Painful Push Between the Mets and Cardinals
So you brought up the card this morning and saw a battle of two aces in St. Louis between Noah Syndergaard against Carlos Martinez. You wanted some afternoon action to help pass the time at work and decided to take the under 7.
The Mets come to the plate first. After Martinez hit Brandon Nimmo with a pitch to start the game, Yoenis Cespedes drove him in with a double. Boom, it's 1-0 with a man on second and nobody out in the opening frame. Not a great start for your "get me through the day" under.
But then the zeros came in bunches. Both pitchers started dealing, much to your delight. In fact, the Mets still held that same 1-0 lead after six innings. Beautiful.
Just as you started to pull up tonight's card, the 7th inning grabbed your attention again. The Mets added a run in the top half to make it 2-0, but that's all they got. The Cardinals also added a run in the bottom half, but Syndergaard wiggled his way out of a jam to end the inning.
2-1 after 7 innings. You're feeling confident, especially after Bud Norris got through the meat of the Mets lineup with a clean 1-2-3 top of the 8th.
Syndergaard comes back out for the home half of the 8th inning, holding a 2-1 advantage. Greg Garcia comes to the plate as a pinch hitter and he reaches on an error. Time to get a little nervous, but this is not catastrophic by any means. After Yadier Molina struck out swinging, Matt Carpenter singled — which moved Garcia to 3rd base and prompted the Mets to make a pitching change and bring in Robert Gsellman to face Tommy Pham. The move didn't pay immediate dividends as Pham roped an RBI single to tie the game on an unearned run. Gsellman did get out of the 8th without any more damage, but you are now annoyed.
The Mets went quietly in the top half of the 9th, so now you're a huge Cardinals fan. A walk-off hit — it could even be a two-run homer — would be wonderful. Unfortunately, the Red Birds strand a runner on second and we're off to extra bleepin' innings.
At this point, you start running through every scenario on how you will lose your under 7, but still you know the odds are in your favor.
Luke Gregerson comes in to pitch in the 10th. You would prefer the Mets not score so the Cardinals can walk it off. That's the easiest path to the window. Gregerson gets the first two men out, but then gives up two singles and walks a batter to load the bases with two outs. Now, you're really nervous.
Jose Lobaton comes to the plate with the bags full. He draws a walk. Unbelievable, it's now 3-2 Mets and the bases are still loaded.
(You pretend to work as someone walks by.)
The Cardinals make a pitching change after the Gregerson implosion, which pays off. Matt Bowman retires Jose Reyes to end the inning and it's closing time. All you need to make this sweat worth it is a measly save from Jeurys Familia.
He gets Yadi to line out to start the inning. Two outs to go. Tyler O'Neill comes in as the pinch hitter and strikes out — two down!
One more out to finally cash this under.
Pham comes up and singles on a ground ball to second. The sweat is back on.
Jose Martinez is up next. Guess what happens?
Jose Martinez hits a game-tying RBI double to deep center to score Tommy Pham, tying the game at 3 in the 10th inning (00:55)
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A double that looked like it could have been caught. Of course, 3-3.
Your under can't hit and you now must pray for a push, as you pretend you need to work late so you can see just how miserable you can be on your commute home.
The Cardinals eventually won 4-3 so at least you didn't lose, but that's no way to spend a Thursday afternoon. At least your boss thinks you stayed late for the company.
(I'm completely kidding — everyone in the office knows you're a degenerate.)
Photo via Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports
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