For the New York Mets, it’s always about the long ball at Citizens Bank Park.
Game One of the series began with an ugly first inning. Only two runs were allowed, but with the bases loaded it was looking like another 12-run first inning for the Phillies. Skipping forward to the fourth inning, Jay Bruce tagged Eickhoff with a bomb to right center field, putting some gas in an empty Mets engine. Just after deGrom’s departure, pitching five more strong innings, all goose eggs after the first, Neil Walker hit a sac fly to tie the game in the seventh, eliminating the chance of a deGrom loss.
The top of the eighth is where the fun begins. Asdrubal Cabrera came to the plate and the first pitch he saw from Phillies’ reliever Edubray Ramos went flying behind his head. Cabrera stared down Ramos, justifiably so, and at the end of the day, Phillies manager Pete Mackanin was thrown out of the game. It would seem that Ramos may have had an issue with Cabrera’s bat flip from last season after hitting a game winning walk off three-run homer to move the Mets closer
to clinching the Wild Card spot.
Cabrera was eventually walked, Cespedes goes down swinging, and Bruce Almighty to the rescue. Jay Bruce hits a moonshot that made contact with his own face on the second deck in right field. 4-2 Mets. After a solo home run given up by Addison Reed in the bottom of the ninth, he escaped the jam with a save.
The Mets take game one.
The next game was a fireworks display. In all honesty, it was a brutal defeat from beginning to end. Clay Buchholz, the former Red Sock, left with an injury but not before earning six runs against. He gave up a three-run homerun to Yoenis Cespedes in the first inning, before any outs were recorded. His game ended after only two and a third.
Following that, Cespedes hit two more home runs, Duda hit two, Cabrera hit one, and d’Arnaud hit another. It was seven home runs in total, by the end of the game. There were fourteen extra base hits and six more singles, proving to be the most productive the Mets have been all season, and since they put up 17 runs against the Phillies last year. The final score was 14-4.
Not to mention, the Dark Knight rose again, pitching five and two thirds, with two earned runs. He exited with soreness in his quad, but attributes it to the amount of time he spent on the bench. There is no reason to believe he won’t be making his next start.
One away from the sweep.
The Mets bats started again early, striking first in the first with an RBI double from Cespedes. In the top of the third, Michael Conforto proved his worth with a solo shot to left center field, and in the fifth, three more runs, primarily due to a bases-loaded single by Cabrera. The game took a turn in the bottom of the sixth when Wheeler loaded the bases, leaving his problems to Hansel Robles to deal with. He didn’t do much in keeping those runs off the board. He in fact gave up a grand slam to Maikel Franco, bringing the Phillies within one run.
The Mets bullpen shut the door for the remaining three innings and they held on to the win 5-4, and earned their first sweep of the season.
The MVP of the series would undoubtedly have to be split between Yoenis Cespedes and Jay Bruce. Bruce deserves it for single handedly taking care of the Phillies in game one of the series. Cespedes also deserved it for his home run madness in game two of the series.
Truth of the matter is that each player performed.
