a Johnson fielding error, deGrom only needed 11 pitches to get through the first inning after inducing Miguel Cabrera into a double play two pitches later. For each of the next three innings, though, the Tigers would give deGrom trouble, forcing him to throw 58 pitches in the second, third and fourth combined. The situation seemed precarious in the top of the fourth inning, when Victor and JD Martinez knocked singles after eight and seven-pitch at-bats, respectively. But deGrom battled out of trouble with by striking out Justin Upton and inducing a double play from Casey McGehee.

SEVENTH INNING STRETCH

deGrom put down the next six batters in order. Sanchez was still rolling at this time, too, and retired Jay Bruce on a weak popup and James Loney on a strikeout in the top of the seventh, seemingly on his way to another single-digit pitch inning. However, he left a 2-1 fastball up, one of his few mistakes of the game, and Conforto hammered it to left for the first run of the game to give the Mets a 1-0 lead.

The Tigers answered right back. deGrom was visibly tired by this time, his fastballs hanging around 92 instead of their usual 94-95. He got a quick out on his first pitch of the inning, but allowed a single to Upton on the second. McGehee lofted a changeup nearly over the fence for a go-ahead home run, but Granderson hauled it in on the warning track. deGrom walked 60 OPS+ and .237 TAv-carrying James McCann to put runners on first and second. Andrew Romine squibbed a ball that died in the grass in front of third base, loading the bases with two outs.

Terry Collins removed deGrom, who had just thrown his 103rd pitch, bringing in Jerry Blevins to face the lefty-hitting Tyler Collins. But Brad Ausmus reciprocated by pinch hitting righty-hitting Ian Kinsler. Blevins still has a .133/.250/.233 line (albeit in just 37 PAs) against righties this season, but those righties don’t walk up to the plate with a .297 TAv the way Ian Kinsler does. Kinsler chopped another infield single over Blevins’s head that Walker had no play on, tying the game at one.

Addison Reed came on to finish off Jose Iglesias with a nice snag by Granderson to get the Mets out of the inning, but the damage was done.

Not much interesting happened in the eighth inning, except for a JD Martinez double and this fun play:

FIREWORKS

That ended the eighth inning, and Francisco Rodriguez came on to face his former team in the top of the ninth. K-Rod started off the inning with fireworks, or at least something that was as loud as one:

Ouch. Yikes is right.

That put the Mets’ fifth baserunner of the day on base. Walker then came up and, after a fastball in the dirt, promptly parked the second pitch into the right field stands to give the Mets the 3-1 lead, a lead they would never relinquish. Ian Kinsler hit a two-out single, but Jeurys Familia struck out his third batter of the inning shortly after to stave off the series sweep for the Mets.

NOTES

-Kinsler’s RBI single snapped deGrom’s 20-inning scoreless streak, which was the longest of his career.
-After a night off, the Mets will come home for a series against the Diamondbacks starting Tuesday. Steven Matz will go against Zack Greinke.

Photo credit: Rick Osentoski – USA Today Sports

The Mets lose a shortstop but win a game against the Rockies on the back of Neil Walker’s bat.

A WHOPPING 118 PITCHES

Noah Syndergaard’s first out of the game was most representative of the outing he would end up having. Thor poured in 98 mile-per-hour sinkers and 90 mile-per-hour sinkers and changeups to Charlie Blackmon, but Blackmon wouldn’t give in, fouling off about a million pitches (seven, to be exact.) Finally, on the 11th pitch, Blackmon lined the ball to left field, which Brandon Nimmo dove to catch. It wasn’t pretty, and it took a lot of pitches, but it got the job done —  much like the rest of Syndergaard’s game.

The Mets struck first in the bottom of the first. With Asdrubal Cabrera on first base (after he made the questionable decision to bunt, which forced out Alejandro De Aza at second), Walker blasted a ball off the right field wall. Ahead of Walker, who easily pulled into third, Cabrera made it home to score the first run of the game. However, he strained the patellar tendon in his left knee in the process, left in the third inning and might have to go on the DL.

