Game one of a four game set vs the Mets- Uncle Charlie coming back from his layoff helping his family through their battle with covid, getting the ball vs lefty, Joey Lucchesi.
The way this one started, you’d think the final score was gonna be 18-15. Which would’ve been fine by me with deGrom going tomorrow, but the Cardinals bats would get to Lucchesi early enough to make the Mets burn 5.1 innings out of their pen tonight.
After Waino worked a 10 pitch, 1-2-3 1st inning, Tommy Three Legs wasted no time ripping a leadoff triple into RF.
Carl Bean would do his part next, guiding a sac-fly to Conforto deep in the RF corner to score Edman for the 1-0 lead.
The Mets would pick up their 5 runs in the 2nd and 3rd innings. The two runs in the 2nd could’ve probably been avoided, with the Cards electing to intentionally walk Villar to load the bases with one out for Nido. Nido would get hit by a pitch to tie and two batters later, Jeff McNeil would walk to give the Mets a 2-1 lead.
Haaaaaarry Bader made sure things didn’t stay that way long, sending an absolute nuke shot to deep LF with two outs in the bottom half of the 2nd. His second HR in as many days, this one going 450 feet at 109.4mph off the bat to tie it at 2-2.
The Mets added 3 more in the 3rd, as Dom Smith drove in a run on a groundout to Goldy and Pillar hit a 2-run HR sneaking over the wall in CF to Freese’s lawn to make it 5-2 Mets.
But no need to worry, the Cardinals would do their favorite thing, a two out rally in the bottom half. Carlson and Goldy got it started with back-to-back singles to bring up Arenado, representing the tying run. And guess what he’d do? And do it after a little controversial, “did he tip it or not?” call. Yup, he tied things up with a monster 3-run blast, his 5th of the year to even things up 5-5.
Pauly Deez followed that up by lining a ball off the wall in RCF, inches away from back-to-back HR. Prince Sex would drive him in with a double of his own to put the Birds back on top 6-5.
After Waino’s 5.2IP, the pen would take things over the rest of the way, tossing 3.1IP scoreless (Cabrera, Helsley, Gio, Reyes).
Cabrera, Gio and Reyes would each work an inning, as Helsley was only needed for an out (cleaning up Cabrera’s inning on 4 pitches). Reyes would walk two in the 9th, throwing 20 pitches and only 8 for strikes. But he’d pick up his 8th save, staying perfect on the season- even working around a little blackout to close the door at 6-5.
Johan Oviedo (0-0, 2.79) gets the honor of pitching against Jacob deGrom (2-2, 0.51) tomorrow evening. First pitch scheduled for 6:45pm c/t.
Cheers, Stew