Plan A, in all likelihood, was not to have Jake Diekman face Juan Soto and Aaron Judge with the Mets clinging to a smidge of a one-run lead. You could hear that judgment in Gary Cohen’s voice as WPIX went to the break before the bottom of the ninth at Yankee Stadium. You probably heard it expressed by someone on your own couch, or from a neighboring barstool, or from a friendly Mets fan or philosophically inclined Yankee fan if you were at the stadium in the Bronx.
But there was so much that led to that pass. This was a classic game, with riveting confrontations, agonizing near-misses, intriguing connections and plenty of strategy to chew over. And yes, I would have said so even if the outcome had been different, though I’d have offered that assessment with a lot less pleasure.
Jose Quintana was craftily maddening for the Mets, knowing exactly which Yankee hitters he didn’t want to face and which ones he did. In the former category went Judge, whom Quintana walked in the first, third and fifth; in the latter category you found poor J.D. Davis, whom Quintana struck out twice and once coaxed to hit into a double play, ending all three innings in which Judge had been bypassed. (By the way, it will never not be startling to see Judge make Pete Alonso, a fairly sizable human being, look like a polar-bear cub.) Five walks in five innings doesn’t look ideal in the box score, but it was an essential component of Quintana’s plan, one he executed to near-perfection.
The Mets cuffed Luis Gil around when the two teams met in June, but Gil has been a lot better since then, largely because Luis Severino took him aside for slider instruction. Severino, you may recall, wears our uniform; Ron Darling sounded both amused and exasperated when he suggested that lesson would have been better delivered in the offseason.
The Mets tied the game at 1-1 when Gil tired in the fifth, hitting Francisco Lindor with the bases loaded, then went on top when Jeff McNeil homered off Michael Tonkin, who’d pitched pretty well as a Yankee after his double DFA with the Mets. McNeil’s eight-pitch AB against Tonkin was a clinic, with four foul balls, one of them the merest whisper of contact to keep McNeil alive and waiting for Tonkin to make a mistake, which he finally did.
That AB was a classic; in a lot of others, though, the Mets looked like the same aggravating bunch we saw in Miami, failing again and again to land a knockout blow. The fifth inning yielded just one run in part because McNeil misread a Tyrone Taylor drive off the fence that should have scored him and sent Luis Torrens to third; later in the inning, Brandon Nimmo just missed a grand slam and then looked out of sorts in striking out. The eighth saw Torrens and Taylor strike out with runners on second and third, though it’s only fair to note that Luke Weaver‘s change-up was nigh unhittable; the ninth saw Lindor strike out after a DJ LeMahieu error put Harrison Bader on second with nobody out, after which Bader tried to break early for third and was out by approximately the length of a 4 train.
Meanwhile, the Mets’ relievers mostly held the fort with both Jose Butto and Edwin Diaz unavailable. (And let’s note here that aircraft problems in Miami meant the players didn’t get to bed until 6:30 am or so if they were lucky.) Adam Ottavino allowed a sixth-inning run to let the Yankees creep within a run at 3-2 but was bailed out by newcomer Alex Young, whose arrival unfortunately came about because Christian Scott has a sprained UCL and is on the 15-day IL, with the 380-day IL an all too possible outcome. Dedniel Nunez started the seventh with an error and a wild pitch, but struck out Soto (yes, it can be done), walked Judge intentionally and then got Ben Rice to fly out deeply but harmlessly to end a wonderful/terrifying eight-pitch battle between talented rookies, followed by a groundout from Anthony Volpe. Phil Maton worked a scoreless eighth, but a walk scrambled Carlos Mendoza‘s likely plan to have Maton start the ninth and hand things over to Diekman.
Nope, it was Diekman all the way. He got Trent Grisham to fly deep to center, then walked Soto on four pitches. Up came Judge with the game in the balance and Yankee Stadium in full cry. Judge! Who has 35 homers and 89 RBI and it’s not yet August! Diekman surprised him with a fastball down the middle, followed that with a changeup off the plate, then doubled up on the change, which got a lot of plate but Judge fouled off. Diekman went back to the fastball, putting one inside on Judge’s hands. Then he doubled up on that, throwing probably his best pitch as a Met: 96 on the inside edge to lock up Judge for strike three.
That left Rice as the Yankees’ last hope, and I had visions of a terrible anticlimax, in which Diekman lost the strike zone or left a sweeper where Rice could give it a ride. Diekman got two strikes to start, which only made me more nervous about how much a reversal could hurt; two balls didn’t exactly help me find my center. You could see Diekman looking for the key to the lock and the pitch that would finish off Rice; the kid fouled off the fastball, then the sweeper, and then finally smacked a fastball to McNeil, and just like that the Mets had won.
They’d won by sending Diekman up against two of the mightiest hitters on the planet. Just like I’m sure they drew it up.
JD Davis, who’s collected 1 hit as a Yankee, last played on July 4. He shouldn’t have been batting clean-up. He may not be far off from going from batting behind Judge to another DFA. Unless he unexpectedly heats up soon, I expect Davis will be gone as soon as an injured regular like Stanton comes back.
The Mets’ RISP LOB virus has flared back up.
McNeil, a Daniel Murphy type of hitter, looks like he’s trying out Murphy’s late-career hitting adjustment. So far, so good. He’s carried the Mets offense since the all-star break. Just keep it up for 62 more games and then the play-offs. The trade-off is some odd plays in the field and on base have come with his hot bat.
