New Sensation

In a matchup of Dueling Jakes that took no hitters late into the game last night, it was Jacob deGrom who broke first, allowing the game's first hit to Pablo Sandoval in the top of the 7th inning. But in the end, it was also Jacob deGrom who emerged victorious as his teammates broke through for not just a hit—Daniel Murphy's double in the bottom of the 7th that floated over the head of Michael Morse—but 4 runs off of Jake Peavy in the 7th that proved to be enough to give the Mets the margin of victory in a taut 4-2 affair.

Whether he'd won or lost, the effort would have been another feather in the cap for deGrom, who once again proved that his recent hot streak may not be a fluke, but the norm. Plenty has been said about deGrom not being as heralded or hyped as some of the other names in the Mets system, but he's pitched just as well as anyone, not just on the team but in the league of late. It speaks volumes of the depth of the Mets system, that someone can emerge with the talent level of a deGrom completely under the radar until he hits the Major leagues and starts dropping quality start after quality start on other teams, and teams that are right in the thick of pennant races to boot. Fans have begun to take note as well, as deGrom has emerged as kind of a folk hero, much in the same vein that another unheralded guy who came to the Mets and played really well did a number of years ago, Daniel Murphy. Murphy came up, hit really well out of the gate and all of a sudden was the Mets new pop hero, and this is what deGrom has become in the past month or so.

Last night was, basically, just another normal outing for deGrom. He stood toe to toe with Peavy throughout a majority of the game, not giving an inch to Peavy or a resurgent Giants lineup throughout the early portion of the game. When he bent in the 7th, he only bent but didn't break, and in the bottom of the 7th, his teammates finally strung some hits together and broke out for a 4-run Rally that was started by Murphy and aided by a sac fly from Travis d'Arnaud and a punctuating 2-run double from Wilmer Flores.

With the lead, deGrom ran out of steam in the 8th, but he only allowed the Giants to get two of the four runs back before turning the game over to another pair of unsung heroes for the Mets this season, the 1-2 punch of Jeurys Familia and Jenrry Mejia. Familia's maturation has been particularly nice to see, given how poorly he pitched early in the season, but he seems to have found himself, harnessed the great stuff he always had and learned how to pitch effectively, which was all he really needed to do in order to find success. For Mejia, cast in a role he didn't want, he's nonetheless just shut up, made his pitches and has been as dominant as he was in a starting role at the beginning of the season.

deGrom's getting the hype now, and rightfully so, but the combination of these three pitchers that served to net the Mets a much-needed victory last night is what really makes the future of this team so tantalizing going forward. These are young guys with bright futures and the Mets seem to have a number of these guys just starting to emerge.

Now I've Seen Everything

As I've mentioned at some point in the past (though I don't expect you to pour over 6 years of this blog to find it), I have a habit of always seeming to catch a particular Mets starter several times over the course of the season. Fortunately, this season, I've been catching Matt Harvey's starts. Tonight was my 6th game of the year, and the 3rd time I'd seen Matt Harvey.

Harvey was excellent the other two times I'd seen him this year. Tonight, he defied description.

I have seen many outstanding pitching performances over the years. I've seen guys like Doc Gooden be great, and Pedro Martinez, and Al Leiter pitch some excellent games. I've seen Mets pitchers take No Hitters deep into games, like Ron Darling, Rick Reed and even Mark Clark. But I always maintained that the single best pitching performance that I'd ever witnessed was that by Bobby Jones against the Giants on October 8th, 2000. Although the circumstances on Tuesday night were vastly different from that Sunday afternoon in October 13 years ago, Matt Harvey's performance was very much the equal of Jones'.

I had a feeling Harvey would have a good performance tonight. I couldn't really explain why. But given that he had a couple of days of extra rest, pitching at home, against a pretty paltry-looking White Sox lineup, coupled with the fact that the White Sox were, of course, an American League team that has played the Mets exactly once since Interleague Play began in 1997. The circumstances just seemed to dictate a good performance.