The Rockies answered in the top of the second when Daniel Descalso singled home David Dahl to tie the game at 1-1, but the Mets pulled ahead when Rockies pitcher Chad Bettis walked Nimmo and Rene Rivera (after having both of them on 0-2 counts) and gave up a single to De Aza to put the Mets up 2-1.

After Syndergaard put up a 1-2-3 inning — albeit a 22-pitch one — Nimmo singled in Walker to give the Mets a two-run lead. In the next half inning, the Rockies tightened that to one. Michael Conforto muffed a Dahl single, allowing him to advance all the way to third. Two batters later, Descalso lined a ball on the outer part of the plate over Walker’s head that drove home Dahl. The next inning, the Rockies tied the game on a Carlos Gonzalez double.

THE BIG BLAST

Syndergaard entered the sixth inning already with 105 pitches, unlikely to make it through the frame, but had his easiest inning of the game, retiring the next three Rockies batters he faced on just 13 pitches to leave the game with a whopping total of 118. His replacement in the seventh, Jerry Blevins, is usually money, but the Mets left the lefty specialist in for the entire inning, and the Rockies got to him. With runners on second and third and one out, Blevins walked righty to DJ LeMahieu to get to lefty Gonzalez. Even with the favorable matchup, you’re never putting yourself in a great position when you walk someone intentionally to get to CarGo. Luckily, the slugger didn’t do too much damage, but he did enough, plating another run with a sacrifice fly to give the Rockies the lead.

However, the Rockies found themselves in a similar position in the next half inning, sending their own lefty specialist, Boone Logan, to pitch to multiple batters. Logan walked two batters and got two outs when Walker came to the plate. In this situation, he might’ve been better off just walking Walker to get to the lefty-hitting Conforto. Walker smacked a ball into the left field seats to give the Mets a 6-4 lead, a lead they’d never give up. Addison Reed allowed just one hit in the eighth, and Jeurys Familia closed the game in the ninth with two groundouts and a strikeout to give the Mets their 54th win of the season.

NOTES

– Neil Walker is red hot, as he’s gone 12 for his last 19.
– Syndergaard’s 118 pitches were the most he’s thrown all season.
– The Mets will throw Logan Verrett against the Yankees’ CC Sabathia in Queens tonight at 7:05.

Photo credit: Anthony Gruppuso – USA Today Sports

Steven Matz bounced back from a rough start against the Cubs, and the bullpen and offense did their thing as the Mets took the series against Miami.

MATZIN’ OUT

Any fears that Mets fans had about Michael Conforto playing centerfield were alleviated somewhat when, on his very first play at the position in his major league career, he made an excellent diving catch in center field.

Conforto has been solid in left this season, collecting 2.2 FRAA and rating as average to above average by other defensive metrics. That catch helped bail out Matz of what could’ve been a rough inning, as he allowed a single to Martin Prado and a two-out walk to Stanton before inducing a Marcell Ozuna forceout to end the inning.

Matz wasn’t totally dominating, as he put a runner on base here or there most innings, but he always got out of trouble with a strikeout or a ground out. Last Monday against the Cubs, Matz’s fastball was a tick off, averaging just under his usual 94 miles per hour, and his offspeed pitches were flat. That wasn’t the case on Sunday, as Matz frequently popped the gun at 94-95. Although he relied on his heater for 73 of his 99 pitches, his offspeed stuff was sharp. These subtle improvements in Matz’s repertoire made him much more effective, especially when facing the Marlins instead of the Cubs.

Matz’s biggest test came in the fifth inning with the Mets holding onto a one run lead, when he got two quick outs before allowing a single to Martin Prado, the third of four times that the .292 TAv hitter reached base. After being brushed off the plate by an up-and-in fastball and fouling a ball of his foot, Christian Yelich knocked a ball through the hole in the left side of the infield. With the 2-out 3-2 count, Prado had been running on the pitch, and he rounded second and barreled for third, a daring play with two outs against Yoenis Cespedes’s arm. However, Prado hustled in just safe, as Jose Reyes was unable to get the tag down.

