You Make Your Own Luck

We’ve been waiting for Jacob deGrom to be a little less than superhuman. It sucks that even a slight drop in his performance puts the Mets into a precarious position, but that’s what happens when the guy on the other side is also a restaurant quality pitcher. (I mean, deGrom is Peter Luger’s while Fried is Bubby’s, but Bubby’s is a mighty fine restaurant in the Village. Like seriously, check them out. I’m not being compensated for it.) deGrom’s slider escaped him in the third as he gave up two runs on hard hit balls by Dansby Swanson and Austin Riley to make it 2-0 Atlanta in the third.

But deGrom got his slider back and retired 12 straight after that, and Mark Canha hit a two run dinger to tie the game at 2-2 in the meantime, so deGrom was off the hook for the moment, and he steamed through to the 7th inning. But then things got weird.

With two outs in the 7th, deGrom faced Vaughn Grissom, and was at 87 pitches. Grissom then worked out an eight pitch at-bat (seven of which were sliders), and Grissom battled until he smashed one which Brett Baty dove for but couldn’t handle, and Grissom was on first base. All the credit in the world to Grissom for battling, as the ironic part si that if Grissom reaches base in 2 or 3 pitches, deGrom probably stays in the game to face Michael Harris at about 90 pitches. But at 95, Buck pulled him in favor of Seth Lugo.

Harris also battled Lugo to a 3-2 count in the 7th, which was key because Grissom was off on that pitch, which was outside for ball four if Harris takes it. But Harris swings at it and sends a 38-hopper through the shift, and Brandon Nimmo couldn’t get enough mustard on the throw to the cutoff man and the Braves had a 3-2 lead. Now, if I complain about that hit being “lucky”, then I become what I hate. (Although when Luis Sojo did it against Al Leiter, I was convinced that Sojo sacrificed multiple live animals to get that ball through the infield. Still convinced.) So I’ll just say that Harris made his own luck by being able to pull a pitch on the outer half through the middle to drive home the run. See, Braves fans? Making weak contact can be your friend sometimes. (Stunk for Seth Lugo, who got torched for being a terrible reliever when all he did was get burned on weak contact and quite frankly, there wasn’t much he could do. Michael Harris made his own luck, and that’s that.)

Now to the 9th with the Mets down 3-2. Francisco Lindor pulls one to the right side for a single off Kenley Jansen. Jansen has a slow delivery to the plate and no pick off move to speak of, so the right play was for Lindor to steal a base. After  Jansen showed Lindor his “E” pick off move, Lindor took off. Had the base stolen easily. But Pete Alonso popped the ball up to the short outfield. The ball drops between the fielders, but Lindor was forced off second because he went back to first base when he saw the ball in the air.

I don’t blame Lindor one iota for what happened. It was a straight steal. He had his head down steaming towards the base, and there’s no way he could have seen where the ball was. And when he realized the ball was in the air, he turned back away from the play and only looked towards the outfield when he was halfway back to the base. In other words, he did what he was taught by coaches to do. If that’s a straight steal, then Alonso probably should have taken a pitch and let him try for the base, especially considering that Jansen has a slow move to the plate. But in my mind, that wasn’t on Lindor at all. Not a bit. Not even one bit.

After Chen Zhen struck out, Devin Marrero pinch ran for Alonso and did get that stolen base, but Jeff McNeil tapped it back to the pitcher for a gut wrenching 3-2 loss which brought the Braves to within 3.5 of the division lead. The good news is that while the Mets are in Philadelphia this weekend, the Braves have the Astros to deal with, so perhaps the Mets can pick up a half game this weekend. The other good news is that deGrom went 95 pitches and seemingly feels good, so any thoughts of the Mets pushing back deGrom after being less than superhuman tonight will probably evaporate, even when idiots on Twitter want to broach the subject.

Today’s Hate List

1. Michael Harris
2. Vaughn Grissom
3. Max Fried
4. Glenn Hubbard
5. Rick Camp