We’re all depressed about what’s going on in the world regarding the COVID-19 outbreak, and baseball has become collateral damage. We all need to escape, and now you can read this blog in the alternate: the one where global pandemics were a myth and baseball was around no matter what. We’re imagining the 2020 Mets season as if everything was normal. Enjoy these works of fiction.
The Mets have a slight problem. I stress “slight” because we’re three games into the season, and they spent those games trying to hit the top three pitchers from the World Champion Washington Nationals. They’re not going to go through the whole season facing Strasburg, Scherzer, and Corbin. Nor will they go through the season scoring seven runs every three games. But the talk shows need content, hence “the Mets can’t hit.”
But it is an issue when there have been all of these questions about the lineup, and Brandon Nimmo has been batting 5th and 6th. There’s a simple fix, and the Mets seem to be willing to try and fix it, as Nimmo has been put in the leadoff spot, with Jeff McNeil and Pete Alonso folllowing, with Robinson Cano dropping all the way to 6th as J.D. Davis and Wilson Ramos bat ahead of Cano.
The Phillies got the luck of the schedule draw as they opened up with four games in Miami. The Marlins stole their home opener with 38,000 in the stands when Bryce Harper slipped and fell on an easy fly ball for the last out of the game allowing the tying and winning runs to score. But Harper’s five home runs in the next three games led the Phillies to take the series and come into Citi Field 3-1. But coming in to face the new look Mets lineup with Nick Pivetta on the mound would prove to be a tall task.
Sure enough, the new lineup configuration worked the way it was supposed to work. Pivetta walked Nimmo, then gave up a first pitch double to McNeil down the LF line to put runners on second and third. Alonso was then walked intentionally to set up Davis with the sacks full. Davis would clear the bases with a double off the RCF wall to give the Mets as many runs as they have scored in a game so far … in the first inning. Wilson Ramos then came up and smacked a pitch to the U-Haul sign to give the Mets a 5-0 lead.
Steven Matz cruised through the first three innings but ran into trouble in the fourth as Jean Segura’s single and Harper’s oppo home run (6th of the year) brought the Phillies to within 5-2. Then in the fifth, it was a Harper single and a Didi Gregorius double to make the score 5-3 and knock Matz out of the game. Thankfully, Michael Wacha came in to pitch three and 1/3 scoreless innings to keep the Phillies at bay.
The Mets’ lineup turn worked again in the eighth, as Nimmo and McNeil hit infield singles off Seranthony Dominguez. Pete Alonso, still homer-less four games into the season, hit a long drive to left that looked like it was going to go into the second deck, but the cooler weather knocked it down enough to make it a mere double off the very top of the wall to score Nimmo and McNeil to make it 7-3 and put the game away. Jeurys Familia, making his season debut after dealing with a blister in the last stages of spring training, pitched a 1-2-3 ninth to put it away for a 7-3 victory. A simple yet obvious lineup change seemed to make all the difference. Let’s see if Brodie and his analytics and health and performance team sticks with the obvious going forward, or if they’ll continue in their long quest to prove how smart they really are.
Today’s Hate List
- Bryce Harper
- Joe Girardi
- Didi Gregorius
- Jean Segura
- Edubray Ramos
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