With runners on first and third, Matz was set to face Giancarlo Stanton. He threw two garbage pitches high, and it looked like he would walk Stanton and take his chances with Ozuna with the bases loaded. But Matz threw a soft breaking ball on the third pitch, which Stanton chopped softly to Asdrubal Cabrera. Cabrera charged the ball and his throw beat Stanton at first by a hair to preserve the one-run lead. Matz threw his only one-two-three frame in the next inning, and then handed it off to the bullpen.

VINTAGE JOSE

Conforto led off the third inning with a bloop single between Yelich and Ozuna, and advanced to second and third on groundouts by Rene Rivera and Matz. Then, Jose Reyes flashed shades of what allowed him to average 13 triples a year and lead the league four times between 2005 and 2011.

Jose’s second triple of the season gave the Mets their first run of the game. The score stayed within one until the eighth. Two batters into that inning, Marlins reliever Kyle Barraclough found himself with two strikeouts but only one out and pitching from the stretch, as Alejandro de Aza hustled down to first after swinging wildly at a Barraclough breaking ball for strike three that bounced away from Marlins catcher JT Realmuto. Barraclough walked Curtis Granderson and gave up a single to Cespedes, which drove in de Aza and allowed Granderson to advance to third. Three pitches later, James Loney lined a pitch to right field to bring home Granderson, and the Mets were up by three.

After walking Kelly Johnson, Barraclough nearly gave up another when he allows a sharply hit ground ball to Cabrera. However, first baseman Miguel Rojas made a diving stop and threw the ball slightly wide to Realmuto. The umpire originally ruled that Realmuto had strayed too far off of home plate, but after the Marlins challenged the play the ruling was overturned and Cespedes was out on the force. Dustin McGowan replaced Barraclough and induced a flyout from Juan Lagares, leaving the game at 3-0.

But it was no matter, as the Mets’ solid bullpen, which ranks 11th in baseball in DRA, held Miami scoreless for the final three innings. The solid trio of Hansel Robles, Addison Reed, and Jeurys Familia combined to retire 9 of the 10 batters they faced to preserve the Mets’ 52nd win of the season.

NOTES

-Reyes’s triple was his 101st of his career, and with each triple he hits in the orange and blue he’ll continue to break his own franchise record.

-The win brought the Mets to within a half game of the Marlins for the second Wild Card spot, but they’re still about 10% more likely than the Marlins to make the playoffs, according to BP’s playoff odds (although that’s been cut down from about 20% more likely just last week.)

-The Mets will head back home on Monday to face another wild card rival in the Cardinals, who are locked in a dead heat with the Mets in the standings. However, BP’s playoff odds still gives the Mets the slight edge to make the postseason, seeing them as the most likely second Wild Card winner. Carlos Martinez will face Jacob deGrom tomorrow.

Photo credit: Steve Mitchell: USA-TODAY Sports

It was all Jacob deGrom, all day, as the ace pitched a one-hit shutout to claim the series for the Mets.

SOLID JOB OF HITTING

Coming off of hard-fought wins against the Cubs and the Marlins, baseball’s best and seventh-best offenses by TAv, respectively, deGrom could breathe a sigh of relief facing the Phillies, the league’s worst lineup. deGrom’s game started well enough, inducing a fly ball from Odubel Herrera on a 3-1 count before striking out Cody Asche and Peter Bourjos, each on six pitches. He would only get better as the game went on.

The Phillies trotted out Zach Eflin, a former Dodgers’ first-rounder ranked just outside Philadelphia’s top 10 prospects by BP before the season. Eflin was projected to pitch like a back-of-the-rotation starter and has more or less pitched like one in 6 starts since being called up with a 4.42 DRA. Eflin got out of the first inning easily enough, inducing flyouts from Jose Reyes, Curtis Granderson and Yoenis Cespedes.

The Mets struck against the Phillies in the second, when James Loney hit a ball to Eflin that the righty knocked down then threw away to allow Loney to get around to second. Two batters later, Juan Lagares sliced a ball down the right field line for his second triple of the season, scoring Loney.

