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David Wright Hits Two Home Runs as New York Mets Take Opener in Philly

By Michael Papandrea

Apr 18, 2016; Philadelphia, PA, USA; New York Mets third baseman David Wright (5) celebrates his home run with third base coach Tim Teufel (11) during the ninth inning against the Philadelphia Phillies at Citizens Bank Park. The Mets won 5-2. Mandatory Credit: Bill Streicher-USA TODAY Sports
Apr 18, 2016; Philadelphia, PA, USA; New York Mets third baseman David Wright (5) celebrates his home run with third base coach Tim Teufel (11) during the ninth inning against the Philadelphia Phillies at Citizens Bank Park. The Mets won 5-2. Mandatory Credit: Bill Streicher-USA TODAY Sports /
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David Wright was able to lead the New York Mets to a 5-2 win against the Philadelphia Phillies with a pair of home runs.

When Noah Syndergaard pitches for the Mets, the biggest story of that game is usually Noah Syndergaard. On this night, however, it was the captain who stole the show. David Wright looked like his old self by hitting two home runs to right field and making a nice barehanded play at third base to help contribute to his team’s 5-2 win against the Phillies.

Syndergaard was impressive as usual (yawn), throwing seven strong innings and giving up one earned run on five hits. He had all his pitches working, including a fastball that was being spotted at 101 MPH, the fastest velocity Syndergaard’s had this season. There weren’t too many balls hit by Phillies batters that traveled faster than that, as he had them looking baffled throughout the night. In the third, the Phillies did manage to push a run in with a pair of hits.

The first was a one out double to center field by leadoff hitter Freddy Galvis. Galvis was not content with the double, so he took a well calculated risk and stole third. One of the few things Thor doesn’t do well is hold runners on, which is surprising given the speeds the ball will travel to the catchers mitt. Odubel Herrera followed that up with a single into left for the only run the Phillies would earn against him. And yes, that one run did bring Syndergaard’s ERA up from a 0.69 to a 0.90.

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Heading into the night, a pair of young Phillies starters had struck out more batters than Syndergaard, including Vince Velasquez, who hasn’t given up an earned run in his first two starts. But by the time the game was over, it was the man with the blonde locks who led all of baseball in strike threes, as he collected eight K’s in the contest.

The Phillies starter, Jerad Eichoff, managed to strike out nine Mets hitters as he kept his team in the game for his seven innings of work. His most impressive moment on the night was in his last inning. The Mets had runners on first and second after Syndergaard drew a walk. A walk to the opposing pitcher late in the game is usually a good sign that it’s time to go to the bullpen. But the pitching coach came out just for a 30 second chit-chat with Eichoff. I imagine that talk went something like this:

“Just throw your curveball.”

Curtis Granderson and Wright would each wind up striking out on nasty curveballs they couldn’t touch to end the inning.

The Mets’ offense did manage to push across five runs throughout the night, with their best success coming against the Phillies bullpen. Lucas Duda went deep for the first time this season with a smoked line drive to right field to put the Mets up 3-1. The next batter, Neil Walker, would follow that up with a home run for himself, his fourth on the early season. In the ninth, Wright would his his second opposite field home run of the night that just cleared the wall with the assist coming from the Philadelphia wind. Wright’s two solo home runs surprisingly produced his first two RBI on the season as well.

In the bottom of the ninth, Terry Collins called on Jeurys Familia with a four run lead. The closer has seen a lot of non-save action early on, pitching in seven games with three saves. He would start the ninth by giving up a single and double, but would settle down to give up one lone run and give the Mets their sixth win of the season.

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The win pushes the Mets to .500 on the season as they trail the Nationals by three games here in April. On Tuesday they will go up against Velasquez, who has pitched superbly in his first two starts. In his last performance, he threw a three-hit shutout against the Padres. In the start before that, he threw six shutout innings of three-hit ball against the Mets. The Phillies acquired him in the Ken Giles trade this past offseason, and it looks like this 23-year-old right-hander may be a problem the Mets will have for a while.

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