The Mets entered Wednesday night\u2019s game with a hope to win an away series against the Rays. They had Justin Hagenman making his return to the major league roster after missing months on the 60-day injured list with a fractured rib. They would be facing Griffin Jax, also making his return from the injured list.<\/p>\n
The Mets got off to a blazing start. They had runners on first and second with two outs, and Jared Young hit a single to right field that scored Bo Bichette as the game\u2019s first run. Liam Hicks missed the throw at the plate and the ball bounced away, allowing Carson Benge to score and Young to make it to second. Marcus Semien then hit a double to drive in Young as the Mets third run. A.J. Ewing grounded out to end the inning, but the Mets had taken a nice, roomy early lead.<\/p>\n
After a quiet inning and a half, the Mets ignited again in the top of the third. Bichette led off with a single, then stole second after two consecutive outs. Semien walked and Ewing got an infield single to load the bases. Brett Baty hit a monster double off the wall in left field, missing a grand slam by a few feet but driving in three runs to double the Mets lead. He also drove Rays starter Griffin Jax from the game in less than three full innings, with Steven Matz coming in to get the final out and stop the bleeding for the Rays.<\/p>\n
The Rays began trying to comeback in the bottom of the inning. With two outs, they got a walk and a single to put two runners on, and Jonathan Aranda hit an RBI single to drive in Taylor Walls as the Rays first run. Hagenman got the final out to end the inning, which was also the end of his night. He went three innings, giving up a run on two hits and a walk while collecting a pair of strikeouts.<\/p>\n
Chris Devenski came in for the bottom of the fourth, and he had a rough go of it. A Chandler Simpson single was bookended by the first and second outs of the inning, and a pickoff attempt was unsuccessful after Simpson was deemed to not have run out of the basepath on his way back to first, and a balk was called on Devenski to allow Simpson to advance anyway. Cedric Mullins then hit a single that drove in Simpson as the Rays second run, and Benge committed a throwing error that allowed Mullins to reach second. Richie Palacios then hit a two run home run to bring the Rays within two runs. A Taylor Walls double was the end of the line for Devenski, who ended his night with three runs allowed in 0.2 innings. Dedniel N\u00fa\u00f1ez came in and got the final out of the inning to allow the Mets to escape the nightmarish fourth.<\/p>\n
N\u00fa\u00f1ez ended up going 1.1 hitless innings with a strikeout, helping the Mets reach the seventh inning, where the offense exploded once again. Bichette led off with a double, and Benge followed that up with a single to move Bichette to third. Young hit into fielder\u2019s choice with Bichette being thrown out at the plate, driving Rays reliever Cam Booser from the game in favor of Manuel Rodr\u00edguez. Semien was hit by a pitch to load the bases, but Ewing struck out in what looked to be the makings of a missed opportunity for the Mets offense. But Nick Morabito, brought in to be the defensive replacement in left field, came up to the plate for the first time in the game. He ended up getting his first major league hit, a double to drive in three runs and put the Mets ahead by five runs. Rodr\u00edguez struck out Torrens to end the inning but the Mets had opened up another wide lead with little time left for the Rays to mount another comeback.<\/p>\n
The Mets had one last run in them, coming in the top of the eighth courtesy of a Juan Soto solo home run. And the Mets bullpen, thanks to Nate Lavender, Daniel Duarte, and Jonathan Pintaro, held the Rays scoreless for the final frames. They get a day off tomorrow before returning to New York to face the San Francisco Giants in a series that starts Friday night.<\/p>\n
Big Mets winner: Nick Morabito, +14% WPA
Big Mets loser: Chris Devenski, -20% WPA
Mets pitchers: +10% WPA
Mets hitters: +40% WPA
Teh aw3s0mest play: Jared Young\u2019s two-run single in the first inning, +18.1% WPA
Teh sux0rest play: Richie Palacios\u2019 fourth inning two-run home run, -13.4% WPA<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Mets entered Wednesday night\u2019s game with a hope to win an away series against the Rays. They…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":389180,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[119964,135,137,136],"class_list":["post-389179","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-mets-scores-standings","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389179","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=389179"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389179\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/389180"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=389179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=389179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=389179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}