The Mets just went 0-6 on an absolutely terrible home stand.
They boarded a plane to Cincinnati to take on the worst team in the league, hoping to look like a professional ballclub again.
In their last 29 games against the Reds, the Mets have a 24-5 record. What better place to go and get off the snide?
We did get some good news before the game, as it was announced that Yoenis Cespedes would be in the starting lineup. I think it’s good news. We’ve seen the Mets bring back Cespedes prematurely before, and the results were disastrous. We’ll see.
In my personal opinion, this game could not have gotten off to a better start. That’s because Michael Conforto took the second pitch of the game for an opposite field homerun.
The Mets would add to their lead in the 2nd. Adrian Gonzalez who has insane numbers against Cincinnati starter Homer Bailey, led off with a single. Are you sitting down? Jose Lobatòn followed with a double. Amed Rosario hit a sacrifice fly, which scored Gonzalez and the Mets had a 2-0 lead.
They liked the feeling that scoring runs gave them so much in the 1st and 2nd, that they decided to do it again in the 3rd.
Yoenis Cespedes led off with a double, which was a very encouraging sign. Long time Red, Jay Bruce hit a homerun for the first time in Cincinnati as a visiting player and the Mets were winning 4-0.
Adrian Gonzalez hit a homerun in the inning as well, giving the Mets a 5-0 lead. Gonzalez is now 13-27 against Homer Bailey in his career with 7 homeruns.
That was a great start for the Mets offense as they had a pitcher making his major league debut on the mound. PJ Conlon, who was brought up to pitch for Jacob deGrom, is the first major league player who was born in Ireland since 1945.
Conlon looked like he had the luck of the Irish behind him early in the game. That is until the bottom of the 3rd inning.
Conlon got through the first 2 innings easily, and was now pitching with a 5-0 lead. The second batter of the inning was light-hitting but fast Billy Hamilton. The speedster hit a homerun and the lead was now 5-1. He got out of the 3rd without allowing further damage. The 4th inning was a different story.
The bottom of the 4th was a rough one for Conlon. He did record his first major league hit in the top of the inning though. After an Amed Rosario double and a Yoenis Cespedes sacrifice fly, Conlon had his first major league run as well. He also had a 6-1 lead.
Conlon got Joey Votto to fly out to left. He then gave up doubles to Eugenio Suarez, Scooter Gennett and Tucker Barnhardt. After walking Alex Blandino who pinch hit for the pitcher, Conlon was removed from the game. His cheering section waved Irish flags as he left the mound. 6-3 Mets.
PJ Conlon’s final numbers were 3²/³ innings pitched with 3 earned runs allowed. He gave up 4 hits, 2 walks and struck out 1 batter.
In the top of the 5th, Adrian Gonzalez kept his huge night going, launching his 2nd homerun of the game. 7-3 Mets. Here are the highlights of Gonzalez’ big night.
Paul Sewald who has been great all year, entered the game in relief of PJ Conlon. He retired the first 4 batters he faced. He ran into some problems in the 6th.
Eugenio Suarez led off with a homerun, cutting the Mets lead to 7-4. After Scooter Gennett grounded out, Adam Duvall and Tucker Barnhardt both singled. Robert Gsellman relieved Sewald. He allowed a sacrifice fly before retiring the side. 7-5 Mets.
Robert Gsellman came back out to pitch the 7th inning and had a nice 1-2-3 inning. Gsellman actually hit for himself the next inning, so it was clear that Mickey Callaway wanted him to be the bridge to Jeurys Familia.
After a Eugenio Suarez fly out, Scooter Gennett hit a solo homerun and the score was 7-6. Gsellman got the next two batters to ground out, but the Mets now had a 1 run lead in a game they led by 5.
Cespedes led off the 9th with his second double of the game. Jose Reyes was brought into run for Cespedes. Jay Bruce singled, and Jose Reyes stopped at third base. Why is he even on the team, honestly? Asdrubal Cabrera struck out, and then Todd Frazier hit into a double play. Inning over.
Jeurys Familia made sure that missed opportunity didn’t come back to bite the Mets as he had a strong performance, striking out 2 to close the game, notching his 10th save of the season.
So the Mets are back in the W column for the first time in a week. Amed Rosario had 2 doubles, and I truly believe he’s gonna start to show us something. Yoenis Cespedes had 2 doubles as well, but you could see he wasn’t running full speed after some balls hit in the gap.
Adrian Gonzalez had a huge game, so we’ll see if he can keep it going, or if that was just a result of hitting against Homer Bailey.
Michael Conforto had 2 hits, including an opposite field home run. I think that was the most encouraging development as he was in an awful slump.
Jason Vargas takes the ball in game 2, so we may need an even bigger game from the offense to stay in it.
