The Yankees snapped the Mets 11-game winning streak on Friday night, pummeling the Mets by the score of 6-1 tonight at Yankee Stadium. Here are my takeaways from Friday’s loss…
Jacob deGrom got shelled.
The Yankees featured eight left-handed hitters tonight, and they crushed deGrom tonight. Brett Gardner, Mark Teixeira, Brian McCann all had multiple hits against deGrom through four innings, but the death blows came off the bat of Teixeira who hit a pair of two-run home runs against him. His fastball was bleeding out over the middle of the plate, and in that ballpark, that’s a tough area to pitch in and find success against lefties.
Interestingly enough, left-handers were hitting .394 against deGrom coming into play in a small sample this season, but that’s none the less an area deGrom needs to adjust and become more effective as time goes on this season. They crushed him today, and while it could simply be attributed to a bad night, there’s clearly some work to do in this area for him right now.
He matched a career-high with six runs allowed, and permitted three home runs – two to Teixeira and one to Jacoby Ellsbury. He had allowed eight home runs in his career coming into play tonight. The good news? He shortened the game as much as he could on a bad night, and that is quite commendable.
The Mets bullpen did a nice job on a rough night.
Sean Gilmartin continues to impress, specifically against left-handers. They went 1-for-4 against him tonight, and they’re now 3-for-14 against him this year. He drops a nice breaking ball in on the lefty, and they have yet to figure that pitch out from him so far in 2015. He’s been a good find in the Rule 5 draft – hopefully, it lasts.
Also, Hansel Robles made his big league debut tonight and was quite impressive. In a bases loaded nobody out situation, he got Teixeira to popup, and both McCann and Carlos Beltran to strikeout, all of which are left-handed. He was throwing very hard and moving his fastball on and off both sides of the plate. He’s a converted starter so this he’s still a work in progress, but he was very impressive in the minors this year as a reliever, got the call and made a debut he won’t soon forget.
Michael Pineda was in complete control of the Mets offense.
His primary numbers coming into tonight’s game weren’t that great but his peripheral numbers suggested he was due for some better luck, and he got that and then some tonight, as he was flat out dominant right out of the gate. His slider was incredible tonight – the Mets really had no chance on that or his change-up, which was just disappearing against both lefties and righties.
The Mets had no chance tonight. Period. It happens. Move on.
All good things must come to an end.
They were bound to take one on the chin one of these days, folks. It happens. Yes, it’s disappointing it came to the Yankees with deGrom on the mound in the first game of the series. But they had to lose sometime.
In a way, I’m glad the loss came in a butt whipping. Nothing dramatic about this loss, nothing heart breaking, no regrets. Shut the door, move on, and win the series.
Other notes from Friday:
Wilmer Flores extended his hitting streak to six games – he is 9-for-22 with two home runs and four RBI during that span.
With two more hits tonight, Curtis Granderson is now 7-for-14 with 2 doubles, 5 runs scored and 4 RBI over his last 5 games.
Eric Campbell singled and struck out – he’s reached base in all nine games he’s played since being recalled from Triple-A Las Vegas.
Dating back to last year, the Mets have lost three straight games to the Yankees.
Michael Cuddyer went 0-for-4 tonight as the designated hitter – he’s now 0-for-his-last-14 at the plate.
Just Mets 