Starling Marte steps up and plays hero as Mets claim crucial win
Marte was Monday's hero - the Mets need to find a new one every day from here on out
What’s Up with the Mets? ⚾️
The Mets opened up their final homestand of the year with a walk-off win against the Nationals on Monday night (box)
SS Jose Iglesias, covering for the injured Francisco Lindor, made it a tied game in the eighth with a clutch two-out RBI single. Then, OF Starling Marte, who entered the game as a pinch-hitter, smacked a game-winning, walk-off single in the bottom of the 10th (watch)
The Mets were held to just six hits, and have scored a total of just three runs over their last 24 innings, dating back to Saturday
LHP Sean Manaea was stellar again, giving up just one earned run on four hits with a walk and six strikeouts in seven innings of work
The Mets bullpen was outstanding, with RHP José Buttó, RHP Edwin Díaz and RHP Reed Garrett each tossing a scoreless inning and combining for four strikeouts with no walks
New York now has 11 walk-off wins in 2024 and are 82-68 on the year, ensuring they will have a winning season. They notched their 23rd win in their last at bat and their 37th comeback win of the year
The Mets are 60-35 since May 30 - the best record in baseball during that span
The Mets honored their unlikely hero, Grimace, with a purple seat in section 302 at Citi Field (ESPN)
Playoff Race 🏁
With the Braves losing to the Dodgers on Monday, the Mets moved back into sole possession of the final Wild Card spot in the National League.
The Mets are also just one game behind Arizona for the second Wild Card, after the Diamondbacks lost to the Rockies.
However, the Padres beat the Astros to strengthen their grip on the top Wild Card spot in the NL.
There are 12 games remaining.
Per FanGraphs, the Mets have a 56.4% chance of making the postseason.
New York has the sixth hardest schedule in MLB the rest of the way.
Tiebreakers:
vs. ATL: 5-5
vs. ARI: 4-3 (finished)
vs. SD: 5-2 (finished)
Injury Updates 🏥
SS Francisco Lindor (lower back tightness) was out of the lineup on Monday night, but is only expected to miss two-to-three or three-to-five days after his MRI came back clean (story)
Down on the Farm 🌾
All four Mets Minor League affiliates were off on Monday
Who’s Hot 🥵
In his last five games, Starling Marte has four hits with one stolen base, two walks and six RBIs
Mets starting pitchers own a 2.03 ERA for the month of September. Their 3.43 ERA as a team since the All-Star Game is the second best mark in the NL, fifth best overall
José Iglesias is now 11-for-23 (.478) with runners in scoring position and two outs this season. He is also 5-for-5 with 6 RBIs with two outs and a runner on third in 2024
Since June 14, in a span of 17 starts, Sean Manaea ranks third among NL pitchers with at least 60 innings in WHIP (0.93), opposing average (.173), and opposing OPS (.552). He has a 2.73 ERA during that span
Who’s Cold 🥶
Mark Vientos is now just 3-for-34 over his last 11 games. Furthermore, over his last six games, he’s hitting just .120/.154/.160/.314 with one extra-base hit
The Mets are hitting .218/.301/.356 as a team in September
Today’s Game 🗓
Match-up: Mets (82-68) vs. Nationals (68-82)
Where: Citi Field - Flushing, NY
Starters: RHP Tylor Megill (3-5, 4.48 ERA) vs. LHP Mitchell Parker (7-9, 4.24 ERA)
When: 7:10 PM EDT
Where to Watch: SNY
As Monday proved, the Mets need to find a new hero every day… ✍️
The Mets got the best news possible regarding star shortstop and MVP candidate Francisco Lindor on Monday.
With his MRI coming back clean, Lindor should only be absent for a few days as he continues to battle with lower-back tightness.
Talk about avoiding a monster problem with significant implications on the Wild Card race, you know?
However, the Mets shouldn’t consider themselves out of the woods just yet with Lindor’s back problem. After all, it is something that is clearly limiting the four-time All-Star, and even all the injections in the world may not make the problem go away overnight.
Therefore, this is a worrying ailment that Lindor will probably have to deal with for the rest of the year.
And, as a result, the Mets will now have to rally around their indispensable leader and pick up the slack in order to punch their postseason ticket.
Just as they did on Monday.
Jose Iglesias, playing at shortstop in Lindor’s absence, continued to come up with clutch hits by hitting a game-tying, two-out RBI single in the eighth. Then, in the bottom of the 10th, Starling Marte recorded a monster hit to walk-off the game with a game-winning single.
The Mets’ cause was also helped by another dominant outing from Sean Manaea, who continues to be the team’s best starter since the All-Star break. He tossed seven innings of one-run ball, and was backed up by a stellar showing from the bullpen.
Defensively, the Mets also made big plays when they needed to.
Iglesias saved a run with a near-double play in the third, before Luisangel Acuña made two routine but smart plays to help his team get through the top of the 10th inning unscathed.
It wasn’t pretty, but a collective team effort helped the Mets get the job done on Monday.
And, with the Braves losing, it was a win they simply had to have.
However, Lindor will need more help as he continues to try and recover from a troublesome back problem.
The offense has really hit the skids over the past couple of weeks, and the Mets as a team have hit just three runs over their last 24 innings dating back to Saturday.
They were shutout for the first seven innings on Monday, and finished the night with just six hits. No matter how good the starting pitching is, you won’t win games if you can’t score runs.
Furthermore, Mark Vientos has chosen the wrong time to get mired in a slump. Brandon Nimmo can’t seem to find any consistency at the plate. Pete Alonso struck out twice on Monday and continues to struggle overall. J.D. Martinez is without a home run in his last 10 games. Jesse Winker’s offensive heroics have cooled off as well. And Francisco Álvarez went back to struggling on Monday, finishing 0-for-4 with two strikeouts.
Yes, the Mets did what they had to do on Monday in order to pick up a huge win and take over sole possession of the final Wild Card spot in the National League.
However, with Lindor now hurting after carrying this team on his back for the entire year, he’s going to need his teammates to step up and take on even more of the workload in the final 12 games of the regular season.
Fortunately on Monday, the Mets got just enough help between Tyrone Taylor’s double to start the eighth, Iglesias’ hustle to tie it, and Marte’s clutch hit to end it.
Good teams find a way, and that’s what the Mets did late on Monday amidst a brutal display with their offense. Better late than never, right?
The Mets are going to need to find a new hero every night until they can get Lindor back into the lineup and keep him in the lineup.
If they can’t, and Lindor’s back prevents him from playing like the true MVP he is, this team could end up falling just short in their hunt for October baseball.
Around the League 🚩
Luis Arraez’s remarkable no-strikeout streak came to an end, but he still picked up a couple of hits to help the Padres beat the Astros, 3-1
The Rockies took full advantage of sloppy play in the field to walk-off the Diamondbacks in the bottom of the ninth in a 3-2 loss for Arizona
Freddie Freeman and Shohei Ohtani led the way with three and two RBIs, respectively, as the Dodgers shutout the Braves 9-0, helping the Mets take over sole possession of the third Wild Card spot in the National League
The bats have to wake up. We can’t count on Iglesias and Taylor carrying us. Starting pitching has been awesome but we need to score runs.
As a guy says, " IT DON'T COME EASY! Good for Edwin last night, but I don't feel that it will be lights out when he is closing ,and holding or protecting a lead.