The Mets dropped the second game of their three-game series to the Marlins on Tuesday by the score of 4-3 in Miami. Here are my takeaways from Tuesday night’s loss…
The little things, and capitalizing on mistakes.
The Mets fell down 3-0 in the sixth inning after the Marlins took advantage by a physical mistake by Curtis Granderson on a routine single off the bat of Dee Gordon, and a poor decision to go after Giancarlo Stanton with a runner at third and one out.
But the Mets stormed right back in the top of the seventh, taking advantage of a mistake by the Marlins. After Kirk Nieuwenhuis singled to lead off the inning, Anthony Recker hit a rope to third which Martin Prado could not handle. Then, after Granderson singled to load the bases, Juan Lagares cleared the bases with a long double to center field (which would have been a grand slam in most other venues).
However, after Daniel Murphy led the eighth inning off with a double, Ruben Tejada was unable to execute a bunt, and Murphy was thrown out at third to effectively end the Mets threat.
Miami then plated a run thanks to two walks and a single in the bottom of the eighth, and that was that.
Simply put, this game came down to execution. While it wasn’t pretty for either club, the Marlins executed just a little bit better, and that was the difference.
A valiant effort by Rafael Montero.
He really pitched a nice ballgame tonight. He did a great job using all of his pitches, and did a nice job working aggressively inside to the Marlins hitters. He only issued one walk in his outing but it was intentional.
He was victimized by some poor defense tonight, but he worked out of all of those jams except the one he was forced into in the sixth inning. Part of that was due to the fact he was asked to pitch to Stanton with the go-ahead run at third and one out, when he shouldn’t have been.
All-in-all, he did his job and was really impressive overall.
Some weird decisions.
The decision to pitch to Stanton in the sixth inning was puzzling, and it burned the Mets. But in the eighth inning, Carlos Torres clearly did not have it – he walked two batters around a popup from Stanton, and was allowed to face Michael Morse, who roped an RBI single to plate the go-ahead run.
Why Torres was allowed to pitch beyond the second walk was bizarre, especially with a well-rested bullpen at Collins’ disposal. That decision hurt the Mets in the end – it’s frustrating when the team loses when they don’t put their best foot forward, and to me, that’s partly what happened tonight.
It can also be argued Tejada should not have been bunting with the go-ahead run at second and nobody out in the eighth inning. Apparently, it was his call, Terry Collins explained after the game. But, in the end, he didn’t execute to move the runner over. So, a debatable decision plus lack of execution hurt them there…
Other notes from Tuesday night:
Murphy had three more hits tonight – he’s 6-for-his-last-11 at the plate with a homer, three doubles and five RBI.
Lagares three run double makes him 9-for-16 over his last three games.
Granderson recorded two more hits, a walk, and scored a run – he’s 11-for-his-last-30 with five walks over his last nine games.
The Mets went 2-for-10 with runners in scoring position, and left nine runners on base.
Just Mets 