Just Mets

The game between the Mets and Reds on Saturday afternoon has been suspended with the score tied 1-1 in the top of the seventh inning. Here are my takeaways to this point in the game…

Grandy giveth, Grandy taketh.

Curtis Granderson is hitting as well as he has at any point in his Mets tenure right now. He doubled and homered in his first two at-bats, hitting his first opposite field home run since 2011, and he now has five home runs during his seven-game hitting streak. He is the Mets offense right now.

However, he coughed up that run in the top of the fifth when he started to circle around a shallow and lazy fly ball, then slid and dropped a ball to allow Tucker Barnhart to reach on a gift double (which should be changed to an error). That mistake is the difference between the game being suspended right now, and the Mets racking up a 1-0 win. It’s as simple as that.

It’s just the latest example of the poor Mets defense costing the Mets runs. This one came at a crucial point with the Mets leading 1-0 in the top of the fifth, three outs away from an official game with no end in sight to the bad weather. There’s nothing else to really say about it, but that doesn’t make it any less frustrating, day after day…

A rainy, but quality #HarveyDay.

Harvey was brilliant again on a very soggy afternoon at Citi Field. His slider was absolutely filthy, particularly to the big left-handed hitters in Jay Bruce and Joey Votto. He was throwing hard and throwing strikes, but he also did a great job changing the program consistently, especially early in the count. Early in the game, he was throwing a ton of first-pitch off-speed pitches, but then changed it up by starting the Reds off with early count fastballs in the middle innings.

He also knew when it was time to pitch to contact, and when it was time to amp it up and get some strikeouts, particularly when he got into what was really infrequent trouble. He’s so good that he can easily control these situations, and he did so once again today in yet another brilliant effort in bad weather conditions.

Juan Lagares is completely lost at the plate.

The Mets have an on-going problem with Lagares at this point in the season. He has been less than underwhelming for the better part of the last two months. He got going a little bit towards the end of May and into the early part of June, but his bat has been quiet as a tomb for most of that time.

He’s now just 1-for-his-last-25 at the plate, and his approach seems to be worsening as he’s swung at 40 percent of pitches outside the strike zone in the last two weeks. That approach hurt him in the sixth inning of Saturday’s game when he grounded into what should have been a 6-4-3 double play on a ball well out of the strike zone.

He’s not getting anything to hit, and he won’t until he makes an adjustment. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like this is changing anytime soon.

Other notes from Saturday:

Lucas Duda’s fifth inning single was the first single for the Mets in the series. They had six hits prior to Duda’s hit, all for extra bases.

The Mets have scored 24 runs in Harvey’s last 10 starts.

The Mets have scored 14 runs in their last ten games.

The game will resume on Sunday afternoon at 1:10 pm. Sunday’s regularly scheduled game will begin shortly after the conclusion of this game. Fans can exchange today’s ticket for a ticket to the suspended game and tomorrow’s regularly scheduled game in another seating location. Saturday’s scheduled post game will take place after the conclusion of Sunday’s regularly scheduled game.

Only tickets marked for Sunday, June 28 will be honored tomorrow – you may not use a ticket for today’s game.

Carlos Torres, who was announced into the game before the game was suspended, will start the top of the seventh inning on  Sunday at 1:10 PM.