In the third, Granderson launched his 16th home run of the season, a one-out shot that probably went more than 400 feet. Can we stop for a moment to acknowledge Grandy’s absurdly low RBI/HR ratio? The guy has 16 home runs and 28 RBI. If that were prorated to 162 games, he would have 29 home runs and 50 RBI. That just wouldn’t look right on the back of a baseball card.

The Mets mounted a two-out rally in the fifth when deGrom ripped a single up the middle and hustled all the way around from first on Reyes’ shot to the left center field gap. The Mets loaded the bases after that, but couldn’t get any of them around to score.

DEGROMINATION

But it didn’t matter, because deGrom was dealing. He induced a foul pop fly from Maikel Franco to start the second inning, and needed just 53 pitches to cut through the Phillies’ lineup two more times, culminating in a Franco fly ball to Curtis Granderson to end the seventh inning. Franco was on his way to being one of 11 Phillies batters to log an ofer on the day. In fact, the only batter who was able to knock a base hit was Eflin, who hit a single up the middle in the third inning.

Ryan Howard broke deGrom’s streak of ten straight batters retired when he walked in the eighth inning, but deGrom recovered by striking out Cameron Rupp and inducing a double play from Freddy Galvis.

deGrom was on until the very end, firing fastballs at his usual 93-94 even in the ninth inning as he completed the shutout. The righty’s efficiency was such that his final pitch of the game, a 95 mile-per-hour fastball that Herrera waved at, was just his 105th of the game.

NOTES

– The Marlins also won on Sunday, beating St. Louis 6-3, so they’re still tied with the Mets. However, BP’s playoff odds report still gives the Mets about a 20% higher chance than Miami to make the playoffs.

– The Mets are going to Chicago today, where they’ll hope to beat up on the Cubs some more after sweeping them four straight earlier this month. Steven Matz will face Jon Lester.

Photo credit: Eric Hartline – USA Today Sports

A pair of Mets, one former and one former/current, provided most of the game’s offense. No Met except Jose Reyes could get the bats going as the Amazins fell in a narrow 3-2 loss to drop the four-game series.

MURPHY’S LAW (IS THAT HE MUST KILL THE METS)

After a weekend in which Noah Syndergaard left yet another game and Matt Harvey’s season ended, the Mets needed one of their young aces to get through a game unscathed by injury. Steven Matz managed to do that on Sunday, but not much more.

Matz entered the game coming off of his best start since late May, pitching seven innings while allowing two runs in a tough loss to the Marlins on Tuesday. Matz’s fastball was popping at its usual 95 from his first pitch to Trea Turner to start the game, but he didn’t have a great feel for the pitch to start off, as Turner sent Juan Lagares to the warning track for a deep first out on the next offering. Jayson Werth grounded a single to right field two pitches later to put a runner on first for Daniel Murphy.

Matz was understandably careful around Murph and his .352 TAv for the first few pitches. The lefty only offered soft stuff, managing to work the count to 1-2 after a slider wide and two well-placed curveballs. Matz then wasted another curve in the dirt and missed with a fastball up and away before making what would be the most decisive pitch of the game, hanging a curveball up and over the plate. Murphy didn’t miss, blasting the ball into Citi’s right field upper deck for his 17th home run of the year.

While this wasn’t all the offense that the Nationals would need, it would prove to be the game’s biggest WPA moment and win expectancy shift. Matz worked through some more .325+ TAv hitters in Bryce Harper and Wilson Ramos, inducing a shallow fly ball from Harper and a three-pitch strikeout from Ramos, but the Mets were already down 2-0.

JOSE, JOSE!

Thankfully, they weren’t facing some 95+ mile per hour Stephen Strasburg or Max Scherzer heat but rather the soft underbelly of the Nationals’ rotation in Gio Gonzalez. Jose Reyes promptly took advantage of this by turning around a 2-1 fastball to left center for his second home run of the series, putting the Mets back within one. The Mets continued to mount a challenge in the inning, as Gonzalez walked Wilmer Flores and allowed a single to Asdrubal Cabrera, but he worked out of it after striking out Juan Lagares on a full count. That was just about the best they would look at the plate all day, as only one Met batter would even so much as touch second base the rest of the day.

