Mike Baxter Wins Game for Mets Again

The Mets offense these days can be described as feeble, at best. Yet they have been able to win two out of their last three games, and we can thank Mike Baxter for both of those wins.

The Mets got on the board against the Pirates in the second. John Buck led off the inning with a single and went to third on a Justin Turner single. Turner was thrown out trying to stretch it into a double. Buck scored on a sacrifice fly by Marlon Byrd to give the Mets a 1-0 lead.

Dillon Gee was pitching very well until the sixth inning. He allowed two singles and hit a batter to load the bases. Brandon Lyon came on and surrendered a sacrifice fly to tie the game at one.

Gee threw 101 pitches over his five innings, allowing one run on five hits.

The Mets offensive woes continued against some guy named Jeff Locke, who held the Mets to three hits and that one run over six innings.

In the seventh inning Andrew Brown collected his first hit as a Met and with two outs Ike Davis laced a double to right-center to drive home Brown and give the Mets the lead again, 2-1.

LaTroy Hawkins, who had not allowed an earned run since April 10, came on to pitch the eighth. Pedro Alvarez broke that streak, slamming a solo shot to right to tie the game at two.

Juan Lagares saved the game for the Mets in the ninth. With two outs and a runner on first, Andrew McCutchen drove a Bobby Parnell pitch deep to center. Lagares went back to the wall and leaped, snagging the ball for the third out. It might have gone out or hit the top of the wall. Either way, the sensational catch kept the game tied. And now we know why people rave about Lagares’s defense.

And the Mets made that catch count. Byrd led off the ninth inning with an infield single. Brown bunted him over to second. And just like he did Tuesday in the tenth inning, Baxter came through, getting a pinch hit single to win the game 3-2.

A nice win by the Mets.