Bartolo Colon allowed a solo homerun, but it was all the Philadelphia Phillies needed to beat the New York Mets and tie the three-game series 1-1. The win also gave the Phillies their first win of the season after five games.
Overall, Colon pitched one heck of a game – and made a nice over-the-shoulder catch to retire the Phillies in the bottom of the 6th — with 7 Ks in 8 innings, but ended up with the loss. Unfortunately, the Mets couldn’t capitalize on Colon’s pitching because Phillies starter Vince Velasquez – who was also very impressive — almost completely shut down their bats, striking out 9 players in only 6 innings. The New York Mets were limited to 3 hits by five Phillies pitchers, who had a total of 12 strikeouts.
Today’s ‘Mr. Magoo’ award goes to Yoenis Cespedes, who actually got his bat on the ball in the first, but it was a fly ball that left Curtis Granderson on first. Then he struck out a total of three times in four at-bats. The Mets fans made sure to let him know how they felt about his progress so far this season. “I’m not worried at all,” Cespedes said through an interpreter. “It’s just a timing issue, I think. Over time, when the games start kicking in, everything will settle in.”
Um, can someone please tell him the games started, kicked in, are happening, so let’s go now.
Mets coach Terry Collins responded with: “I think he’s chasing out of the zone a little too much,” Collins said. “But we certainly think he might duplicate what he did last year when it starts to get a little warmer.” We’ll see.
But wait, there’s more. Someone create a second Mr. Magoo award please because Lucas Duda, who did have one hit, also struck out three times. Travis d’Arnaud also whiffed twice. Is there an optometrist in the Mets clubhouse?
The New York Mets only hits of the game were from Asdrúbal Cabrera, who had two of the three hits and Duda’s one. Seven Mets were left stranded.
The only exciting moment of the relative sleeper almost broke the game wide open for the Phillies when Mets reliever Jeurys Familia pitched himself into some trouble in the 9th inning, but got out of a bases loaded situation with no damage done.
The Mets are the second-best team in the league at limiting hits and walks to their opponents, recording a WHIP of 0.885 so far this season, but they need to start connecting to the ball so that this means something.
Sunday is the final game of the three-game series (and the first of only two times the Phillies will face the Mets this season) and Matt Harvey will take the mound and hopefully start to show some signs of improvement since his loss on opening night to Kansas City. In his last four games, he has allowed 19 runs in 14 innings during that span, including his final three spring-training outings.
The Mets, now 2-2 on the season, will be facing Phillies right-hander Jeremy Hellickson. The game begins at 1:10 p.m. ET on Sunday, Apr. 10 and can be seen on TCN and SNY.
A few side notes: No word on either Jacob deGrom’s first born or the pain in his side. Both are in wait-and-see mode right now. I also couldn’t help but laugh at the promotions side of the game – so far, we have a Noah Syndergaard-en (I see what you did there) Gnome night (April 30) and Curtis Granderson socks night (May 1). Interesting. One cool thing is that in Sunday’s game, the New York Mets will wear their throwback jerseys to honor the club’s 30th anniversary of their World Series Championship. Yeah baby.
Want to give your comments about this article? You can either leave them here or you can join us on the Get More Sports Forum and talk about this article and many more! Brag about your favorite team, argue about an athlete’s performance or tell us about a game you saw. Join a new community of sports fans who live and breathe sports and sports entertainment. It’s free! Join now!”
