If you consider fun, the baseball torturefest that was an epic 9-8, 11-inning win over the Philadelphia Phillies fun.
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In an instant classic like this one, no lead would be secure.
Send that bat flip right to Cooperstown. Tillman would only pitch for 1.2 innings before being taken out of the game, his shortest start of the season. Philadelphia 2B Cesar Hernandez, who has reached base safely in 28 consecutive contests, is riding a 10-game hitting streak and SS Freddy Galvis is 8-for-21 while hitting safely in five straight. 3.
NY wasted a lead provided by Curtis Granderson’s two-run homer and fell behind 3-2 when Ryan Howard and Cameron Rupp homered on consecutive pitches from Seth Lugo in the fifth. He hasn’t pitched since August 14. He was lifted for a pinch-hitter in the bottom of the inning after 87 pitches, and throughout the start his curveball with the insane spin rate was either right on the money or missed by quite a bit-only seven of 16 were strikes.
It is not coincidence that the Mets resurgence coincided with the returns of Reyes, Cabrera and Cespedes.
Reliever Dan Otero (5-1) pitched two scoreless innings, Bryan Shaw worked one and Cody Allen pitched a flawless ninth for his 29th save.
Travis d’Arnaud doubled in the Mets second for his first RBI in almost a month. It turned out to be his worst outing of the year, numbers-wise. Curtis Granderson singled home a run and Kelly Johnson hit an RBI single, with another run scoring when rookie right fielder Roman Quinn overran the ball for a 4-3 lead. The ball hooked foul at the very last moment. Howard picked it up, and both long-legged speedless wonders sold out in a sprint and dual head-first dives to the bag. The Mets became the eighth team this season to tie the game with a home run in the ninth and then win on a walk-off (although not all of those came while trailing).
NY trailed 6-4 when pinch-hitter Brandon Nimmo singled off Jeanmar Gomez leading off the ninth and Reyes homered to right with one out.
With eight games left in the season, it was a reminder of one of the few breaks that the Mets have caught with their postseason fate still in the air.
“You come to the park these days, you know you’re going to get into the game”, he said. Freddy Galvis led off with a double and advanced to third on a groundout. “Best team gets in”. The homer was the second in as many games for Franco, who hit a three-run blast against Addison Reed on Thursday. They had a 17.5 percent chance to win after Jose Reyes singled to put the tying run on base later in the inning, which brought Cabrera to the plate.
But the Mets broke the game open with help off the bench, adding three more runs in the bottom of the seventh via Cameron Rupp’s throwing error on Juan Lagares’ sacrifice bunt, Eric Campbell’s RBI single and T.J. Rivera’s sacrifice fly to take a commanding 10-5 edge that would hold.
This coulda been the one that was a second straight crushing loss against second-division division opponent.
Michael Conforto’s three-run homer capped a six-run fifth inning Friday night by the New York Mets, who retained at least a share of the National League wild-card lead by using seven pitchers to patch together a vital 10-5 victory over the Philadelphia Phillies at Citi Field.
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For a season that was starting to look like one of “what of coulda been”, at this point it is solidly in the camp of ‘who the hell knows, ‘ which is undeniably awesome and totally entertaining-if heart-stopping at times. LGM!
