Thursday's Lunch Special

Amazingly, after winning the finale of their 4-game series with the Cardinals, the Mets earned an even split in the series. This is an impressive feat in and of itself since it kind of felt like the Cardinals swept the Mets out of their own ballpark. Giving up 19 runs in 2 games will do that, but the fact that the Mets allowed the Cardinals a combined 1 run over the other two games smoothed things over. This particular game was headlined by a pair of players that had breakout seasons last year, and have continued to build on the groundwork they've set. It's nice to see, particularly given the injuries, the inconsistency, and the general Danielmurphyness the Mets have displayed of late.

After Harvey's brilliant performance on Monday, Jacob deGrom provided a similarly outstanding effort on Thursday afternoon (surprise surprise, I didn't see the game, but I know what happened). In a pretty dire situation, deGrom delivered what would have to be, to this point, the best performance of his young career, stepping on the Cardinals' necks to the tune of 1 hit, no walks and 11 strikeouts over 8 shutout innings of work. He ensured that he didn't need much in the way of offense in this game, although after causing the fate that befell Harvey on Monday night, the Mets offense was kind enough to score 5 runs in support of deGrom.

4 of said 5 runs were provided by Lucas Duda, who continues to hit everything for the most part. Duda continued on what's been a fine start to his season by belting a pair of Home Runs, a solo shot in the 6th, and a 3-run Jibber-jabber in the 8th. Duda's had multi-Home Run games before, so this is nothing new. More impressive about his feat yesterday afternoon was the fact that his Home Runs came off of Jaime Garcia, a lefty, and Randy Choate, another lefty.

So, amazingly, after the bad comedy that was Monday night, the turd sandwich that was Tuesday and the complete and utter shit show that was Wednesday, the Mets managed a series split. This has to be considered a moral victory if nothing else, because if the Mets can manage to split a series where they gave up 20 runs and scored only 9, well, anything's possible, isn't it.