But Harvey exceeded even my expectations by coming out and being simply unhittable. I mean, I know the White Sox aren't a good team, in spite of the fact that they're led by Ballclub Favorite Robin Ventura, but they want to go out there and win games just like any other team. But facing Matt Harvey on Tuesday, they looked completely defeated. If they weren't striking out, which 12 of them did over Harvey's 9 innings, they weren't making anything resembling solid contact. Most balls were harmless grounders directly at fielders, or lazy flies to the outfield. Sometimes, you see a team just run into a buzzsaw and just want to get the hell out of there and start over, and that's kind of what the White Sox looked like.

Twice, in June of 1998, I was at Mets games where Rick Reed took Perfect Games into the late innings. There's sort of a groundswell that grows within the crowd when something like this is going on. You don't really notice it during the first few innings. Maybe with 2 out in the 4th, the fans start to get a little into it. By the 5th inning, it gets a little louder. Come the 6th, people start standing with 2 strikes. They're roaring by the 7th...

...But I'd never seen anything further. On June 8th, 1998, Rick Reed retired the first 20 Devil Rays before Wade Boggs doubled. Given the circumstances I mentioned earlier, I was really starting to think I might see Matt Harvey take this thing all the way. That's how dominant he looked out there. Even a nose bleed and a pitcher who forgot to take his turn at bat didn't slow him down.

But Alex Rios hit a grounder deep in the hole at Shortstop that was just a little too far for Ruben Tejada to make a miracle jump throw. He made it close, but Rios was safe. Perfect Game done.

Nonetheless, there was still a game to be won. Sometimes, these things can undo a pitcher. But, undaunted, Harvey took his ovation, got back on the mound and struck out Adam Dunn. To that point, he'd only thrown 78 pitches. There was still more work to be done, and he went out and retired 6 more batters in rapid succession. Harvey barely broke a sweat in his 9 inning, 105 pitch effort. 28 White Sox batters came to the plate. 27 went back to the dugout with nothing to show for it. 1 hit, no runs, no walks, 12 strikeouts. I don't think I've ever witnessed better and I don't know that there have been many better pitching performances in Mets history.

There's one small problem, perhaps the turd in the punchbowl of a magnificent night. See, when you throw 9 innings and give up no runs, no walks and 1 hit, one would reason that you'd be rewarded with a victory. Unfortunately, the stupid Mets couldn't score a damn run for him. I'm almost glad that Harvey gave up a hit, because can you imagine if he'd thrown a Perfect Game through 9 innings, and it wouldn't count and he wouldn't get a win because his asshole teammates couldn't get him a run? He didn't need more than 1, that was pretty clear. But it seems that was a tall order. It didn't help that the lower half of the batting order consisted of Me, Ike Davis, El Guapo and Matt Harvey.

Still, I don't know much about Hector Santiago, his numbers look rather good, and though I'd pegged him as a junkballer early in the game, he has nice stuff, but let's be realistic. This is Hector Santiago of the 2013 Chicago White Sox, not Johan Santana of the 2004 Minnesota Twins. They should have been able to scrape a run across. But noooooo. Though Santiago tried to hand it over to the Mets in the first few innings, he eventually settled down and didn't give the Mets an inch over the majority of his 7 innings. After Ruben Tejada's 5th inning single, the Mets didn't get another baserunner until Ike Davis worked a leadoff walk in the 10th. The White Sox excuse for not scoring was being up against a budding superstar. What's the Mets excuse? They did nothing against an unheralded dude with a mohawk who can't remember to take his turn at bat, and a pair of retread relievers, only to finally get a run in the 10th thanks to Mike Baxter. If there were any justice, they would have done this an inning earlier. But no. It was the 10th, and Bobby Parnell, who performed a mini-Harvey, setting down the Sox 1-2-3, ended up with his 3rd win of the season. Sigh. I should be happier about the victory and I probably shouldn't complain too much. At least it was fast. At 2 hours, 30 minutes, this probably was the quickest game I'd been to all season, in spite of being my first extra inning affair since 2011.

Hopefully, these nights where the Mets don't score for Harvey don't become a habit. You can never be too sure the way the Mets tend to go.