The Mets’ second game of the season got off to a good enough start. In his Mets debut, Bartolo Colon allowed just a single in the top of a scoreless first inning. Juan Lagares led off the bottom of the inning with a triple to right-center field, and one Wilmer Flores pop out later, David Wright hit a sacrifice fly to score Lagares. The downside of the bottom of the first was that Chris Young had to leave the game after aggravating the quad injury that kept him out of the game on Opening Day while running down a fly ball in the top half.
Colon then threw a cople of scoreless innings, and Nationals starter Gio Gonzalez matched him. The Nationals got to Colon in the fourth, however, with back-to-back one-out doubles by Jayson Werth—who had four hits on the night and three against Colon—and Adam LaRoche.
That was it for Washington’s scoring in the fourth, but they took the lead in the top of the fifth on an leadoff home run by Ian Desmond. One out later, Gio Gonzalez hit a home run, too, the only entertaining part of which was his incredibly awkward run around the bases, as he was uncertain whether or not he had actually hit a home run. But the Nationals were up 3-1.
The Mets came closest to scoring a second run in the bottom of the fifth. Ruben Tejada singled with one out, but Colon failed, pretty miserably, to bunt him over to second and struck out on a foul bunt attempt. Juan Lagares doubled to left field, but Tejada—not the fleetest of foot, to say the least—was thrown out at home plate and didn’t slide on the play. Tim Teufel probably shouldn’t have sent him on the play, and Tejada probably should have at least slid as he attepted to score. With that opportunity gone, the Mets never really came close to scoring again.
Colon worked through the sixth inning, completing his first outing as a Met, and Terry Collins turned to Gonzalez Germen in the seventh. Denard Span and Anthony Rendon doubled to begin the inning, but Span didn’t stray far from second base on Rendon’s double, presumably because he thought Juan Lagares might catch it, and did not score on the play. He did score, though, on the ensuing wild pitch by Germen, which Travis d’Arnaud got a piece of but did not stop as it whizzed over his mask. To his credit, Germen retired the next three batters he faced without allowing Rendon to score from third, and he put up a zero in the eighth.
Kyle Farnsworth gave up a run in the ninth, as Span hit a one-out triple and came in to score on a ground out off the bat of Rendon, even though the Mets had the infield in. The score was 5-1 in favor of the Nationals but felt exponentially larger.
Craig Stammen retired the Mets in order in the bottom of the ninth, and the Mets dropped their second game of the year.
In total, the Mets had just three hits in the game, drew two walks, and struck out thirteen times. With eighteen strikeouts in ten innings on Opening Day, the Mets’ lineup is off to a rocky start. As for the pitching, Colon didn’t look terrible, but he obviously did not have a fantastic debut. And with two runs allowed in three innings, the Mets’ bullpen wasn’t as awful as it was on Opening Day.
The series concludes at 1:10 pm on Thursday. Zack Wheeler makes his 2014 debut, and the Mets will attempt to avoid a season-opening sweep at the hands of a division rival.
SB Nation GameThreads
* Amazin' Avenue GameThread
* Federal Baseball GameThread
Win Probability Added
Big winners: Juan Lagares, +5.6% WPA
Big losers: Bartolo Colon, -17.2% WPA, Wimer Flores, -11.2% WPA
Teh aw3s0mest play: Juan Lagares’s leadoff triple in the first, +10.1% WPA
Teh sux0rest play: Ian Desmond’s go-ahead home run in the fifth, -16.3% WPA
Total pitcher WPA: -23.2% WPA
Total batter WPA: -26.8% WPA
GWRBI!: Ian Desmond