Good for Maton. He’s had one bad outing but otherwise looks like a solid middle-relief option.
No wonder the Yankees took no offense at Severino’s jibe. His in-season help to Gil is more evidence that Severino took a year off to get right with the Mets and plans to rejoin the Yankees next year. I’m okay with that as long as the Mets get as much out of Severino as he has to give this year.
For all the Mets did to nurture Scott, he got hurt anyway. If the Mets are still going with a 6-man rotation when Senga is activated, Butto deserves the opportunity to take Scott’s spot. But that’s hoping Megill will replace Butto’s exceptional bullpen work.
I am hopeful that Pete and the gang sent a nice basket of Insomnia Cookies to JD Davis. Mendoza had guts to send Diekman out there against Judge, and sometimes the blind Squirrel finds acorns (“trade him while he is hot”). I still do not believe in this crew without a major bullpen upgrade. Other than for the potential black humor value, we cannot keep throwing the Diekmans and Ottavinos out there in high leverage situations with any meaningful chance of success. We do, however, need more videos of Marte diligently rehabbing his myriad injuries (real or imagined). Bring on the Braves!
“Mendoza had guts to send Diekman out there against Judge”
Setting aside Butto, Diaz, and the starters, the 9th inning options were Diekman, Houser, and Danny Young. Houser is a righty, but he’s been practically unpitchable outside of mop-up duty this month. He’s given up home run(s) in each of his last 4 outings. If Houser came in, Judge would have known he was going to be pitched to, not pitched around again. I believe the belief that Diekman was going to pitch around Judge had a significant impact on the at-bat, especially on Diekman’s 1st pitch fastball down the middle that Judge could have crushed for a walk-off.
@Eric:
I’ll take a later 2015 Murphyesque resurgence of power in McNeil’s bat, even if, as you say, it has come with some odd plays in the field and on base. Those are Murphyesque too.
I was hoping, when they picked up Maton, that he’d be robot-like in his efficiency, and so far, he has been. Almost like an AutoMaton.
ha! good one, and a great theme for a bobblehead if mr auto sticks around and distinguishes himself with some treasured mets moments/victories.
and yes, glad to see mcneil just let ’em rip, but w/o the upper-cut swing that doomed many of his seasons.
his once masterful placing of batted balls seems to have aged badly with the elimination of the extreme shifts – i’m just surprised he stuck with a failing approach for so long, but he is still wearing a mets uni, so i’m fully on-board with his new approach.
and last night’s go-ahead blast got me to stop being pissed off at mr mcneil for that costly baserunning blunder…still wtf??
a win tonite, and on top of the season sweep v NYY, the mets will be well positioned to push the brave out of the top WC spot, and 2nd place in the NL east…just as i’d layed it out weeks back ;0]
It’s funny how the Yankees like to scoop up Mets cast-offs and run them out against the Mets, hoping to catch lightning. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. J.D. Davis doesn’t work. Watch for him to be released tomorrow…
Jeff McNeil couldn’t shine Daniel Murphy’s hitting shoes, btw.
From their Baseball Reference pages:
Daniel Murphy: Mets 7 years, BA .288, OBP .331, SLG .424.
Jeff McNeil: Mets 7 years, BA .290, OBP .352, SLG .429.
Sorry, let me rephrase that. Jeff McNeil CAN’T shine Daniel Murphy’s hitting shoes.
“That left Rice as the Yankees’ last hope, and I had visions of a terrible anticlimax, in which Diekman lost the strike zone or left a sweeper where Rice could give it a ride.”
Same. Actually I resigned myself to getting the L when I saw Diekman was pitching. I don’t blame Mendoza, can only use the people you have, especially when your starters only go 5 and your shortstop doesn’t cover 2nd one night so your closer has to throw 30 pitches.
And Diekman looking like the 2023 version of himself wasn’t even the most surprising development. It was winning when leaving piles of people on, including the bases loaded, twice. For now I’m telling myself even with that going on we’re scratching out wins and based on the law of averages they’ll pick it back up. Then again, maybe this is the law of averages after how great we were driving people in during June.
“Jose Quintana was craftily maddening for the Mets, knowing exactly which Yankee hitters he didn’t want to face and which ones he did. … Five walks in five innings doesn’t look ideal in the box score, but it was an essential component of Quintana’s plan, one he executed to near-perfection.”
I appreciated Quintana’s old-school crafty southpaw start, most of all the Judge pitch-arounds followed by the cool dispatch of JD Davis. That was baseball. The negative is the Mets needed at least six innings from Quintana. There’s no way Diekman in the 9th to save a one-run game against the same top of the Yankees order that Mendoza had deployed Nunez against in the 7th was Mendoza’s plan. Abiding by the relievers who were out for the game (properly so), I believe Mendoza reached the end of his relief plan before the game ran out of innings. And the offense failed to build up a cushion to compensate.
Maybe if Judge had been given automatic walks instead of old-school pitch-arounds, Quintana might have had enough pitch count to squeeze out another inning. On the other hand, if Judge hadn’t been conditioned by standing in the batter’s box all night being fed those obvious pitch arounds, maybe he would have annihilated that 1st-pitch fastball down the middle from Diekman with a Judgeian blast. Judge may have expected the pitch-around pattern to continue in the 9th, and that wouldn’t have been a conditioned pattern if he’d been given automatic walks all night. More craftiness.
I’ve bitched about Diekman all season long…,
but he grew a pair last night.
Why does Al Michaels come to mind after watching that last inning?