The Mets came from behind to defeat the Rays by the score of 4-3 on Friday night at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg. Here are my takeaways from the win…
Scratching and clawing to find a way.
The Mets just won’t go away. They had just about everything going against them in this game, as lady luck just was not on their side. But somehow, they kept fighting and clawing through the snake eyes they were rolling.
They hit some huge home runs late: one from Juan Uribe in the seventh to tie the game the first time, and another in the eighth from Daniel Murphy to tie it again. Then, after Lucas Duda reached base on an error to led off the ninth with the Mets trailing by a run again, they got a huge run-scoring double from Michael Conforto in the ninth to tie it yet again.
But wait, there’s more.
Wilmer Flores came through one more time with an opposite field single to plate Conforto to find a way to win their seventh straight. What a week for this kid.
It’s a hungry club, a passionate club, and a club that knows they’re good and can win on any given day, especially now that they have these reinforcements on-board.
That was a special win, because it was a game they were destined to lose. It’s a game that could mean the difference in this race later in the season.
It was the Grady Sizemore Show.
For one day anyway, Sizemore lived up to all the hype which followed him prior to being so injury plagued. He hit a line drive home run off of Jacob deGrom in the third inning, and then stole a home run from Wilmer Flores in the sixth inning reaching over the wall in left field right near the foul pole.
That ball Flores hit was gone, and Sizemore literally prevented the Mets from tying the game in that spot. It was an awesome display, and all the Mets can do is tip their cap in that spot.
Just missing, but just enough late.
The Mets were just missing against Jake Odorizzi tonight. They got a few balls up and drove them all to the warning track, but they just couldn’t get enough carry on them and they found gloves. But in fairness to Odorizzi, he did a nice job keeping the ball down and had an excellent change-up, and the Mets really couldn’t get anything going against him.
Still, it was frustrating to see deGrom give up the lead in the seventh moments after the Mets tied it up with a home run from Juan Uribe in the sixth. The Mets had been grinding and coming up short all night and the team finally broke through, only to see the Rays take the lead again with the first batter up in the seventh on a long home run by James Loney.
Then, the Mets tied it again in the eighth inning with a two-out home run from Daniel Murphy against Jake McGee, only to see the Rays go ahead again when Evan Longoria homered against Tyler Clippard in the bottom of the eighth inning.
But the Mets found a way to get it done with a tremendous, spirited effort late in this game, and overcome all of the crumminess which they were faced with all night long.
It’s what good teams do, and they did it.
Jacob deGrom was off, but was still great.
This was the second consecutive start which deGrom had to battle, but he once again found a way to go deep into this game. His fastball was up and he was clearly flying open leaving that pitch along with his change-up up and away from the left-handed hitters. He was missing his spots, and he was having trouble putting the Rays away and was forced to ride his fastball all night long.
But he’s so good, so poised and so polished, that he was able to get away with this off-night and give the Mets a chance, and they stole one from the Rays late.
Other notes from Friday:
Flores recorded his eighth game-winning RBI of the season.
The Mets came from behind to win for the 26th time in 2015.
The Mets are now 42-6 when they score four or more runs in a game, and 2-46 when trailing after eight innings.
Curtis Granderson went 0-for-5 and did not reach base, ending his seven-game hitting streak and his 20-game on-base streak.
The Mets improved to 13-8 in games started by deGrom in 2015.
Just Mets 