Mets vs. Phillies Recap: Short and Sweet

Threatening skies did not augur well for fitting in a September game not exactly brimming with pennant race implications, but the heaviest rains held off long enough for an official game to be squeezed in. The Mets offense jumped out to an early lead while Robert Gsellman—just up from Vegas to keep Matt Harvey on normal rest—showed signs he might indeed care about pitching better in the shortened victory.

The first inning did not start promisingly, as the first two batters reached against Gsellman. However, he managed to put down the next three batters—including a strikeout of white-hot Rhys Hoskins—to keep the Phillies off the board. The Mets pounced quickly, with Jose Reyes reaching on an infield single, stealing second and coming around on Asdrubal Cabrera single. Travis d’Arnaud followed that with a two-run blast over the right-center field wall, and the Mets had an early 3-0 lead.

Gsellman looked excellent from there, as the only baserunner he allowed from the second through the fifth was on a bunt single by Cesar Hernandez, which was quickly erased on a double play. Meanwhile, the Mets chipped in one more run in the second courtesy of a Dominic Smith double followed by a Gsellman RBI single, and another in the third on the first of two Brandon Nimmo sacrifice flies, and it seemed the only drama remaining might be whether the game would make it the requisite four and-a-half innings as the rain continued.

However, a Cabrera error leading off the sixth seemed to temporarily break Gsellman’s rhythm, as the error was quickly followed by a Hernandez double and a Nick Williams home run to cut the lead in half. But Gsellman buckled down to get out of the inning. The sixth would have been his final inning anyway, as Travis Taijeron came up to pinch hit for him, but the game was halted at that point and did not resume, giving the Mets the victory—and Gsellman his first since June 10 against the Braves.

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Win Probability Added

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What’s WPA?

Big winners: Travis d’Arnaud, +16.0% WPA, Robert Gsellman, +14.6% WPA (+4.4% batting)
Big losers: NONE
The aw3s0mest play: Travis d’Arnaud first inning two-run home run, +15.5%
The sux0rest play: Freddy Galvis first inning bunt single, -5.6%
Total pitcher WPA: 10.2% WPA+
Total batter WPA: 32.1% WPA+
GWRBI!: Robert Gsellman!