Jacob deGrom was electric for most of his start on Monday night, but the Mets ultimately gave up two leads and lost by one run.
For most of Monday night, Jacob deGrom was electric. The rookie began the Mets’ game with the Marlins by striking out the first eight batters he faced, breaking the club record of six and tying the major league record in the modern era. That part of the night went pretty, pretty well.
On top of deGrom’s early dominance, the Mets scored a couple of runs on a two-out Wilmer Flores double that plated Travis d’Arnaud and Lucas Duda. From there, neither team scored again until the seventh inning. But deGrom wound up cracking in the top of that inning.
Justin Bour, who you might not have heard of before the game, led off with a single, and Adeiny Hechavarria doubled. With those two on second and third, Jordany Valdespin blooped a single into left field to tie the game at two. And after a sacrifice bunt by Jeff Mathis, Reed Johnson hit a sacrifice fly to left-center to bring Valdespin home and give Miami the lead.
But the Mets answered with three runs of their own in the bottom of the seventh. Eric Campbell, who hit for Matt den Dekker with Mike Dunn on the mound, reached on an error by Casey McGehee. After Josh Satin struck out, Juan Lagares drew a walk, and Daniel Murphy flared a single of his own into left-center to tie the game at three. On the play, however, Lagares was thrown out attempting to take third base.
Miami turned to A.J. Ramos to face Travis d’Arnaud with Murphy on second, and d’Arnaud hit a broken-bat single to score Murphy and put the Mets back in the lead. Ramos then walked Duda and Flores to load the bases and walked Curtis Granderson to give the Mets a 5-3 lead. But the Marlins brought in Sam Dyson to face Dilson Herrera, and Herrera struck out to end the inning.
With that, Jeurys Familia took over for the top of the eighth. He struck out the first batter he faced but gave up back-to-back-to-back singles to load the bases before giving up a game-tying two-run single to Adeiny Hechavarria. Terry Collins brought in Josh Edgin, who struck out the only batter he faced, and then Jenrry Mejia, who gave up a bloop single to Jeff Mathis to put the Marlins back in the lead.
Though Mejia retired the next batter he faced and threw a scoreless top of the ninth, the Mets were retired in order in the eighth and ninth innings to wrap up the loss.
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Win Probability Added
Big winners: Travis d’Arnaud, +20.5% WPA, Josh Edgin, +15.1% WPA
Big losers: Jeurys Familia, -54.8% WPA, Jacob deGrom, -23.4% WPA, Jenrry Mejia, -20.3% WPA
Teh aw3s0mest play: Travis d’Arnaud’s go-ahead double in the seventh, +24.1% WPA
Teh sux0rest play: Adeiny Hechavarria’s game-tying two-run single in the eighth, -36.1% WPA
Total pitcher WPA: -83.4% WPA
Total batter WPA: +33.4% WPA
GWRBI!: Jeff Mathis