Fish Flopped

For those of us who were Met fans in the middle aughts, the Marlins had a chance, far too often, to play spoiler for what seemed to be a play-off bound Mets team. Well, this year, the Mets have a chance to be a spoiler for the Marlins instead, and began that campaign with a 2-1 win over the Fish in Miami tonight.

The Mets continue to get more out of José Butto than anyone thought possible based on his early appearances with the Mets. For his third good start in a row, Butto went six innings of one-run ball, striking out six, walking one, and scattering four hits. The only blemish against him came in the fifth inning, where a run scored on a ground ball double play.

Unfortunately for the Mets, Edwin Cabrera was almost as good over five and a third innings with an almost perfect mirror of Butto’s performance, with one run, one walk, four hits, and four strikeouts. The Mets’ run against Cabrera came in the top of the fifth when Mark Vientos knocked in Ronny Mauricio on a single to center.

Jeff McNeil broke the tie in the top of the ninth inning with a solo home run off of Tanner Scott to give the Mets the lead back. Adam Ottavino would close out the game to give the Mets their second straight win. With this loss, the Marlins fall out of a playoff spot for the time being. Oh well.

Tomorrow night, Braxton Garrett and Joey Lucchesi face off in the middle game of the series.

SB Nation GameThreads

Amazin’ Avenue

Box scores

MLB.com
ESPN

Win Probability Added

Fangraphs.com

What’s WPA?

Big Mets winner: Jeff McNeil, +26.7% WPA
Big Mets loser: D.J. Stewart, -15.9% WPA
Mets pitchers: +60.3% WPA
Mets hitters: -10.3% WPA
Teh aw3s0mest play: Jeff McNeil’s go-ahead home run, +33.6% WPA
Teh sux0rest play: Garrett Hamson’s fifth inning single, -13.4% WPA