STOP, DROP AND ROLL
Bruce's walk-off single in 12th bails out Cabrera after miscue
Asdrubal Cabrera should have raced from the dugout and kissed Jay Bruce after the Mets outfielder reached first base to conclude Tuesday night’s game.
Exonerated was Cabrera, whose misplayed pop-up five innings earlier had nearly sunk the Mets. Instead, there was Bruce delivering a walkoff RBI single against the Brewers in the 12th inning that gave the Mets a third straight victory and fourth in five games, 5-4 at Citi Field.
“It felt really good,” Cabrera said. “I’m laughing now because we got the win, but I felt happy in that situation.”
In the seventh, Cabrera misplayed Jett Bandy’s routine pop-up to the infield — evoking memories of Luis Castillo against the Yankees in 2009 — allowing the Brewers to tie the game as two runs scored.
“I just [bleeped] it up,” Cabrera said. “There is no excuse for it. I’m just laughing right now — thank you J.B. [Bruce], you did it for me. You made my night tonight and I’m happy to get that win.”
T.J. Rivera singled leading off the 12th against Wily Peralta and Michael Conforto followed with a walk. After Jose Reyes hit into a fielder’s choice, Bruce ended it with a sharp single to left-center.
“We’re just playing and we have a pretty consistent approach,” Bruce said. “We don’t get too worked up. We let everybody else do that.”
Josh Smoker pitched three innings of shutout relief for the victory. The lefty escaped trouble in the 10th inning, leaving the go-ahead run stranded at second base as he struck out Keon Broxton and Eric Thames in succession. The latter strikeout brought a leg kick of celebration from Smoker, who had allowed runs in each of his previous two appearances since returning from Triple-A Las Vegas, where he had worked as a starter to improve his offspeed pitches.
“Command-wise this is the best I have felt,” Smoker said. “So I think it was huge to get down there and throw my offspeed pitches.”
Jerry Blevins was on the verge of sanitizing Fernando Salas’ mess in the sixth with the lead intact when Cabrera misplayed Bandy’s infield pop-up for an error that allowed two runs to score, tying it 4-4.
Salas had loaded the bases on two walks and a single in the inning before Blevins walked in a run with two outs and Bandy followed with the pop-up to shortstop that should have ended the inning.
Lucas Duda had put the Mets in control in the sixth with a two-run homer that put the Brewers in a 4-1 hole. The homer was Duda’s fourth in his last eight games, a stretch in which he has driven in 11 runs.
After Neil Walker doubled leading off the inning, for his 1,000th career hit, Duda worked the count full before smashing a fastball over the left-field fence.
Tyler Pill’s first major league start was a success. The softthrowing righty went 5 ¹/3 innings and allowed one earned run on six hits with three walks and a hit batsman. Manager Terry Collins began the bullpen carousel in the sixth with a runner at first base and watched Salas escape the inning.
Pill, who entered in the 10th inning Saturday night and took the loss in Pittsburgh after loading the bases, had pitched to a 1.96 ERA in seven appearances this season for Triple-A Las Vegas.
Reyes walked with the bases loaded in the fifth to give the Mets a 2-1 lead. Cabrera’s RBI double had tied the game before Travis d’Arnaud singled and Conforto walked to load the bases for Reyes. The rally started with Curtis Granderson’s leadoff double.
The Brewers had runners on base every inning against Pill, but the rookie continuously danced around trouble to survive. That included the fifth inning, when Thames was left stranded after delivering a leadoff triple — a ball that rolled past
Jay Bruce (right) celebrates with Neil Walker after his 12th-inning single delivered the Mets a 5-4 win over the Brewers. The Amazin’s were in control in the seventh when Asdrubal Cabrera (inset) dropped a two-out pop-up that allowed the tying runs before Bruce’s eventual heroics.