Mets Top 10 Wins of 2016: #9 – July 7 against Nationals

Recap

In what had become all too familiar for Mets fans in 2016, former Met Daniel Murphy singled in the 1st run in the 1st inning to give the Nats a 1-0 lead.

After threatening in the bottom half against RHP Lucas Giolito, the Mets couldn’t get anything across. They finally took advantage of some Nats miscues in the bottom of the 3rd after Danny Espinosa extended the inning with a double clutch of Neil Walker’s groundout, sending Yoenis Cespedes to 2nd (as the SNY announcers said, that’s why you run hard out of the box on every ball, ’cause you might pick up a single.)

Yo would then score to tie the game on the next pitch, a James Loney single to left field, Giolito’s 1st run given up in his Major League career.

Unfortunately, starting pitcher Bartolo Colon gave up 3 solo shots in the top of the 4th to Bryce Harper, Clint Robinson, and Anthony Rendon, inducing many eye rolls from the Mets fans in the stands.

The next Mets batter, Brandon Nimmo, struck out swinging, and Giolito was seemingly cruising. One pitch later, however, the Mets had gotten one back on a Travis d’Arnaud solo dinger, at which point I said, “You wanna Derby? LET’S DERBY!” Boy, did they.

After what I’m sure was an entertaining groundout by Bartolo, Mets had 2 out…

An icebreaker for Jose Reyes, his 1st home run of the year put the Mets to within 4-3, and they weren’t done there in that inning.

Curtis Granderson, in the middle of a hot streak at the time, doubled, Ces came up and Giolito proceeded to balk Grandy over to 3rd. Then, Yo yocurred.

After giving up a walk to Walker, Giolito was done for the night, bringing in LHP Oliver Perez. Oh, great. THAT guy. The Mets pulled off something they should do more often…

…but unfortunately couldn’t take advantage of the scoring opportunity and the game remained tied.

Perez came up to bat, and on this night, while the Mets may have won the war, Perez kept winning little battles, opening the inning up with a single. Ben Revere singled him over to 2nd, and Jayson Werth grounded him over to 3rd, Revere out at 1st.

Our old friend turned foe Murph showed up and grounded one up the middle a little slower than ideal. In what was initially called a double play, the call was overturned, Murphy deemed safe and the Mets argued interference on Werth at 2nd to no avail. Nats led 5-4.

Harper singled Murph over to 3rd, followed by a run-scoring single by Wilson Ramos. Colon was done for the evening, replaced by Jerry Blevins. He walked his batter, and Hansel Robles was able to get the last out.

Asdrubal Cabrera singled immediately the next frame, Nimmo following suit with the same. D’Arnaud struck out, but that brought up Wilmer Flores, who was currently on an absolute tear against lefties.

With length needed from Ollie P., the southpaw was staying in. We reveled in the turning point of the game.

While Perez kept tormenting us with a double the next inning, making it all the way to 3rd, he did not score, and that was all for the former Mets 36 million dollar hijacker.

He is a rather funny clown…

Asdrubal Cabrera tacked on another run with a solo shot in the 6th inning…

…but Murphy responded with his own to make it 8-7 in the 7th. As they did all night, however, the Mets immediately responded with a run in the bottom half on a Neil Walker single, breaking through even after Jose Reyes got caught stealing in the inning.

Addison Reed was lights out in his inning, and that brought on Jeurys Familia for the 9th. He walked Werth, bringing up our worst nightmare, Daniel Murphy as the tying run. He hit it into the shortstop hole, Asdrubal making an impossible dive and throwing it to 2nd. Walker spun around and was late to 1st to get Murph out, but Werth’s slide was called illegal this time and held after a Nationals challenge for a double play (video later.)

Familia then struck out Bryce Harper for his 31st save of a record-setting year, and the division dream was still alive with the Mets 3 back now.

Oh, and since d’Arnaud’s solo shot wasn’t available as a single video, here is all 4 homers of the game.