Mets Miscues Lead to Missed Opportunities
Buck's decision to stick with May in eighth had ripple effects...
Monday night in Philadelphia provided a timeless reminder that no matter the payroll or the personnel or the decades of experience on the bench, this is baseball — things can always go awry.
Throw in the fact that these are the New York Mets and it almost feels like par for the course for things to sporadically (and quite comedically) fall apart. And the evening began so nicely, too.
The Mets took advantage of three Alec Bohm throwing errors to sprint out to an early 3-0 lead in the first. Brandon Nimmo, Starling Marte, Eduardo Escobar, and Mark Canha all landed shots on Phillies left-hander Ranger Suarez.
Taijuan Walker breezed through two perfect innings, striking out four and showing off a crisp splitter that had the Phils’ hitters baffled. Just an ideal start to an early, tone-setting series in the city of brotherly love. Until it wasn’t.
Unlike years past, when at the first sign of trouble the Metsies would turtle up, press too hard, etc, David Peterson emerged as Walker’s emergency relief (shoulder irritation) and kept the boat afloat, rolling through the sixth with goose eggs in tow. Very nice work from the 26-year-old southpaw.
Francisco Lindor tacked on a fourth run in the top half of the seventh, extending the Mets’ lead to 4-0 and Trevor May, making his first appearance since Opening Day, worked around a Didi Gregorius single in a scoreless bottom half. Right on track. Until it wasn’t.
Despite noting after Sunday’s loss to the Nats that his bullpen usage would be bordering on cautious under the circumstances (shortened camp, veteran staff), Mets skipper Buck Showalter called on May to come back out for the eighth.
Odd, to say the least. Not only were Showalter’s active frontline relievers (Adam Ottavino, Seth Lugo, even Sean Reid-Foley) ready and available, May hadn’t gone multiple innings since September 2020 with Minnesota.
Adding an up-down in April just to set down Alec Bohm and Matt Vierling didn’t seem conducive or necessary. May didn’t even get that far.
After air-mailing ball four to Bohm to lead off the eighth, Showalter was joined by Jeremy Hefner and the training staff for a trot to the mound. May’s body language said a lot more than “arm fatigue”, but that was the story post-game.
Both May and Walker are scheduled for MRI scans. Let’s hope for the best. As for the game, things went south soon thereafter. As if we didn’t see it coming a mile away.
Left-hander Joely Rodriguez entered, gave up a base hit to Johan Camargo (hitting for Vierling), an RBI groundout to Kyle Schwarber, and a long J.T. Realmuto home run to cut the lead to one, and Seth Lugo issued a free pass to Nick Castellanos, allowed back-to-back doubles to Rhys Hoskins and Gregorius, and Philadephia went ahead 5-4.
Cue the sad trombone sound. Canned laughter. And scene. Thank goodness this game allows the slate to be wiped clean daily. Onward.
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