We’ve all said it. Made it a mantra, even. Enemy runner on first, maybe other bases too, maybe they’re loaded. Outs? Not enough of them. Maybe just one. Maybe none.
C’mon, get a ground ball.
It’s been called the pitcher’s best friend for a century or more — the ball put in play that yields two outs (occasionally even three), turning danger into relief. In its purest form there’s a kinetic poetry to it: one hard hop right at the second baseman or shortstop, letting you can see the play unfold before it actually does. A quick shovel to the other infielder, the enemy baserunner sliding in too late (that’s one!), then the ball thudding into the first baseman’s glove (that’s two!), with the added cruelty of the batter turned runner having to watch his best-laid plans gone awry.
Tailor-made, they call it when it unfolds like that. “Just get me a little love,” Kevin Elster used to say during meetings on the mound with spooked Mets pitchers, by which he meant, “you supply the ground ball, we’ll do the rest.”
Saturday’s matinee against the Rockies? It was a story of pitchers’ best friends, and three fateful ground balls.
The first one came in the bottom of the second. Colorado starter Ryan Feltner had struck out the side in the first but seemed to lose his way an inning later, loading the bases with one out. Luis Torrens hit a grounder to second, but Brendan Rodgers (a Gold Glover, no less) bobbled it and then threw it into left field. Instead of the inning being over with the game still scoreless, the Mets were up 2-0; three pitches later, a Jeff McNeil double gave Christian Scott a 4-0 lead.
Scott would need every bit of that lead, as he looked out of sorts all day. Perhaps it was that the Mets’ Citi Connect alts look kind of like Colorado’s uniforms — there was a lot of purple-on-purple crime in deciding a winner Saturday. Up 4-1, Scott got the first out in the fifth but then gave up a single, a homer, a double and a walk, making the score 4-3 with the deficit threatening to vanish entirely. Carlos Mendoza went to get Scott, whose first win will have to wait yet another turn of the rotation (ah pitcher wins, oft derided and yet still so avidly pursued), with the manager calling on Jose Butto.
Butto’s first assignment was Elias Diaz, the Rockies’ powerful catcher. Diaz hit a grounder — which, it must be said, wasn’t exactly tailor-made, but a ball hit at Pete Alonso, who flung it to Francisco Lindor, who fired it back to Butto covering first. The Mets executed a tricky play and Butto was out of the inning with the lead still at 4-3.
Butto got the Mets through the sixth and seventh and was sent back out for the eighth, only to immediately run into trouble: a single and a walk. Enter Dedniel Nunez, among the most junior of the Mets’ relief corps and also one of its most trusted members, though that could be damning with faint praise. Nunez’s assignment? Yep, Elias Diaz. After a tough battle, Diaz smacked a ball to McNeil at second, who started a 4-6-3 double play. That moved Ezequiel Tovar to third but left the Rockies with just an out to play with. No matter: Nunez got Brenton Doyle to hit a foul pop to Alonso and the Mets were three outs away.
Three outs away, but up by a skinny run. Who would protect that slim lead? Edwin Diaz, whose last pitch to Tovar on Friday night was a slider that hung in the middle of the plate but was somehow swung over? Nope, it turned out to be Nunez — and to be a lot less of a nail-biter, as Lindor smashed a three-run homer off the launch tube of the apple to increase the Mets’ lead to a more exhalable four. (Nyet, Victor Vodnik, nyet.)
If a pitcher’s best friend is the ground ball, what’s a three-run homer in support of his cause? That has to count as a acquaintance to be cheerfully greeted, right? And definitely as a little love.
Postscript: It was fun to see Bill Pulsipher in the stands being interviewed by Steve Gelbs. For those who don’t know, Pulse’s big-league debut was also the first time your recappers met live in person. Pulse gave up five in the first — a heck of a crooked number even if it isn’t your maiden voyage — but the seeds of this blog were planted. Greg tells the story here.
One thing that helped Alonso with the 3-6-1 DP is Elias Diaz is slow. He runs like a worn-and-torn veteran catcher who’s maybe nursing something. It looked like Alonso knew it too because, unlike the out-of-sorts Rodgers on the Torrens DP ball, Alonso was deliberate, yet Diaz was still out easily. At first I thought Diaz was dogging it, until he ran just as slow on the second DP.
My goal for the homestand was 4-2 and entering the all-star break at 1 over .500. That was reasonable. But the Mets have blown past that and are now guaranteed to at least share a wildcard going into the break. Now I’m greedy and looking at the Braves. It’d be nice for the Mets to be breathing down their necks, maybe even caught up, by the time that the Mets face the Braves on July 25th.
Plus, the other teams in the wildcard scrum aren’t dropping out of the race, and they’re breathing down the Mets’ necks. It remains to be seen whether the Mets have put their roller-coaster streakiness behind them, and how they’ll step up to the Yankees, Braves, and Twins leading into the trade deadline.
Having used their two best set-up men yesterday, I wonder if Severino will be available out of the bullpen today playoff-style: veteran, 3 days rest, not in the all-star game, one-year contract. It’d be nice for Maton to look like his 1st outing with the Mets and not his 2nd outing.
Related to that, if the Mets in fact go the rest of the way with a 6-man rotation after Senga is activated, I wonder if the starters will be regularly available in the bullpen on their throw days. Going 6-man means 1 less reliever for a suspect overworked bullpen, yet going 6-man won’t mean the starters will go longer innings to compensate.
Most complete game I’ve seen from us in a while. Even with Scott struggling, solid defense, great bullpen work, and when the other team decided to give us extra outs we made ’em pay. It’s been rare to come out of a game where I have nothing to gripe about – other than a few swings by batters but that’s always gonna happen. Well, the uniforms but let’s not go there.
The Lindor HR seemed huge at the time. I don’t know if Diaz would have come out if it was a 1-run game but I was dreading it, as many pitches as he threw Friday.
The team that played yesterday looked like a playoff team and a dangerous one.
So far, the way Scott struggles reminds me of Megill. He’s still early on his MLB learning curve, though, so that’s not enough reason yet to look at Scott as a likely reliever or swingman like we look at Megill.
I agree Lindor’s insurance HR made for an impressive “complete game” win. At the same time, given the team’s glaring weakness, I think it would have been a bigger ‘message’ win if the bullpen had preserved a 1-run lead all the way through 4.2 innings. As is, Butto (who deserves to start ahead of Scott) and Nunez are the only Mets relievers in the circle of trust right now.
The same folks who believe pitchers’ “Wins” are meaningless are the same lemmings who believe in the “Quality Start” statistic that 3 ER in 5 innings is great. Since they also do not believe in ERA, they also believe that the corresponding 4.50 ERA does not matter either.
As for our All-Star ‘snub’ twins, Lindor and Nimmo, they were the two main perpetrators of our horrific start. Because both of them were horrific. Their play has mirrored the team’s record, a bit above .500. So their seasons can be rated a bit above .500, clearly not All Star caliber.
At least Pete has had a consistent ‘meh’ season, and so he is as equally (un) deserving as they are.
Hopefully the home run derby triggers a strong 2nd half for Alonso.
Nunez has the quiet fire that makes an ace reliever.