Just Mets

The Mets finished their three-game set at Citi Field on Wednesday, beating the Phillies 6-1 and earning the sweep. Here are my takeaways from tonight’s game…

Jon Niese bent, but didn’t break.

As the Mets looked to complete the sweep on Wednesday, left-hander Jon Niese made his second start of the season and while it wasn’t flashy or brilliant by any means, at the end of the day he was pretty darn solid.

Niese went 6.1 innings pitched, allowing an earned run on nine hits and two walks while striking out four. Niese’s fastball velocity wasn’t great tonight, but he stayed down in the zone, threw a lot of change-ups–something we haven’t seen from him often–got ahead in counts by throwing strikes and was able to limit trouble when he got in jams.

On a pitching staff led by Matt Harvey and Jacob deGrom–and even Bartolo Colon to an extent–Jon Niese has been a bit of a forgotten man, but in two starts this season, he’s sporting a 1.59 ERA, and that’s after a pretty darn good spring to boot. The Mets don’t need Niese to be the ace of this staff or even the number two starter, but if he can put together quality starts and limit the damage in games as he did tonight, they’ll be in good shape throughout this season.

The Mets showed off some power.

After just one home run in two games at Citi Field and four home runs as a team overall, the Mets offense was backed by a pair of longballs against the Phillies on Wednesday night. The first came from Travis d’Arnaud, batting in the 2nd spot in the order with David Wright going to the 15-day disabled list.

While this was by no means a bomb from Travis, he sure got it good, as he hit a screaming line drive down the left field line and just over the fence for his first homer of the season. Ever since d’Arnaud returned from his demotion to Triple-A last summer, he’s shown that gap-to-gap hitting prowess and occasional pop that Mets fans heard so much about when the team acquired him two offseasons ago, which could be a big thing for this offense.

The second was by Lucas Duda, who also drove in a run on a double later in the game, and he didn’t need the new fences or even the old fences to hit this one as it went well over the wall(s) in center. Duda’s now driven in five runs in the last two games and is showing that extra-base hit power we saw from him last season. To me, even though we’re barely a week into the 2015 campaign, Lucas is showing that he’s no fluke.

They did what they had to do.

There’s so sugarcoating it–the Philadelphia Phillies are terrible. By all means, this is a team that the Mets should and quite honestly need to beat up on this season, and they did just that in this three-game series at home, winning by scores of 2-0, 6-5 and 6-1.

Good teams beat bad teams, and for the Mets, who will face this Philly team 15 more times this season, they started taking care of business the past three days.

Other notes from Wednesday:

Curtis Granderson continues to look good at the plate, as he went 2-for-5.

After leaving Tuesday’s game when he was hit in the hand by a pitch, Michael Cuddyer made the start, going 1-for-4 with a walk and a run scored.

Ruben Tejada started at shortstop over Wilmer Flores, going 1-for-2 with two walks and an error in the field.

Jon Niese contributed offensively as well, going 1-for-3 with an RBI single.

Alex Torres continued to struggle with his control as he walked two in the 8th, but wound up pitching two scoreless frames to close out the victory.

The Mets have now won four games in a row and are 3-0 at home to start the year.