The Nationals gave Matz some trouble in the second inning, putting runners on first and second, but Matz escaped after Lagares corralled another Turner fly ball on the warning track. Matz wasn’t so lucky in the third. He walked Jayson Werth to start the inning, the second of a season-high four free passes Matz doled out during the game, bringing up Murphy again. Werth ran on a 2-2 pitch when Murphy grounded the ball to Reyes, eliminating the double play and allowing Werth to reach second on the groundout. Matz then walked Harper, during which time Werth swiped third.

Ramos clubbed a ball to the gap in right field, scoring Werth. Harper got himself stuck in a pickle and was thrown between third and home, and Ramos only got to first base, but the Nationals were now up by 2.  Matz would settle down somewhat, striking out Anthony Rendon and pitching four shutout innings to end his outing.

Reyes answered in the bottom of the third by smacking another home run, this time a scorching line drive down the left field line that put the Mets within one again. But that was everything they would get, and would only put 4 more runners on base the rest of the game, all isolated runners that were stranded at first. The Mets didn’t make it easy on Gonzalez, making him throw 108 pitches in 5.2 innings, but he held and handed it off to Tanner Roark, who needed just 25 pitches to breeze through 2.1 innings, and Jonathan Papelbon, who gave up a two-out single to Travis d’Arnaud, but struck out Alejandro De Aza one batter later to end the game.

NOTES

-Murph just loves to crush his old team, as he hit his 7th home run of the season against the Mets.

-Jose Reyes’ multi-homer game was his first in the blue and orange since September 27, 2011.

-After the All-Star break, the Mets will resume with Game #89 in Philadelphia on Friday, July 15.

Photo credit: Anthony Gruppuso – USA Today Sports

If anyone knows how to sweep the Cubs in four games, it’s the Mets. The Amazins bounced back from a three-game sweep at the hands of the Nationals to beat up the struggling Cubs in four straight, capped off with a 14-3 pummeling of Jon Lester on Sunday.

YOU GET A HIT! AND YOU GET A HIT! AND YOU GET A HIT!

The Mets may have knocked around the best pitcher of the past 18 months on Saturday, but that didn’t make their task on Sunday any easier. While the Mets tagged Jake Arrieta for four runs in 5.1 innings for their win on Saturday, they faced a surging Jon Lester on Sunday. In Lester’s previous seven games, he had thrown 51 innings, given up eight earned runs, and put up a 51/9 K/BB ratio. Granted, he did so against some of baseball’s worst offenses, such as the Phillies, Braves and Reds, but the veteran lefty had given up more than three runs only once this season.

Make that twice. Down 1-0 in the bottom of the first, Curtis Granderson launched a home run to left center to tie the game at one, a preview of the explosions of the second inning. Those explosions began with Wilmer Flores, who led off the inning with a home run, the first of the two home runs and six hits he would collect during the game.

After a James Loney strikeout, the hit parade resumed. Matt Reynolds doubled and Rene Rivera smacked a home run over the 370 sign. The hapless Lester failed to take advantage of the  1-2 count he worked against Noah Syndergaard, walking the opposing pitcher. Juan Lagares doubled, Granderson singled, Yoenis Cespedes singled, Neil Walker singled, and Flores singled.

At this point, with one out in the bottom of the second inning, the game was 8-1, and with Syndergaard on the mound, it was effectively over. Joe Maddon yanked Lester for journeyman Spencer Patton, who snuck out of the inning with no more runs.

The Mets continued to pile on, tacking on six more for their biggest offensive outburst since a 16-7 shellacking of the Phillies on August 24, 2015. Flores delivered two of those runs in the fifth inning with a two-run shot. Flores became just the second Met to smack 6 hits in a game, matching a feat that fellow Met infielder Edgardo Alfonzo accomplished August 30, 1999. Kelly Johnson also hit a two-run shot of his own.

