Lost in Mets‘6-2 beat the Washington Nationals on Wednesday night, two plays in the fourth inning were not made by the starter Luis Severino this, if New York had lost the game, could have been cited as the reason.
With runners on first and second and two outs in the fourth with his team leading 1-0 thanks to the home run bat of Brandon NimmoSeverino allowed a single Juan Yepez this was cutting across the right field line. Although a run was more likely to score, that didn’t stop Tyron Taylor from running towards the ball and throwing to home plate to try and catch the runner.
The ball ended up going over the line and the runner scored, but on the play Severino never backed up home plate (which he was supposed to do), which allowed a second run to score, giving the Nationals a 2-1 lead.
“At first I thought I was going to catch that shot and then I saw everything that happened, but of course that’s on me. I should have done a better job tonight,” Severino said.
It is clear that Severino did not learn his lesson at that moment, as the same thing happened to the next batter.
With Yepez in second Ildemaro Vargas picked to left field and Severino, once again, was unable to back up home plate. Washington didn’t score on the play and the right-hander managed to escape the inning without major damage, but the veteran pitcher’s lack of awareness of consecutive plays was confusing.
“We’ll sort it out,” manager Carlos Mendoza said after the game. “He knows. He knows he let the play develop and it didn’t get to where it needed to be, so let’s talk about it. We’ll show him some videos and then we’ll fix it.”
The Mets’ attack ended up saving Severino, even getting his sixth victory of the season, with a four-run sixth inning. The bullpen then did a good job preserving the lead and securing the victory, throwing 2.2 scoreless innings.
New York is now one game over .500 at 46-45 and is currently 0.5 GB out of the final Wild Card spot in the National League. With four games left until the All-Star break against the Nationals and Colorado Rockies (33-60), the Mets have a chance to go into the break with a Wild Card berth.
“We know where we are. It’s still July,” said Mendoza. “The mentality here is to take care one day at a time. Take care of business today, take care of business [with] winning series and let the team play. We will continue to prepare, we will continue to compete. Let’s keep having fun and that’s what they’re doing.
“It’s been good over the last few weeks, months or so, especially what we went through at the beginning of the year, that we’ve put ourselves in a better position. But understanding that we still have work to do, we still have a long way to go and we just need to continue to improve and stay consistent.”
