I’m almost positive that Buck Showalter put Luis Guillorme in the cleanup spot today because he saw the weather report that Mike Puma tweeted and thought “we ain’t playin’ today so let’s have some fun.”
— Mike Puma (@NYPost_Mets) July 13, 2022
The lesson here is to never trust baseball beat reporters with weather forecasts.
But in all seriousness. without Starling Marte and Jeff McNeil in the lineup, it was either Guillorme, Mark Canha … who would have upset lefty/righty balance if he was in the cleanup spot, or the hitters in teh 6. 7. or 8 spots (Eduardo Escobar, Dom Smith or Travis Jankowski) and if any of them were put in the 4th spot the Mets world would have similarly freaked out. So you know what? Guillorme in the cleanup spot. Good story to tell the grandkids one day, as far as I’m concerned.
But the honest takeaway from this game, and this series, is how the Mets lineup wore out the best two starters on the team in Max Fried on Monday and Charlie Morton today, while knocking Spencer Strider out early on Tuesday (and they didn’t win that game because they couldn’t touch the Atlanta bullpen) while the Mets’ own starters were anywhere from very good to outstanding. Eduardo Escobar drove a Morton pitch over the steakhouse in right field for a 1-0 lead, and Francisco Lindor … who came into the game batting a paltry 2-for-28 lifetime against Morton, crushed a three run homer off him in the third to give the Mets a 4-0 lead.
Bassitt, meanwhile, was doing his usual thing of battling hard against the Braves. He’s definitely that guy who you would see as someone who can more often than not see throwing six or seven innings most of his starts whether he has his good stuff or not. Bassitt had his good stuff today, and he brought it up a notch when he got into trouble. In the third, after Lindor’s home run, Ronald Acuna Jr. walked and stole second with two outs and Dansby Swanson up at the plate. But Bassitt struck out Swanson to end the mini-threat. Then in the fourth, Eddie Rosario hit a single to the corner in right to send William Contreras to third, and then Rosario took second on Travis Jankowski’s throw to the infield. Adam Duvall, who homered the night before, strode to the plate with two outs where a single brings home two and puts the Braves back in the ballgame. Bassitt calmly threw a little slider and Duvall meekly grounded it to short to end the not-so-mini-threat.
Bassitt would only give up a leadoff homer in the 6th to Matt Olson the rest of the way, but he calmly set the Braves down in order the rest of the inning to finish off his day. Noted cleanup hitter Guillorme then put the game away with an RBI double to drive home a run in the 7th to make it 6-1, and make sure we don’t remember “Luis Guillorme Batting Cleanup Day” like we would remember that John Mayberry and Eric Campbell started a combined 16 games hitting cleanup in 2015 in a season where the Mets would somehow make the World Series (hi Yoenis.)
The Mets would go on to win 7-3 and win the series in Atlanta despite not having two all-stars in their lineup. Rumors of the Mets’ demise have been greatly exaggerated. Right, Tomas?
Tomás Nido says the Mets joke internally about their season being over after losses 😂
"The vibe was everybody was freaking out outside of this clubhouse, so I'm sure it feels good for everybody to see that the season is not over" pic.twitter.com/RX0858g5ge
— SNY (@SNYtv) July 13, 2022
Okay. First off, Nido was definitely not kidding., Second, he’s definitely on to somehting. And third, I think the last time a player wanted to joke about what was going on outside the room in turned into an appendage sticking out from a fist turned towards the earth. So be careful, Tomas. I don’t want to see you on the back page for anything more serious than throwing the ball to College Point on a Billy Hamilton attempted steal. So for your own sake, just be careful not to let your clubhouse jokes manifest into something that’s going to piss off Sal Licata. It’s just not worth it.
(We do tend to freak out a lot, don’t we.)
Today’s Hate List
1. JT Realmuto
2. Whit Merrifield
3. Alec Bohm
4. Andrew Benintendi
5. Michael A. Taylor
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