THOR THROWS THE HAMMER

Mets fans held their breath as Thor took the mound, but they breathed a (partial) sigh of relief when he poured in a 98 mile-per-hour sinker to Ben Zobrist for his first pitch of the game. Their shoulders continued to ease with each high-90s or triple digit pitch launched from that valuable right arm.

However, Syndergaard did start out shaky, as he allowed a run in the top of the first on a Jason Heyward double and Anthony Rizzo single. But as the game went on, he only got better. After allowing a single to Javier Baez to lead off the second, Syndergaard caught him leaning and picked him off. Syndergaard would go on to retire the next 11 batters he faced, five of which came via the strikeout. He had a bit tougher time getting through the sixth and the seventh, allowing four hits in those two innings, but he scooted through to finish his outing with eight strikeouts, seven hits, no walks, and one run in seven innings.

Syndergaard’s stuff looked unhittable, as usual, helping to assuage fans and team alike about the health of his arm. His fastball averaged its usual 99, his sinker its usual 98, and his hard slider sat at 91. Cubs batters whiffed on nine of the 14 Syndergaard sliders they swung at.

HITTERS PITCHING AND PITCHERS HITTING, OH MY!

Down 13-3, the Cubs sent in catcher Miguel Montero to pitch with two outs in the seventh inning. He promptly hit Rivera with a pitch. After escaping the inning unscathed, Miggy pitched to none other than Jacob deGrom, pinch-hitting for Granderson. After a four-pitch at bat, the former college shortstop flew out to left field.

Montero’s low-80s fastball was enough to handle deGrom, but wasn’t enough to stop three straight hits by Johnson, Flores and Loney and another Mets run. However, that was all they would get. The catcher finished his first career pitching appearance with a solid 1.1 innings pitched and one run allowed.

Photo credit: Andy Marlin – USA Today Sports

The Mets provided some fireworks late, but it wasn’t enough to avoid wasting a great start by Bartolo Colon and a second straight Sunday loss to the Braves.

A PITCHER’S DUEL

The Mets faced Bud Norris, who entered the game sporting a 4.69 ERA in 63.1 innings this season. Norris has had his ups and downs in 2016, but he’s been on the upswing recently. After starting the year in the rotation, he gave up 16 runs in 21.1 innings and was demoted to the bullpen, where he allowed a further 10 runs in 19.2 innings. However, Norris has had four solid starts since rejoining the rotation in early June, allowing just seven runs in 22.1 innings while striking out 21.
Norris’s improvement seems due in part to some newfound velocity. In his past four starts, the 31-year-old has been able to reach back for something extra, averaging more than a full mile per hour more with his fastball than he did in his first 41 innings of the season (94.7 vs. 93.6, respectively) while throwing more strikes. Norris has also picked up nearly an inch more of downward action on his slider over those four starts.
The righty came out again flashing his newly enhanced repertoire against the Mets on Sunday, blowing a 94-mile-per-hour fastball by Kelly Johnson to begin the game. Norris then left Matt Reynolds fishing for a slider for his second punchout, and then fired another slider and two 95-mile-per-hour fastballs by Yoenis Cespedes to strike out the side in the top of the first.
Bartolo’s been on a solid streak of his own. On the mound for the first time since leaving his last start only four pitches in after being hit on the thumb by a comebacker, Colon looked to continue a string of good outings that has seen him give up just 7 earned runs in 33 innings dating back to May 23. However, the big man looked a bit shaky to start the game. He worked with somewhat reduced velocity, throwing his two-seamer in the mid 80s rather than its usual high 80s and his four seamer just under 90 rather than its usual 90-91.
As such, the Braves came out swinging. On Colon’s second pitch, Jace Peterson took the ball the other way, driving a ball to deep left field which Johnson was able to haul in on the warning track. After an easy flyout to left, Freddie Freeman nailed the first pitch he saw — an 87 mile-per-hour fastball — into the left field seats to give the Braves a 1-0 lead. Nick Markakis followed with a double to right field. The inning only ended when Neil Walker saved what would’ve been an Adonis Garcia single and likely RBI when he dove to snare a liner for the third out of the inning.
On the game’s very next pitch, however, Garcia took some revenge when he made an over-the-shoulder grab on a Walker pop fly when action resumed in the top of the second.

