Catching Up is Hard To Do

The Saturday afternoon affair was a frustrating one for our beloved New York Mets, as they trailed for the vast majority of the game, threatened the Cardinals beleaguered pitching staff a fair bit, but could not get that one big hit to bring them back from their rather early deficit.

Despite that downer of a first paragraph, the Mets actually led this game after one. Kodai Senga had a very Kodai Senga first inning, as he worked himself into trouble with some wildness, and worked himself out of trouble with his ghost fork. Brandon Nimmo took the first pitch a Met would see from Adam Wainwright into the seats, making it seem like the vibes would continue from their easy Friday night victory.

Alas, it would go downhill from there. The Cardinals scored three in the top of the second — including two on an opposite field line drive home run off the bat of reigning MVP Paul Goldschmidt. They would make it 4-1 with a Jordan Walker home run in the third, and it looked like the wheels were about to fall off for the Mets, though Senga legitimately did a good job of reining himself in to keep the game close.

He ended up going six and two thirds innings, surrendering five hits, walking just one, and striking out eight. While there was a lot of good in this outing, the home runs doomed him — and his ballclub.

The Mets battled, constantly putting runners on base but rarely cashing them in. Luis Guillorme, had an excellent game (save for a pretty bad error on a routine grounder, though the run did not score so, c’est la vie) in New Dad Francisco Lindor’s stead. He cut the deficit significantly, taking a very poor Wainwright sinker and sending it out for his first homer of the season, making it 4-3 in the fifth. The tying run reached base in the sixth, seventh, and eighth innings, with the runner reaching scoring position in the seventh, but they could not find the hit they needed — the seventh inning even included Nimmo and Jeff McNeil hitting 100 MPH ground outs with said runner in scoring position. It was, simply put, an annoying and frustrating day.

The ninth inning saw the Cardinals get an insurance run, mostly due to the legs of Tommy Edman. The switch hitter beat out a would be double play ball, stole second with ease, and scored on a bloop single to make it 5-3. The run ended up being superfluous, though, for Jordan Hicks and the Cardinals.

The Mets, once again, battled in the ninth, but to no avail. New Dad Francisco Lindor came in as a pinch hitter and promptly got hit by a Hicks fastball, but Hicks found the zone and blew away Guillorme, Nimmo, and Starling Marte to hand the Mets a loss.

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Win Probability Added

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What’s WPA?

Big Mets winner: Luis Guillorme, +19.4% WPA
Big Mets loser: Kodai Senga, -18.4% WPA
Mets pitchers: -20% WPA
Mets hitters: -30% WPA
Teh aw3s0mest play: Luis Guillorme’s fifth inning two run home run, +19.2% WPA
Teh sux0rest play: Paul Goldschmidt’s second inning two run home run, -21.7% WPA