Timely hits lead to victory in Oakland

One day after the offense scored 17 runs, offense was a little harder to come by but the Mets still managed a 3-2 win over the Athletics.

Coming into this game Shintaro Fujinama held an unsightly 17.55 ERA, and while Carlos Carrasco’s ERA was a bit better, it was still very bad at 11.42, so naturally this was a 2-2 ballgame by the time the bullpens got involved.

To be fair, neither pitcher was very good they just got a bit lucky. Early in the game the Mets were hitting balls hard that went for outs, while Carrasco constantly had runners on but was able to work out of it for the most part. He also hit three batters which was a bit concerning.

His worst inning was the second when Oakland scored both runs against him. A single and a double opened the inning, then a groundout and another single, with a hit by pitch sandwiched in between, brought the two runs home. He got out of it without further damage which was generally the theme for the day. His final line for the game was 5.0 innings pitched, two runs, four hits, and three strikeouts.

As for the Mets offense, despite hitting the ball hard they didn’t have much to show for it outside of two blasts by Pete Alonso and Mark Canha. Canha’s tied the game at two in the seventh, and then after a walk to Daniel Vogelbach, Fujinama handed over the game to the bullpen. Old friend Trevor May was the first one up, and with two out Brandon Nimmo laced a ball into right to bring home pinch-runner Tim Locastro to give the Mets the lead.

The Mets issue once again was the 7-9 hitters. There is just no offense coming from the bottom of the lineup. Francisco Álvarez looked jumpy at the plate and there was a scary moment when his throw to first on a strike three call made Alonso have to dive at the bag to get the runner out.

Brooks Raley was the only one out of the Mets bullpen who was spotless but Drew Smith, Adam Ottavino, and David Robertson got the job done to secure the victory. The game ended twice when it seemed Robertson got a strikeout but he was instead called for a clock violation so the game continued. Thankfully it made no difference. He picked up the strikeout on the next pitch and the ballgame was over. This game wasn’t pretty, and the Mets certainly still have some issues to work on, but it was still a win against a team they should beat.

Box scores

ESPN
MLB

SB Nation GameThreads

Amazin’ Avenue
Athletics Nation

Win Probability Added

Fangraphs.com

What’s WPA?

Big Mets winner: Brandon Nimmo, +18.4% WPA
Big Mets loser: Francisco Álvarez, -11.5% WPA
Mets pitchers: 41.8% WPA
Mets hitters: 8.2% WPA
Teh aw3s0mest play: Brandon Nimmo RBI double in seventh
Teh sux0rest play: Carlos Perez single in ninth