New York Mets: Odd things happened in Mets Opening Day win

The New York Mets Opening Day magic continues as a series of randomly odd things start off 2018 on a high note.

The New York Mets start off another season on a high note after beating the St. Louis Cardinals in Citi Field. Noah Syndergaard got the win for the Mets who had a five-run 5th inning.

First off, I want to say my condolences to the Mets organization and the family of Rusty Staub who sadly passed away. The team gave him a warming tribute as he was nothing but class for the Mets in their earlier days.

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So, as he would’ve wanted baseball went on. The New York Mets won their opening day game in pretty dominant fashion but it was somehow not pretty. There were a few odd things that stood out to me.

First off the game started off with leadoff hitter Brandon Nimmo being hit by a pitch. That is an odd way to start the season. The Mets did score first after that but it was off of a throwing error.

All of those things are rare to see. The first run being scored off an error and first baserunner for the Mets was hit by a pitch.

New York quickly fell back behind. Yadier Molina, on his 14th consecutive opening day which odd for a catcher in itself, cranked one-off the foul pole vs Noah Syndergaard.

Syndergaard would later give up another home run. Giving up two home runs in the same game is something Noah Syndergaard rarely does. It’s an odd way to put up runs against “Thor”.

Another odd observation was the lineup. Asdrubal Cabrera batted clean-up and Amed Rosario batted ninth. Cabrera is not your quintessential number four guy and Rosario batted behind the pitcher.

The joke is on me though because it all worked including Amed’s hits and RBIs.

The Mets were also stealing bases and using smart, fundamental base running to help score runs. If you could’ve guessed one thing the Mets would efficiently do this season was run the bases it would have been a poor guess. That worked too.

Robert Gsellman also struck out the side in relief. Something I would have never thought would happen a year ago. While talking about strikeouts, Syndergaard threw 10 with zero walks. ZERO. He struck out 10, walked zero, gave up two dingers and four runs. Odd stat line.

Next: Observations from Mets Opening Day victory

The Mets also hit no dingers and scored nine total runs. Nine runs with none being homers is difficult to do.

But nine runs, good punch outs, fundamentals, and a nice New York Day led to a solid win to start 2018 despite all the odd things happening.

Mickey Callaway is also undefeated as a manager. It seems likes “odd” is going to be a word describing his decisions a lot this year. Effective will be another word too, his decisions were definitely both today.

There must be something in the air in Flushing Meadows. The Mets did some wacky stuff to open the season. But I like it, I like it a lot.

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