Mets hold breath with Ces on run
his decision and heading back to Citi Field after a 2-3 road trip.
The Mets have gone 8-17 since their 11-1 start and head into a two-game series with the Blue Jays.
Callaway, however, was comfortable with his decisions.
“You always go back and think about what would have been. If you live your life with what would have beens, you would be a very happy person,” Callaway said. “We make the decisions we make and move on.”
PHILADELPHIA — The Mets got Jacob deGrom back from the disabled list Sunday, but not for long enough. The Phillies chased him after just one, 45-pitch inning and went on to beat the Mets bullpen, 4-2, at Citizens Bank Park. The Mets split the rain-shortened two-game series with the Phillies, who won their first game against the Amazin’s this season.
DeGrom just came off the DL Sunday morning and had to work extremely hard to get through that bottom of the first, making a tough defensive play to escape unscathed.
“He threw a lot of pitches, his command was off. He hadn’t been out there in a while,” Mets pitching coach Dave Eiland said. “He’s human, his command was off. We saw who he really is when the bases were loaded. But we’re not going to run him back out there with 45 pitches. That’s careless.” But it left the Mets bullpen to pick up seven more innings. They kept it scoreless into the sixth, when Mickey Callaway decided to stick with Paul Sewald against left-handed hitting pinch hitter Nick Williams, even with lefty specialist Jerry Blevins up and ready to go. In his only other time facing Williams, Sewald had struck him out, while Williams was 0-for-3 with two strikeouts against Blevins. But Sewald’s splits against lefties have been good this season and Callaway decided he needed him to get through the inning.
“Once we got to two outs, we need Sewald to get through that inning, just to make it through the rest of the game really,” Callaway said. “Sometimes guys have to get outs. When your starter gets knocked out of the first, some guys have to go multiple innings. ”
Sunday, however, Sewald’s backdoor slider hung over the plate and Williams crushed a three-run home run.
DeGrom perfectly fielded Carlos Santana’s tapper and fired home for the force out of Cesar Hernandez, saving a run in the first.
Williams’ three-run home run off Sewald in the bottom of the sixth inning.
Robert Gsellman pitched three scoreless innings on 42 pitches after deGrom’s early exit. In the last 15 days, Gsellman has made six appearances, allowing six earned runs in 11.2 innings. He has thrown 153 pitches over that span.
METS VS. BLUE JAYS STAT OF THE DAY
The Phillies fouled off 20 pitches against deGrom, helping to run him out of the game.
UNSUNG HERO
Cespedes hit his eighth homer of the season and made a solid defensive play, running down Maikel Franco’s shallow fly ball to left and making a shoestring catch, despite nursing a right quad injury. DeGrom’s outing was the shortest start of his career. Tuesday, 7:05 p.m., at Citi Field, Noah Syndergaard (2-1, 3.09) vs. Jaime Garcia (2-2, 5.40), TV: SNY
PHILADELPHIA — In one inning, you could see the fine line the Mets are walking with Yoenis Cespedes playing through a nagging right quad issue. The slugger crushed a solo home run in the sixth inning of the Mets’ 4-2 loss to the Phillies Sunday. In the bottom of the frame, he struggled to decelerate after sprinting to make a catch.
“He did a good job. When he had to run, he ran hard. When he went to get the ball in the corner, he ran hard. He hit it hard,” manager Mickey Callaway said. “He’s gutting it out for the team.”
Coming in on Maikel Franco’s shallow fly ball, with Carlos Santana on second base, Cespedes ran as fast as he could and made a shoestring catch. Then the 32-year-old outfielder could obviously not slow down because of the quad. While he was able to leg out an infield single in the third, he obviously is struggling to cut and change direction.
Callaway admitted to having to hold his breath a few times on Sunday watching Cespedes run.
“I think yeah, you do,” Callaway said of worrying when Cespedes makes plays like that. “Just because of the situation. We check on him multiple times daily right now just to make sure he’s in the right spot.”
Mets assistant GM John Ricco said on Friday that they are “not throwing caution to the wind” with Cespedes. They have daily communication with the medical staff about Cespedes’ health and keep a close eye on him.
SYNDERGAARD SWITCHED
Noah Syndergaard had his scheduled start Saturday rained out and the Phillies got to avoid the big right-hander in this series. Syndergaard was in the bullpen warming up Saturday when the Mets got notice the game was delayed and then eventually postponed.
So Callaway and pitching coach Dave Eiland decided to push his start back to Tuesday and go with the plan to have Jacob deGrom come off the disabled list and start Sunday.
“He long tossed, he started throwing off the mound yesterday. He’s never pitched a day after he’s’ done that,” Callaway said of Syndergaard. “There is a little wear and tear there. So, we decided to keep things as they were and move Syndergaard to Tuesday.”
The late notice about the game being delayed was odd, considering that anyone with a weather app on their phone could see that there was very little probability that the game would go off as scheduled.
Syndergaard said he threw 25 pitches in the bullpen before Sunday’s game as part of his preparation.
FAMILIA FINE
Jeurys Familia pitched the eighth inning Sunday with a sore left ankle. The closer said he hurt it Friday night running to cover first base. Familia gave up a solo home run to Carlos Santana. Callaway said he wanted to get Familia in for some work . .... With Jay Bruce expected back from the paternity list Tuesday, the Mets told first baseman Dominic Smith he would be heading back to Triple-A, as expected. Smith got one official plate appearance over the two games, striking out.