Let’s call a spade a spade here. Rookie umpire Carlos Torres blew the call. The Mets should have, could have, and would have won the game last night that they ultimately lost to the Rockies by a score of 7-4. Terry Collins should not have been thrown out of the game and the Mets should have been tied in the three-game series to the Rockies.
Everyone knew that Colorado catcher Tony Wolters struck out on a breaking ball from Mets pitcher Logan Verrett, but Torres, who is in his first year as a MLB umpire, insisted it was a foul ball. Even Wolters admitted to Mets catcher Plawecki that he missed it.
“He didn’t have to tell me,” Plawecki said. “I already knew. I mean, everybody already knew. It’s not like I’m telling everybody something that we all don’t know — or all didn’t know at the time. Everybody knew it in the ballpark besides the guy standing behind me. He made the call. We’ve got to live with it.”
Can someone give Torres the Magoo glasses that I usually reserve for the king of Mets strikeouts on a given night?
Said Collins. “You can’t challenge it. It cost us the game. End of story.”
It did, but the Mets are struggling right now. Although the Mets had 13 hits in last night’s loss, the Mets failed to convert them into runs as 8 of the players were left on base. Neil Walker had a great night with three hits in four times at bat. Duda and Cespedes each went 2 for 4.
During the first inning, Plawecki reached on an infield single to third. Duda scored on this hit. In the top of the 4th, Walker homered to right center (426 feet), Duda singled to left center, bringing Céspedes in for the third run. In the 6th inning, Cabrera grounded into double play, but it brought Duda home. That was pretty much it for the Mets, but they should have won. Okay, moving on.
During the 11-game road trip, the Mets have dropped to third place, 1-1/2 games behind the Washington Nationals and a game behind the Philadelphia Phillies. Logan Verrett surrendered seven runs on 10 hits and two walks in 2⅔ innings, leaving the Mets 4-6 on the final day of their three-city trip.
It’s a well-known fact that Matt Harvey is still struggling and he says that it’s ‘difficult to be on the mound right now.’ New York hit .211 (70-331) with 12 homers and scored 29 runs over the first 10 games of this road trip (2.9 runs per game). The pitching staff has posted a 3.93 ERA (37 earned runs/84.2 innings) during the trip.
Following today’s game, the Mets will return to Citi Field for a six-game homestand starting Tuesday vs. Washington, followed by Milwaukee. The Mets will play 12 of its next 15 games in Queens.
Today’s final game pits Mets right-hander Jacob de Grom against the Colorado Rockies Tyler Chatwood, who is 4-3 with a 3.09 ERA. De Grom comes into the game 3-1 with a 2.12 ERA. Hopefully, the Mets can pull out a win in this final game, especially since deGrom has never allowed a run while facing Colorado. In two career starts, he is 2-0 with a combined 15.0 scoreless innings of work and 19 strikeouts, but both of those came in Citi Field.
Today it also looks like David Wright will get a day off today.
In case you missed it, infielder Wilmer Flores was placed on the 15-Day Disabled List with a strained left hamstring a couple of days ago. The team recalled lefthanded pitcher Sean Gilmartin from Las Vegas (AAA) of the Pacific Coast League. According to the Mets, in his first season in the major leagues, the lefthander went 3-2 with a 2.67 ERA (17 earned runs/57.1 innings) in 50 games (one start). He held righthanded batters to a .216 (25-116) average while lefthanded hitters batted .260 (25-96) off Gilmartin in 2015. With runners in scoring position last season, opponents hit .236 (13-55) off Gilmartin. If he gets any game time, it will be interesting to see how he does.
One thing is for certain, the Mets season has come in waves. A wave of losses, followed by a wave of wins and we’re back to losses and some struggles. There are a lot of things that need correcting, but right now there’s one certain thing: there’s still a lot of baseball left to play.
