In the bottom of the third inning, the Mets’ second time around the batting order quickly became the third time. Well, maybe not so quickly. The bottom of the third inning lasted FORTY minutes from first to last pitch, as the Mets sent 15 men to the plate, scoring every player who didn’t make an out.
In case you were worried about starter Steven Matz sitting around for so long between innings, here’s a list of things that you could do to occupy your time for forty minutes, if you so chose, courtesy of your friendly neighborhood web search engine:
- make these chicken and asparagus crepes, take a breather, then make this mustard-maple roasted salmon
- do a calorie-scorching circuit training routine to some of today's hottest workout music
- do your lips if you are Kylie Jenner
- challenge the Guinness book of records for longest time not blinking
- build your own computer
- model one second of human brain activity if you are a supercomputer (‘Team Human’ is UNBREAKABLE)
- wait in line for a Shake Shack burger at Citi, where amount of human brain activity may vary
- listen to a couple of Ramones albums
- watch Mike Wallace’s forgotten British lovechild, "40 Minutes"
- 675 Hindu pushups
- watch up to the intentional walk to Keith during Game 5 of the NLCS in "1986: A Year to Remember"
- go back in time and watch a Pink Floyd laser-light show at the Hayden Planetarium
- get a pizza delivered while getting your oil changed while saving 15% on car insurance while playing a couple of rounds of Candy Crush
- re-think your whole damn life, which has been often marred by traffic of some kind, consumerism, and naps untaken
Or you could watch a thoroughly enjoyable series of at-bats where the Mets’ lineup showed its best self:
Twelve straight position players reached base safely. Patience drew four walks, while pretty much everyone else squared up the ball and hit it where it was pitched. Conforto had two very Conforto-y at-bats resulting in beautiful RBI-producing line drives. Cespedes stayed with a low outside slider and drove it to right-center for two ribbies in his first at-bat of the inning. Neil Walker finally got around to hitting his first double of the year (all nine of his previous extra-base hits had left the yard, a team record to start the season). The grissiony Asdrubal Cabrera drummed a double the opposite way.
Then there was this to cap it all off, when Joe Broadway left his slider right down Broadway:
With that screamer, Cespedes set the team record for consecutive games with an extra-base hit (nine). When the inning had finally ended, the Citi Field faithful gave a standing ovation for the most runs ever scored by the Mets in one inning.
Really, they may as well be applauding the authority with which the Mets have hit the baseball so far this year. Four of their main contributors are in the top nine in all of baseball for percentage of balls hit hard—Conforto is first, Wright fourth, Cespedes sixth, and Walker ninth.
Matz made some history of his own, becoming the first pitcher in Mets history to win seven of his first 10 starts. San Francisco ran up his pitch count (110, tying his most ever) and got seven hits off of him, but all were singles—including three infield ones—and not particularly well-struck. While Matz certainly was not overwhelming with three walks and just four strikeouts in six innings, the Strong Island native availed himself well by pitching around trouble, and keeping the pesky Giants off the scoreboard. For the first three innings anyway, it was a nice little gut-check performance against a formidable opponent. After that point, well...we'll let the WPA chart take the recap from here.
SB Nation GameThreads
* Amazin' Avenue GameThread
* McCovey Chronicles GameThread
Win Probability Added
Source: FanGraphs
Big winners: Steven Matz, +14.6 WPA, Michael Conforto, +13.2% WPA; Neil Walker, +11.4% WPA
Big losers: Jake Peavey, -31.1% WPA
Teh aw3s0mest play: Michael Conforto's RBI double to open the scoring in the third, +15.4% WPA
Teh sux0rest play: Nah
Total pitcher WPA: +14.6% WPA
Total batter WPA: +35.4% WPA
GWRBI!: Yoenis Cespedes