New Found Energy

I realize there's not much that can be done to actually save the Mets this season, but the more you are able to find some bright spots for the future, you go with that.

Two such new faces played prominent roles in the Mets Coors Field-aided 10-5 comeback win over the Colorados on Wednesday night. The first was Chris Flexen, who may simply be in the rotation right now because he's not Tyler Pill, or Tommy Milone, or Aaron Laffey, or Chan Ho Park, or Brett Hinchcliffe, or any other such gap-filling pitcher with no particular hope. That's not to say he at this point does inspire a great deal of confidence, but if nothing else, he's young, he has a reasonably live arm and some decent chance of upside. That being said, he hasn't exactly looked ready for prime time in his first two Major League outings. I don't know just how much of it is the fact that he's two starts removed from AA ball and how much is that he's pitching in Coors Field against a strong Colorados lineup, but the 3rd inning got away from him real fast and as such, his night ended there dazed and in a 5-0 hole after a series of ringing hits.

But since it's Coors Field, 5-0 isn't impossible, even for the Mets right now. Facing Tyler Chatwood, who can be intermittently good and horrible, the Mets stormed right back and their other new face, Amed Rosario, was instrumental in pushing this along. The Mets had scored two in the 4th and Rosario came up in the 5th inning with Curtis Granderson on 2nd and lined a shot past Nolan Arenado and into the Left Field corner. Rosario flew around the bases and even though the ball was picked up by an ignorant fan, Rosario was awarded 3rd base anyway. How often do you see that? A ground rule triple. And he was home shortly thereafter as he scored on a Travis d'Arnaud groundout and very quickly, 5-2 became 5-4 almost solely because of Rosario.

The Mets then continued to attack in the 6th, scoring another 6 runs after I'd shut the game off and attempted to go to bed. Yoenis Cespedes doubled home the tying run, Curtis Granderson gave the Mets the lead with a 3-run Home Run, and the Mets continued on from there until they were the ones with the 5 run lead. Now, all they had to do was hope their bullpen could hold it, which is of course always a dicey proposition. But Paul Sewald did his job, and even Fernando Salas threw a scoreless inning, and then A.J. Ramos finished it off and the Mets had themselves a victory, one that feels primarily spurred on by this new fellow because he pushed the envelope and helped make the early deficit seem not so impossible. Or maybe it was just the rarefied air, silly!