Cue the Longfellow

Game 23 - Mets

Mets 5, Phillies 4
Record: 16-7

Phew is right. 

The glass-half-full story of this game was Frankie Lindor. His two homers bookended a Winky Dinky Dog swat and provided 4 of the 5 Met runs. Huzzah, Francisco!

And that five-run lead seemed plenty to go on into the 9th. Carlos Mendoza sent Max Kranick back out to take the mound for his third inning. With the keen benefit of hindsight, Max seemed like a 2-inning guy last night. The 7th was flawless, the 8th nearly so, and the 9th was an oil spill. Double-single-single.

Enter Edwin Diaz. And Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

There was a Met reliever,

            Who was a fastball heaver,

The heat of which was torrid.

            When he was good,

            He was very good indeed,

But when he was bad he was horrid.

Diaz induced an easy flyout. Later on in the inning, he would close the game out by throwing the speedball by Trea Turner and Bryce Harper -- no slouches at all -- and making them look lost. 

Ah, but the in-between, therein lies the rub.

Bryson Stott, he of the 94 career OPS+, he of the one home run on the season coming into tonight and it was hit on March 29, he of the good glove, so-so bat... yeah, that guy. He thumped one 400 feet and out to right-center to make a 5-1 game 5-4. Indigestion ensued.

As noted, Diaz nailed it down, and I suppose that's what counts, after all. But man . . . what do we do with a problem like Edwin?

Eh. He's striking out 2 guys per inning. He's given up a couple of taters, that hurts. He had a stretch where he was walking 1 or 2 guys each outing, but he's calmed down there. He's finishing the job most every time. 

Leave him be. He's our guy. Eph the Phils. 

Also... huzzah, Francisco!

LFGM.