IT’S ANOTHER MET MIRACLE!
Guillorme belts 1st career homer to tie it, Davis has go-ahead RBI as Amazin’ streak continues
When the unlikeliest of players becomes the Mets’ late-game hero, it all but guarantees there’s something special going on in Flushing.
Major League Baseball players will never forget their first career home run. But Luis Guillorme went the extra mile and forced thousands of people to remember it. Guillorme launched a pinch-hit home run to tie the game at 3-3 in the eighth inning and lead the Mets to a 4-3 win after another thriller against the Nationals.
“I think it took me a split second to know,” Guillorme said when he realized the ball was going out of the park. “I don’t hit many of those. It was a great feeling.”
Joe Panik and Jeff McNeil both reached base after Guillorme in the eighth against Fernando Rodney. The Nationals intentionally walked Pete Alonso to face J.D. Davis, who promptly lifted a sacrifice fly to right field that scored Panik, who represented the winning run. Seth Lugo retired the side
on a flyout and two strikeouts in the ninth inning to slam the door on the Nationals and earn his fifth win of the year.
The Mets (61-56) extended their incredible win streak to eight straight games and have won 15 of their last 16. The Amazin’s are a season-high-tying five games over .500 for the first time since April 12, when they were 9-4 to begin the season. After the Phillies lost to the Giants Saturday afternoon, the Mets claimed sole possession of third place in the National League East for the first time since June 18.
“It’s unbelievable. We keep surprising ourselves,” Davis said. “It’s been pretty amazing how with this team — during this run — there’s been a lot of guys who were the least expected to come through, just like Luis tonight. It was a huge at-bat.”
Noah Syndergaard held the Nationals to two earned runs on seven hits with two walks and five strikeouts over seven innings in his 23rd start of the year. Syndergaard has thrown at least seven innings in six consecutive starts for the first time
in his career. Over that stretch, he’s pitched to a 1.91 ERA with 44 strikeouts and only 10 walks. Syndergaard has lowered his ERA from 4.68 on July 6 to 3.89 following Saturday’s outing.
“I think it’s pretty reminiscent of what happened in 2015,” Syndergaard said of the Mets’ current run. “It doesn’t matter who’s going to be the hero. Anybody in the clubhouse. Tonight it was G.”
Lugo had retired 26 consecutive batters before serving up a second-deck home run to Juan Soto in the eighth inning of a 2-2 tie game. Soto hacked at a 96mph heater and enjoyed the first multi-home run game of his career. Soto also homered off Syndergaard in the first inning to give the Nationals an early 2-0 lead that went unanswered until the fourth inning.
J.D. Davis and Wilson Ramos launched back-to-back solo home runs off Patrick Corbin to tie the game at 2-2 in the fourth inning. The sellout Citi Crowd, draped in bright-orange for Hawaiian T-Shirt night, was mostly quiet up until then. The home runs woke up the 43,875 announced fans in attendance and brought them to a screaming frenzy. From that point on, the crowd was alive and roaring as the Amazin’s rallied their way to victory.
“I was thinking (Guillorme) was going to hit his first career home run right there,” Lugo said. “I knew it was coming any day now. Especially with the way he hits in batting practice. I think he hits the ball further than Jeff (McNeil) out there in BP. Don’t tell Jeff that.”
RAMOS CATCHES THOR
The last time Syndergaard threw to Ramos in a game, Carlos ‘Ye Ye Ye’ Gomez was still on the 25-man roster, Pete Alonso had barely cracked 20 home runs on the season and Edwin Diaz still had a sub-4.00 ERA.
That changed when Mets manager Mickey Callaway penciled Ramos into the lineup to catch Syndergaard on Saturday night.
Like everything else the Mets are doing right now, it worked perfectly. Syndergaard tossed seven innings of two-run ball and Ramos belted his 13th home run of the year.
Syndergaard reportedly requested Tomas Nido to be his personal catcher shortly after his last start with Ramos in June.