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At some point on Monday evening, a baseball game between the Mets and Marlins began. With Matt Harvey and Jose Fernandez pitching, it was supposed to be a good one. It was not.
Harvey had a good enough night, even though he threw 121 pitches across five-and-one-third innings. He struck out seven, walked two, and allowed just one run, which scored when Giancarlo Stanton grounded into a double play in the third inning.
The Mets answered the run with a leadoff walk by Lucas Duda and a monstrous home run by John Buck in the top of the fourth. From there, Harvey and the Mets’ bullpen kept the Marlins from scoring until the ninth inning. Robert Carson and Scott Atchison notched one out a piece to finish off the sixth. LaTroy Hawkins and Brandon Lyon threw a scoreless inning each, and Bobby Parnell took over for the bottom of the ninth with a one-run lead.
He gave up a booming leadoff double to Justin Ruggiano, who moved to third on a routine fly ball that Collin Cowgill misplayed into a single and scored on the ensuing sacrifice fly. Parnell got out of the ninth, and the teams went to extra innings.
Aside from a pair of impressive defensive plays by Daniel Murphy and Ruben Tejada, there wasn’t much to see from the tenth through fourteenth innings. Parnell threw another scoreless inning, Jeurys Familia threw two, and Scott Rice threw one. Shaun Marcum, the Mets’ ninth pitcher of the night, took over in the fourteenth and was able to keep the game going to the fifteenth.
The Mets finally put up a run in that inning as Lucas Duda doubled and eventually came around to score on an infield single by Tejada. Even the Mets’ go-ahead run wasn’t very exciting at that point.
In the bottom of the inning, Marcum gave up a leadoff single to—who else?—Greg Dobbs. He walked the next batter, and Dobbs then scored to tie the game on a single. Nick Green followed up with a sacrifice fly, and the Mets had lost the long, horrible game of baseball.
Some other weird things happened in the game. David Wright, sidelined by a stiff neck, came up to pinch hit at one point during extra innings. Giancarlo Stanton hurt his hamstring in extras, too. Terry Collins had Familia issue an intentional walk after getting ahead of a hitter 1-2. And for all the ineptitude on the field, the teams combined to make just one error in the entire five-plus-hour game.
The series continues at 7:10 pm if you're inclined to watch more.
SB Nation Coverage
* Amazin' Avenue Gamethread
* Fish Stripes Gamethread
Win Probability Added
Big winners: Ruben Tejada, +34.2% WPA, Jeurys Familia, +26.9% WPA
Big losers: Shaun Marcum, -68.3% WPA
Teh aw3s0mest play: Ruben Tejada's go-ahead single in the fifteenth, +33.6% WPA
Teh sux0rest play: Rob Brantly's game-tying single in the fifteenth, -49.8% WPA
Total pitcher WPA: 0.0% WPA
Total batter WPA: -50.0% WPA
GWRBI!: Nick Green