Mets Snap Out of Funk With a Little Help From Donnie
Donnie Baseball is back in New York; no, not that Donnie...
The Mets came alive on Saturday evening in Philadelphia, if even only for an inning, in a 5-4 win over the Philadelphia Phillies, snapping the team’s three-game losing streak in the process.
Firing out of the gates, the Mets’ offense scored four runs in the first of former teammate Zack Wheeler, stringing together a Francisco Lindor hit-by-pitch, a hard-fought Jeff McNeil base-on-balls (came back from 0-2), and four consecutive base hits.
Pete Alonso’s ground-rule double at 110.0 MPH off the bat was followed by another two-base hit from Michael Conforto (sort of; a single got under Andrew McCutchen’s glove in left and was ruled a double) and singles from J.D. Davis and Dominic Smith, who went 2-for-4 after Jose Alvarado’s jawing on Friday night.
The Mets offense was essentially dismantled from the first inning through the ninth, but all’s well that ends well, we guess.
Following an evaporated lead and number of missed opportunities, Michael Conforto put the Mets ahead, 5-4, in the ninth with a moonshot solo homer to right-center and Edwin Diaz shut the door for the much-needed victory.
The night wasn’t without its pitfalls, though.
Despite a sparkling 4-for-6 line with runners in scoring position, the Mets couldn’t gain much momentum against Wheeler or right-hander Connor Brogdon, who took the ball in the eighth.
The Mets had men on first and third with one out in the fifth after singles from Smith and James McCann but failed to capitalize. That futility wouldn’t come back to haunt the Mets but certainly didn’t help matters.
As if things couldn’t get much worse for this puttering offense, after utility-man Luis Guillorme was placed on the 10-day IL ahead of the game with an oblique strain, Brandon Nimmo (bruised left index finger) and J.D. Davis (left-hand sprain) both were removed from the game in the seventh.
Rojas pointed to previous vibrations of Nimmo’s bat upon making contact as the culprit behind what appeared to be an immense amount of pain the centerfielder experienced while swinging during his at-bat in the seventh. Kevin Pillar finished his plate appearance with a strikeout.
Davis appears to have aggravated his hand while swinging in the sixth. He was double-switched out of the game when Walker exited for Loup.
Mets manager Luis Rojas described both players as being day-to-day, but also noted the team would “see how they show up tomorrow,” before making any further assumptions with regards to their availability.
Taijuan Walker (six innings, four runs on seven hits with four strikeouts and a walk; 3.00 ERA on the season) gave back the Mets’ early lead in its entirety on Alec Bohm’s opposite-field two-run homer to tie things up at four in the sixth.
“Two-seam down and in. He did a good job staying inside of it and just shot it the other way,” Walker said after the game. “Situations like that, we score four early, it’s my job to keep the game in our lead and I didn’t do that. But I give it up to the bullpen. [Aaron Loup, Trevor May, and Edwin Diaz] came in and did a heck of a job and, obviously, Conforto, so it was a good win overall.”
That it was. Of course, without the dedicated work of the team’s new mental approach hire Donnie Stevenson, this welcome turnaround may not have been possible.
In case you missed it, Alonso — and then Conforto, even if he couldn’t keep a straight face when talking about him — put the Mets media corps on to the presence of Stevenson, who apparently worked wonders with the team ahead of Saturday’s game.
This team is too much.
The Mets finish off their weekend series with the Phillies on Sunday at 7:08 PM EST on ESPN with southpaw David Peterson taking the hill versus Philadelphia right-hander Zach Eflin before the Mets jet off to St. Louis for a four-game set with the Cardinals starting on Monday.
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Donnie Stevenson is the hero we need right now