Mets vs Nationals Recap: Another Met bites the dust

Even though the Nationals did not run out their best lineup tonight, the Mets won (relatively) easily in Washington tonight, 4-2. On the first night of Player’s Weekend, the game was full of nicknames, strikeouts, and ugly, ugly socks.

The Mets got off to a hot start tonight, with Brandon “Nimms” Nimmo drawing a lead off walk off Nationals’ starter A.J. “AJ” Cole. After a Juan “Angelo” Lagares strikeout and a Yoenis “La Potencia” Cespedes walk, Asdrubal “Chicatín” Cabrera drove in Nimmo with a single. Dominic “Smith” Smith then hit a single, but instead of scoring from second base, Cespedes came up lame, straining his right hamstring and leaving the game.

While the Mets did not score again until the eighth, they had Jacob “Jake” deGrom on the mound, so that was enough. Over seven and two-thirds innings, deGrom struck out ten and allowed one run on five hits and one walk. This marked deGrom’s ninth double-digit strikeout performance of the season, and also marked his 192-201st strikeouts of the season

The Mets managed just two more hits over the next seven innings, singles by deGrom in the second and Travis “Lil D” d’Arnaud in the sixth, in the eighth, the Mets gave deGrom a little more breathing room. The inning started with a double by Lagares, followed up by a seeing-eye RBI single up the middle from Matt “Rey Rey” Reynolds, who came in to play left field for Cespedes. Cabrera then hit a double off the center field wall, putting runners on second and third with no outs. Smith then hit a sacrifice fly to score Reynolds from third, putting the Mets up 3-0.

In the bottom of the eighth, deGrom quickly retired the first two batters before giving up a double to Andrew “Stevo” Stevenson. Adrian “El Chamo” Sanchez then singled to right field, scoring Stevenson, and chasing deGrom from the game. Jerry “Gordo” Blevins came in and did the greatest thing of all: struck out Daniel “Murph” Murphy.

Nimmo singled in the ninth and then stole his first career base. Nimmo has been on base seven times in his last two games, and is putting together quality at bats at a time when the Mets could really use a few nice surprises. Lagares drove in Nimmo with a hard-hit single, and then proceeded to steal second and third off of Joe “Joe B” Blanton, though he didn’t score.

AJ “Junior” Ramos entered for the save, and promptly gave up a solo home run to Adam “Donnie” Lind and a double to Wilmer “El Lindo” Difo. Ramos then induced a pop up from Michael “Mikey T” Taylor and walked Anthony “Ant” Rendon and Matt “Wiety” Wieters, putting the tying and winning runs on base. A sharp line drive to right almost scored more, but Nimmo made the catch and prevented the runners from tagging up. Ramos then caught Stevenson looking with a nasty curveball to put the game away.

Tomorrow, Robert “G-Man” Gsellman starts for the Mets against Gio “Double G” Gonzalez at 4:05pm.

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What’s WPA?

Big winners: Jacob “Jake” deGrom, +47.1 % WPA
Big losers: Gavin “Cheech” Cecchini, -10.7% WPA
Teh aw3s0mest play: Asdrubal “Chicatín” Cabrera’s RBI single in the first
Teh sux0rest play: Travis “Lil D” d’Arnaud’s strikeout in the first
Total pitcher WPA: +55.6% WPA
Total batter WPA: -5.6% WPA
GWRBI!: Dominic “Smith” Smith