Mets Shoot Down Blue Jays 6-5

The Mets salvaged the final game of their interleague series in Toronto, hanging on to beat the Blue Jays 6-5.

After dropping the first two games, the Mets jumped off to a fast start Sunday. Andres Torres led off the game with a walk, followed by a Mike Baxter double. Then David Wright, back in the lineup after a day off and still feeling the effects of flu-like symptoms, hit a double of his own to drive in two runs. The Mets scored a third run on a really unusual play — Kirk Nieuwenhuis hit  bloop to center, Colby Rasmus came running in and dove to make a great catch, the ball snow-coned in his glove. Rasmus slid for a few feet, the ball still secure in his glove. But then he relaxed the glove and the ball popped out. Even though Rasmus had the ball for a good amount of time, it was correctly ruled no catch — Nieuwenhuis had a double and the Mets had a 3-0 lead.

The Mets made it 4-0 in the second when Baxter tripled to score Ronny Cedeno.

The Blue Jays scored runs in the second and third, the latter on a solo blast by Jose Bautista.

Baxter led off the fifth with a single and Wright followed suit; his two hits on the day raised his average to an impossible .412. After a fielder’s choice Daniel Murphy singled to plate Baxter, and with the bases loaded Ike Davis hit a fielder’s choice (that should have been an inning-ending double play, except the second baseman bobbled the grounder) to extend the lead to 6-2.

Toronto made it 6-3 on a Bautista single in the seventh that chased Dillon Gee from the game. Gee pitched reasonably well, lasting 6.2 innings, allowing the three runs on just five hits. He struck out six Jays but did walk four batters. Bobby Parnell came on to close out the inning.

Davis was thrown out in the eighth trying to score on a ball that got away from the catcher. A lucky bounce off the backstop cost the Mets a run, and it would prove to be a big one because in the bottom of the inning Parnell allowed two runs to make it a 6-5 game. Parnell got the second out of the inning with a strikeout on a 101 mph fastball, then gave way to Tim Byrdak to get the final out.

Without that insurance run, the one-run game was in the shaky hands of Frank Francisco. He got the fun started with a lead off walk, which Bautista followed with a single to right against the shift to put runners on first and second. Francisco then struck out Edwin Encarnacion,  J.P. Arencibia and Eric Thames in decisive fashion to nail down the game.

Mets win 6-5, now it’s onto Pittsburgh.