Wednesday’s 9-5 victory was a laugher in more than one way.
It was a laugher when it was 9-0. Pete Alonso hit a first pitch two run dinger in the 3rd which followed a nine pitch walk by Franciscn Lindor. Then after the Nationals exhibited their stellar defense by throwing a force play to Charlottesville, Daniel Vogelbach was facing Jordan Weems with the bases loaded, and he was unloading. He yanked a ball well foul, but you knew that he was swinging from his heels and was getting ready to hit a moon shot. He hit one more long foul ball which was a little closer, Then, he unleashed …
💥 GRAND SLAM DANIEL VOGELBACH! 💥 pic.twitter.com/Qi5noABT6r
— SNY (@SNYtv) August 3, 2022
A Tomas Nido double and two productive outs later, the Mets were up 9-0.
Scoring eight runs the day AFTER DeGrom's return. That is VERY Mets
— Kevin (@Kpower90) August 3, 2022
It was interesting to hear Gare and Keith discuss what constituted a “rout”. In sum, 7-0 isn’t a rout, but 11-4 was, according to Keith. Well, when it got to 9-0, it most certainly was a rout. Then Mychal Givens made his Mets debut in the 9th and gave up five runs and all of a sudden, the game wasn’t a rout by anyone’s definition. Now, remember when I said yesterday that “optics were bullshit“? Well, the optics on Givens’ debut are really bad, but still deceiving. Yes, he gave up five runs to the Nationals and that sucks. The optics of this suck because when you make your debut as the “deadline day haul”, and you give up five runs, it’s tough to recover from. Because of this, he’s already on the sights of the Mets faithful, and so is Billy Eppler whose deadline week deals, if you’re keeping score, are responsible for four runs for the good (Vogelbach), and five to the bad (Givens)
I’m going to hope that the reality is a little bit different than the optics. He threw strikes, that wasn’t the problem. When you’re up 9-0, all you want to do is throw strikes. But he struggled with command against Keibert Ruiz (the home run to make it 9-1) and Victor Robles (the single to nake it 9-3 knock him out) and in each case, he threw just two of his three pitches … fastball/changeup to Ruiz, fastball/slider to Robles. In both cases, it was the fastball that got him. The hope is that he was just trying to throw strikes instead of throwing everything but the kitching sink at these hitters, which he might do in a bigger spot.
But the real reality is this: The inning before, Trevor May made his return to the bullpen, pitching a scoreless inning. He’s going to be the bigger key to this bullpen than Givens ever will be. Hell, May might be the key to the success of this entire season, as he will pitch the important innings again, and pitch them while healthy. He’ll certainly pitch some important innings coming up in this huge five game series against Atlanta. If he succeeds, then nobody will remember “deadline day”. If he fails, then at least Billy Eppler can’t be blamed.
Today’s Hate List
- Ildemard Vargas
- Victor Robles
- Madison Bumgarner
- Lane Thomas
- Trea Turner
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