Norris retired the next two Mets, and Colon reciprocated with a 1-2-3 inning of his own in the bottom of the second. After the shaky first inning in which the Braves smacked four hard hit balls off of Bartolo, he settled down, inducing 10 ground ball outs over the next six innings. Bartolo had little trouble with the Braves — except for Freeman, who knocked two more hits for his first three-hit game since last Sunday against the Mets, in which he collected four.
Norris easily dealt with the Mets’ lineup as well. Norris’s stuff was working all day, as he struck out eight, and his control was impeccable, as he walked none. The Mets would scratch a single here or there — a Rene Rivera hit here, a Kelly Johnson knock there — but only were able to get multiple runners on base in the fifth. James Loney and Wilmer Flores hit back-to-back singles to left field. Brandon Nimmo, in his first major league start, grounded into a force out, but that still left runners on first and third with one out. However, Norris now faced the bottom of the Mets order, and he easily struck out Rivera and Colon on three pitches each to end the inning.

THAT BASTARDO!

Norris and Colon each finished out the seventh inning, leaving the game 1-0. After a 1-2-3 inning by Jim Johnson in the top of the eighth, Antonio Bastardo relieved Colon in the bottom of the inning. Suffice it to say, Bastardo hasn’t been good recently. Since his struggles began on May 18 with 0.2-inning, 2-run outing against the Nationals, in 13 innings, Bastardo has given up a lot of hits (16), a lot of runs (11), a lot of home runs (4) and a lot of walks (8).
The Mets hoped that Bastardo could build off of the clean outing he put together on Friday in which he allowed a hit but also struck out Freddie Freeman. That, however would not be the case. In three batters, Bastardo:

• Gave up a single to Inciarte
• Balked, allowing Inciarte to advance to second
• Walked Freeman
• Allowed a single to Nick Markakis, which scored Inciarte.

Logan Verrett then replaced Bastardo, mercifully, it seemed, until Adonis Garcia turned around a fastball over the middle of the plate into the sparsely populated left field stands for a 3-run home run to open the Braves’ lead to 5-0.
Verrett escaped the inning despite giving up a few more hard-hit balls, and the Mets had one more half inning to climb out of their newly-deepened hole.

ONE LAST GASP

Reynolds started off the ninth with the most life the Mets’ bats showed all day, hitting a deep flyball to center field off of Alexi Ogando that was scored a double and an error after an Inciarte fumble allowed Reynolds to get all the way around to third. Reynolds scored the first run of the game on a Cespedes groundout. Walker populated the bases once again, hitting a double to right field. Two batters later, he scored on a Flores single to tighten the game to 5-2.
Nimmo then stepped up to the plate, needing to get on base to keep the game alive. Batting against Arodys Vizcaino, who had just replaced Ogando, Nimmo took two balls before fouling off four 97-mile-per-hour fastballs and one slider. On the eighth pitch of the at-bat, though, Vizcaino caught Nimmo looking at another fastball down and in for the final out of the game.

NOTES

-This was the fifth straight Sunday loss for the Mets. They’ve scored seven runs over those five games.
-Mets fans will cross their fingers that Noah Syndergaard doesn’t feel another twinge in his arm as the team takes on the Nationals tonight at 7:05.
Photo credit: Dale Zanine – USA Today Sports

Julio Teheran nearly threw a perfect game against the Mets lineup to complete Atlanta’s sweep.

A SHAKY START

Jacob deGrom had every reason to be confident on Sunday, his 28th birthday and his first Father’s Day as a dad. He was facing the National League’s worst team by record, its third-worst performer by third order winning percentage, and its second-worst lineup by TAv. He had pitched to a 1.57 ERA and 3.8 K/BB ratio in 154.2 career innings in day games.

