Mets vs. Pirates recap: There’s no Pill for the common Mets game

Fresh off a Saturday night victory that gave them the opportunity to win their three-game weekend series against the Pirates, the Mets completely flopped. None of the three main components of a baseball team—pitching, hitting, and defense—performed well as the Pirates just ran away with the game.

Tyler Pill got the start, his second in the big leagues, and gave up five runs in five innings, though two of those were unearned. He struck out four, gave up eight hits, and didn’t walk anyone. Given the throwing errors from Michael Conforto that helped contribute to those unearned runs scoring, it wasn’t that awful a start from Pill. But it was far from enough for the Mets to have a chance in the game.

The offense had several opportunities with runners on base but only scored once, fittingly on a ground ball double play off the bat of Travis d’Arnaud that plated Wilmer Flores from third base.

Even a four-run deficit would have been too much for the Mets to overcome in this one, but just in case there were still any doubt about the outcome of the game, the bullpen combined to give up six runs over the final three innings of the game, with Paul Sewald’s scoreless sixth making him the only pitcher to appear in the game without allowing a run.

In fairness to Josh Edgin, who pitched the seventh, there was a bit of a ridiculous situation that led to the run he allowed. He induced an inning-ending double play, the game went to commercial, the seventh inning stretch happened, and then the out at second base was overturned by replay review. That sent both teams back out there, and Edgin unsurprisingly gave up a single the brought home Pittsburgh’s sixth run. If the Mets were making it a game at the time, it would have been a major point of controversy.

But they were not, and it was merely a footnote that might inspire you to write to the commissioner’s office about what needs to be tweaked about the replay rules. Not that they would have helped the Mets this time, but maybe they’ll be in that situation again and it’ll matter.

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Win Probability Added

What’s WPA?

Big winners: none
Big losers: Tyler Pill, -32.4% WPA, Travis d’Arnaud, -10.7% WPA, Neil Walker, -10.4% WPA, Lucas Duda, -10.2% WPA
Teh aw3s0mest play: David Freese singles in a run in the first, -14.5% WPA
Teh sux0rest play: Curtis Granderson singles in the second to put runners on the corners with nobody out, +8.0% WPA
Total pitcher WPA: -34.2% WPA
Total batter WPA: -15.8% WPA
GWRBI!: Josh Bell