Pete Alonso and the pitchers shine against the Snakes

The Mets, who are (probably) good, kept their losing streak at one, taking the rubber game of the series against the Diamondbacks by a score of 5-0.

David Peterson toed the rubber to start this one, replacing Taijuan Walker in the rotation while the latter recovers from a (hopefully not very serious) bout of shoulder bursitis. Peterson did that job admirably, tossing 4.1 scoreless innings. He was not perfect, as he worked around base runners in the first, second and fourth innings. The fourth inning was by far his most stressful, though not all of it was his fault.

Carson Kelly led off the aforementioned fourth inning with something that is called a double in the box score, but really should have been an easy fly out. Starling Marte completely lost the ball in the sun and whiffed on it. Peterson got an out before surrendering a weak infield single, making it first and third with just one out. Peterson got Daulton Varsho to strike out and Yonny Hernandez to ground into a force out to stop the budding rally in its tracks.

The Mets offense, in the early portion of the game, continued their out-of-sorts display from the Saturday matinee against Humberto Castellanos and Kyle Nelson, acquiring just a single hit (a James McCann single, of all things) throughout the first five innings.

David Peterson and Trevor Williams combined for a scoreless fifth inning and Chasen Shreve pitched a scoreless sixth to keep the score 0-0 in the bottom of the sixth, which is when some Actual Offense™ occurred.

Francisco Lindor, who has been simply incredible to start the season, started off the rally with a well struck single up the middle off the glove of Gerardo Perdomo, who did an incredible job to even tip the ball. Lindor was erased on a very heady play by Perdomo, who let a Pete Alonso pop up fall to trade out a good runner on first in Lindor was a slower runner in Alonso.

The play, ironically, did not matter in the slightest, when Eduardo Escobar poked a ball into shallow right field. He aggressively tried to stretch it into a double — which turned out to be an excellent decision — as Pavin Smith launched the ball over second base and allowed Alonso to rumble home (and saw Escobar take third) with the first run of the game.

Old Friend™ Oliver Perez came in to face Dominic Smith and immediately walked him, making it first and third with one out. J.D. Davis (pinch hitting for Travis Jankowski) smoked a 1-2 sinker up the middle to push the lead to 2-0. James McCann roped a fly ball to left field that saw Joey Cora (riskily) send Smith home. A poor throw allowed him to score the third and final run of the inning.

Chasen Shreve had a shutdown inning in the top of the seventh, setting down Arizona 1-2-3 with ease. The bottom of the seventh saw the Mets record two quick outs before Lindor kept the inning alive. He went down 1-2 before battling back to work the count full, and eventually worked an impressive walk to bring Alonso to the plate. Alonso rewarded his teammate’s patience by doing his favorite thing in the world (hitting sick dingers) from his least favorite position in the world (designated hitter). He hit a Matt Peacock fastball 111 MPH (lol) at a 17 degree launch angle (lolol) for a two run home run to put the icing on the cake for the Mets.

Drew Smith and Edwin Diaz pitched an excellent 8th and 9th inning respectively, securing the 5-0 win for our beloved Mets.

Box scores

ESPN
MLB

Win Probability Added

Fangraphs.com

What’s WPA?

Big Mets winner: Eduardo Escobar, +25.5% WPA
Big Mets loser: Starling Marte, -8.9% WPA
Mets pitchers: +37.6% WPA
Mets hitters: +12.4% WPA
Teh aw3s0mest play: Eduardo Escobar’s sixth inning double, +24.1% WPA
Teh sux0rest play: Christian Walker’s sixth inning double, -10.1% WPA

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