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The red hot Mets continued their surprising second half Wild Card push, beating the Marlins 5-0 on Wednesday night at Citi Field to record their twelfth win in their last thirteen games.
The Mets were led by an efficient Zack Wheeler, who threw eight scoreless innings—making it 15 scoreless since the trade deadline passed without Wheeler moving. Wheeler scattered eight hits and threw only 101 pitches—72 for strikes—while recording thirteen ground ball outs.
The Mets struck early, jumping out to a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the first. J.D. Davis—with yet another strong game—singled up the middle with one out. With two runners on and two out, Todd Frazier hit a line drive that left fielder Jon Berti could not snare. The ball bounced off the top of his glove for an RBI double.
The Mets would extend the lead to a more comfortable 4-0 in the bottom of the third. Jeff McNeil and Davis worked back-to-back walks to start the frame. After a Pete Alonso strike out, Wilson Ramos followed with a three-run blast to center, providing Wheeler with the larger cushion.
Alonso padded the score further with a solo homer in the fifth with a similar trajectory to his electrifying game winner in Game 2 the previous night. While the Marlins recorded baserunners in each inning, Wheeler made sure they never seriously threatened. He struck out Isan Diaz and Brian Anderson to work around a Luis Guillorme error and escape the sixth, then induced his second double play ground out of the night and struck out Jorge Alfaro to get out of a two-on, none out situation in the seventh.
Mickey Callaway made the slightly curious decision to bring in the heavily worked Robert Gsellman for the ninth, but Gsellman avoided a lengthy inning by fittingly getting Alfaro to ground into the Marlins’ third double play of the night to end the game. The Mets will go for the four game sweep of the Marlins behind Steven Matz Thursday afternoon.
SB Nation GameThreads
Box scores
Win Probability Added
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Big winners: Zack Wheeler: +24.0% WPA, Wilson Ramos, +15,4%, Todd Frazier, +11.2%
Big losers: None
Total pitcher WPA: +24.5% WPA
Total batter WPA: +25.5% WPA
Teh aw3s0mest play: Wilson Ramos’s three-run home run in the bottom of the third inning, +19.3% WPA
Teh sux0rest play: Luis Guillorme’s fly out to left field to end the first inning, stranding runners on second and third, -4.9% WPA