Mets Sweep Marlins; 8-2 Homestand
The Mets completed the sweep of the Marlins on Sunday and ended an 8-2 home stand, playing their best baseball since, like, what seems like 1986.
The Mets jumped out to the lead in the second. Lucas Duda led off with a double and moved to third on a bunt base hit by Juan Lagares. Chris Young hit a sacrifice fly to score Duda.
Jacob deGrom ran into some tough luck in the fourth that resulted in a tie game. Casey McGehee singled with two outs. Garrett Jones lofted a fly ball to right. Eric Campbell, starting at second, ran all the way out and then lost it in the sun. Curtis Granderson should have called him off but he didn’t. It went for a double. Marcell Ozuna then hit a slow roller to short. Ruben Tejada fired to first but Ozuna beat it. McGehee scored to make it a 1-1 game.
With two outs in the fourth and Chris Young at second, the Marlins chose to intentionally walk Tejada to face deGrom, Bad idea — deGrom, who has proven that he can handle the bat, singled up the middle to plate Young to break the tie. Granderson followed with a ground rule double that made it a 3-1 game. An Eric Campbell grounder ended the inning.
David Wright led off the fifth with a ground rule double and moved to third on a fly out. Lagares hit a fly ball to deep center that turned Ozuna around a couple of times. It landed over his head for a double and a 4-1 Mets lead.
The Marlins had runners on first and second with no outs in the fifth but deGrom pitched his way out of it. He got a double play and then a strikeout to get out of the inning unscathed.
WIth one out in the sixth Granderson singled, his third hit on the day. With two outs Wright doubled to left. Granderson came around and was tagged out by catcher Jeff Mathis. However the second base umpire ran in and overturned the play, saying second baseman Ed Lucas obstructed Granderson as he rounded second. The obstruction was questionable, but Mathis blocked the plate without the ball. Terry Collins probably would have challenged it and the run would have scored, anyway. In any case, it gave the Mets a 5-1 lead.
deGrom was superb once again, going seven innings, allowing one run on five hits. He struck out eight and walked two, upping his record to 3-5 and lowering his ERA to 3.18. He’s quickly becoming a Rookie of the Year candidate.
The Mets left no doubt in the eighth. Wright drew a no outs, bases loaded walk to make it 6-1 and a Duda single gave the Mets a 7-1 lead. With one out an infield single by Chris Young made it 8-1. With the bases loaded again Anthony Recker singled to make it 9-1.
Mets win 9-1. They go into the All-Star break five games under .500, in third place, seven games out of first. All things considered, not too bad at all.