Yet, despite all this, deGrom didn’t come out armed with his sharpest stuff. His fastball was a tick under the 94 mph that it’s averaged this season, and his curveball didn’t have quite the same bite. deGrom survived the first two innings without giving up a run, allowing just one baserunner and striking out three along the way, but it wasn’t easy. He labored, throwing 19 pitches in each inning, although he was helped out by this tremendous play by Wilmer Flores:

The Mets didn’t give Teheran nearly the same trouble, cruising through the first six batters in 25 pitches. Although he only struck out two of them, only one batter even hit the ball out of the infield.

ALL THE OFFENSE THE BRAVES WOULD NEED

deGrom’s struggles would catch up with him in the third inning as he plunked Erick Aybar to lead off the third inning. Teheran dropped a sacrifice bunt to advance Aybar to second, who subsequently went to third on a deep Mallex Smith flyout. Ender Inciarte, who used the weekend series to raise his OPS from .603 to .620, drove in the first run of the game by nailing a first pitch fastball to right field.

That wasn’t all the Braves would get, as Freddie Freeman and Nick Markakis knocked two more singles on deGrom fastballs, allowing Inciarte to come around to score and put the Braves up by two. After a four-pitch walk to Tyler Flowers, deGrom calmed down enough to induce a groundout from Jace Peterson.

In the bottom of the inning, the Mets would show the only piece of offense they would muster all day, as Michael Conforto singled up the middle on one of just five three-ball counts Teheran would reach on a batter all day. The Braves pitcher bounced back with a strikeout of Kevin Plawecki, the first of 21 consecutive batters that Teheran would subsequently retire. Teheran’s fastball was cooking all day, averaging 93-94 mph instead of his usual 92-93.

The fourth and fifth innings went off without a hitch for deGrom, as he needed only 19 pitches to get through both innings without allowing a baserunner. However, trouble would strike in the top of the sixth inning. when Nick Markakis launched a changeup up and over the plate into the bullpen to extend the lead to 3-0. deGrom finished off Flowers, Peterson, and Chase d’Arnaud to finish his day, but the damage was done.

PILING IT ON

Antonio Bastardo relieved deGrom in the seventh inning. In the past month, Bastardo has moved away from using his fastball with the more than 65% frequency he has hurled it over his eight-year career, instead throwing it 54% of the time and trusting his slider and changeup more often. However, he’s been awful. In 11 innings, he’s given up 9 runs. His opponents’ BABIP has only been .300. The issue has stemmed from a little bit of everything — allowing a few more hits than usual, a few more walks than usual and a few more home runs than usual.

Bastardo continued to have problems, even against the lowly Braves, giving up a leadoff double to Aybar and then another sacrifice bunt to Teheran. Bastardo then hit Smith on the hand with a pitch, and balked to allow Aybar to score and Smith to advance to second. Two batters, later, Freddie Freeman collected his third hit of the day by knocking in Smith with a double for a 5-0 lead.

After another perfect inning by Teheran, Hansel Robles entered the game. Aside from back-to-back appearances in late May in which he allowed three runs each, Robles has been solid. On Sunday, however, he was very hit or miss in the eighth inning. Flowers struck out before Peterson and d’Arnaud singled. Aybar then struck out and Julio Teheran singled. Before the crowd could find out what the next at-bat would bring—strikeout or single—Robles chucked a breaking ball into the dirt, which Plawecki blocked but bounced up the first-base line, allowing Peterson to dash home to extend the lead to 6-0.

The Mets would do nothing in the bottom of the inning, and Robles pitched a scoreless ninth, allowing only Freddie Freeman’s fourth hit of the game. The Mets finished their day at the plate in the bottom of the ninth the same way it began—a Curtis Granderson flyout—to end the game.

NOTES

-The Mets have been one-hit once before this season. Who did it to them? None other than the Braves, who shut the Mets out on May 3.

-The Mets are off today, but they’ll continue at home on Tuesday against Ian Kennedy and the Royals. Noah Syndergaard will take the hill.

Photo credit: Anthony Gruppuso – USA Today Sports