Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Rookie J.T. Riddle’s walk-off homer stuns Mets.
Bottom of ninth homer beats Mets to win series
MIAMI — The first hit of J.T. Riddle’s major league career was memorable as a fluke dribbler that rolled about 40 feet along the third-base line.
The second one? Wow, that’s the one the kid from Kentucky will talk about forever.
It carried over the fence in right-center for a two-run homer off Addison Reed with two outs in the ninth inning Sunday to give the Miami Marlins a 4-2 win over the New York Mets and lift them to an exciting series win against their division rival.
“It was an amazing feeling. It’s something you dream of as a kid growing up,” said Riddle, who entered the game as a defensive replacement in the top of the ninth.
“It’s crazy. It’s funny how baseball works sometimes. The first hit is a check-swing bouncer off the ground, and then to come up in a situation like that and do that, it’s hard to explain.”
There was much about the series that defied explanation as the Marlins won the last three games started by the Mets’ best pitchers after losing a 16-inning heartbreaker Thursday.
It may have been the first time in baseball history that two games in a series were won on walk-off hits by different players who go by the initials J.T. — Realmuto did it Friday with a two-out double in the ninth in the same direction as Riddle’s hit.
The intrigue for most of Sunday was focused on whether an Easter parade of Miami pitchers were going to pull off the first combined no-hitter in Marlins history.
Dan Straily worked the first 5 1⁄3 innings,
“It was an amazing feeling. It’s something you dream of as a kid growing up.” J.T. Riddle
lifted after walking five and throwing 93 pitches. Jarlin Garcia and Kyle Barraclough kept the no-no going through seven innings.
That suspense ended with two outs in the eighth with Neil Walker’s sharp single to center off Brad Ziegler.
“I just got behind Walker 2-0 and I definitely wasn’t going to walk him and bring up [cleanup hitter Yoenis] Cespedes up that way, so I challenged him and he hit it good,” said Ziegler, who was more concerned with preserving the 2-0 lead than the no-hitter.
“You think about it a little bit, but at the same time I wasn’t thinking about it on the mound until after he got the hit. Then I was like, dang it, that kind of sucks, but then now I’ve got to go get Cespedes.”
Cespedes followed Walker’s hit with a single on the next pitch, but Ziegler got Jay Bruce on a grounder to carry a 2-0 Marlins lead to the ninth.
Not only was the shutout lost, but the lead vanished on pinch-hitter Asdrubal Cabrera’s tying two-run single off David Phelps.
Phelps was on the verge of closing it out before Wilmer Flores kept the Mets alive with a single to right. That sent Travis d’Arnaud to third, and when Giancarlo Stanton bobbled the ball in right field, Flores raced to second to get into scoring position for Cabrera to send it to the bottom of the ninth.
The Marlins nearly won it one batter before Riddle when Miguel Rojas drove a double to left that started Marcell Ozuna racing around the bases on an attempt to score from first. Cabrera’s relay to the plate cut down Ozuna, though the Marlins unsuccessfully challenged, alleging that catcher d’Arnaud improperly blocked the plate.
“We were just basically taking a shot right there,” Marlins manager Don Mattingly said, adding that after viewing the replay he agreed with the call. “I do think it was legal. And I think he was out. So nothing got changed by it.”
Everything changed moments later when Riddle put a charge into the second pitch he saw from Reed.
“I didn’t even see it go out,” Riddle said. “I know I got it pretty good. I didn’t know if it was going to get out. I thought it was down off the bat, though. I didn’t think they were going to get to it.”
The Marlins won all three games started by the Mets’ imposing trio of righthanders Noah Syndergaard, Jacob deGrom, Matt Harvey.
Matched against Harvey, Straily was effectively wild in keeping the Mets off-balance. After walking Walker and Cespedes with one out in the sixth and two tough lefties coming up, Mattingly called on Garcia, his only left-hander in the bullpen.
In his second big-league appearance, Garcia retired Bruce (strikeout) and Lucas Duda (fly to left).
Earlier, Straily was supported by a highlight-reel catch by Ozuna, who scaled the fence in left to grab Flores’ deep drive for the second out of the fifth. Ozuna received a long embrace by Straily in the dugout after the inning.
“I didn’t realize it was still in the ballpark,” Straily said. “When he jumped on the wall, I was thinking it’s … kind of the courtesy jump. Then he catches it; I just know I was pretty excited when he caught that ball.”
As for missing the chance to be part of a no-hitter that would have taken at least five pitchers, he said, “It would have been really cool to be a part of. But at the same time we got the win. That’s what was more important.”