These are honestly my least favorite recaps to write.
Not solely because the Mets lost, since we are all Mets fans here and that is not what any of us want, but they just all kind of played bad baseball and never felt super in this one. So its hard to make it interesting, if I am going to be completely honest with you, dear reader.
They trailed from the second inning on, as the first inning went by with neither team scoring. Jonah Tong, who toed a Major League rubber for the second time in his career,
was really up against it the entire time. The young righty was far from sharp, and his two glaring issues on the day showed themselves in the second inning. He walked Spencer Steer and gave up a big boy home run to Sal Stewart, the first of his career, to the tune of 412 feet and 107.1 mph, putting the Mets behind 2-0.
The Mets did rally in the third, loading the bases with one away, but all they could muster was a Brandon Nimmo sacrifice fly to cut the deficit in half.
Jonah Tong’s next two innings were struggles just like the second, as he surrendered solo home runs to Matt McLain and Austin Hays, putting the Mets in a 4-1 hole. He ended up being able to gut through six innings, but was far from efficient. The rookie gave up three hits (all home runs), walked four and struck out six over six innings. Throughout his start he struggled with his command with his secondary stuff, which allowed the Reds to sit on the fastball at the top of the zone that he loves to throw so much. It will serve as a learning experience for him, as he likely was able to overpower Double-A hitters on nights like this, but likely will not be able to do so with Major League hitters. He did, to his credit, settle down in the fifth and sixth innings, but it was a little late on the day.
The Mets looked to potentially have some life in the seventh, as Jared Young hit a solo home run to make it a 4-2 deficit. The bottom of the seventh took a likely loss and turned it into an almost certain one, as Ryne Stanek came in to stop the bleeding, and forgot his first aid kit. He loaded the bases with one away, surrendered a single to TJ Friedl to make it 5-2 Reds, and gave the ball to Jimmy Herget. Herget got the second out of the inning with a strike out of Noelvi Marte, but walked Elly De La Cruz to give the Reds a 6-2 lead. He got Austin Hays to line out to Francisco Lindor to end the inning, but the damage was done.
The Mets threatened in the eighth inning, as Jeff McNeil singled with one away and Brett Baty doubled with two away, but a Francisco Alvarez strike out looking ended the threat. They also threatened in the ninth, as Lindor doubled with one away, Juan Soto singled to make it first and third, and both players advanced a base on a wild pitch to make it 6-3 with a runner on second and one out. However, Emilio Pagan got Nimmo and Pete Alonso to strike out to even the series at one apiece.
To sum it up, to do a TLDR if you will: the Mets, as a whole, did not play particularly well, as they could not get a big hit, ran themselves out of two innings with two bad caught stealings (both by Francisco Lindor, which is a rarity in and of itself), surrendered three home runs, and walked six batters. Just burn the tape on this one.
Tomorrow afternoon will be the rubber game of this pretty important series for National League Wild Card game reasons, and it is a profoundly interesting one, as Mets rookie Brandon Sproat makes his MLB debut against a bona fide ace in Hunter Greene.
SB Nation GameThreads
Box scores
Win Probability Added
FanGraphs.com" />
Big Mets winner: Juan Soto, +9.4% WPA
Big Mets loser: Jonah Tong, -15.7% WPA
Mets pitchers: -26.8% WPA
Mets hitters: -23.2% WPA
Teh aw3s0mest play: Jared Young’s solo home run, +8.0% WPA
Teh sux0rest play: Sal Stewart’s two run home run, -18.7% WPA
