New York Mets Complete Sweep of Nationals

By Michael Papandrea | Sep 10, 2015

Yoenis Cespedes and the New York Mets continue their second half magic with a third straight late inning comeback against the Washington Nationals. The win gives the Mets a seven-game lead over the disheartened Nats, with one series remaining between these two teams. That series is 20 games away and is also the last of the regular season.

As for the game, the Nationals finally got production out of MVP favorite Bryce Harper, who ended up hitting three extra-base hits, including two home runs. Prior to the game, Harper was batting just .214 against the Mets and was hitless in the first two games of the series.

More from New York Mets

Washington also got a quality start out of Stephen Strasburg, who pitched into the eighth inning, striking out 13 Mets batters while allowing five hits on three earned runs. Against most teams, a quality start from Strasburg and two home runs from Harper would have been enough to get the job done. But against the 2015 Mets, the outcome isn’t as clear.

In the eighth inning, it was Terry Collins once again pushing the right buttons. He called upon left-hander Kelly Johnson to pinch hit against Strasburg, despite lefties batting .249 against the former number one pick compared to .271 for righties.

Collins would later say that he didn’t want to put a right-hander in because Strasburg’s fastball had good movement running in on righties. He figured sending a good fastball hitting lefty was a better idea, and Johnson made him look like a genius by hitting the game tying home run.

Kirk Nieuwenhuis was called on the pinch hit next, with a chance to repeat what he did the night before. Instead of hitting the go-ahead home run in the eighth, he would end up striking out. Up next was Curtis Granderson, who hit a single to make Matt Williams take Strasburg out of the game.

Williams decided to bring in Drew Storen, the same man who fell apart just the night before. It was shades of Byung-Hyun Kim in the 2001 World Series for the Arizona Diamondbacks against the Yankees. The first batter he faced was Yoenis Cespedes, who would take him deep to put the Mets up 4-2.

Harper’s home run in the bottom of the eighth would put them back within one run, but the Mets manufactured an insurance run in the top of the ninth on a Michael Conforto RBI single. That led to Jeurys Familia shutting the door in the ninth with a quick 1-2-3 inning for his 39th save on the season.

Series Review:

This three-game series was easily the biggest series the Mets have had all year. The last time they had a series this significant was, well, last month against the Nationals. They ended up sweeping Washington at Citi Field, but when you go into their ballpark and have three straight come-from-behind wins in September, it’s a whole different animal.

On top of that, the Nationals intentionally reorganized their rotation just for this series so they could have their three best arms ready to go, and they still couldn’t win. In their defense, it was the bullpen that was the cause of these losses, but it just goes to show that the Nationals are not the complete team most people thought heading into the season.

Next: Where do the Mets place in our MLB Power Rankings?

More from Empire Writes Back

Home/New York Mets