SECOND BASE COACH Sean Smith: Surreal night at Citi

The New York Mets took the field on July 29, 2015 only sitting a single game out of first place. With the Nationals coming to town for a three game series this weekend, the Mets were in a great chance to keep stride with the first place team. However, the Mets were unable to do so falling to the San Diego Padres 7-3.

Bartolo Colon struggled from the beginning, surrendering six earned runs, on  10 hits, over just 2.1 innings pitched. This marked the shortest outing he has had in his tenure with the Mets. Although he did not walk a batter, Colon never looked comfortable on the mound between hanging breaking balls and fastballs up in the strike zone. The Padre lineup could do no wrong for the first two innings plus.

The shining light for the Mets offense on the evening was Lucas Duda and his continued power resurgence. Blasting a home run in the second inning, as well as a line drive home run to right center field in the sixth and another line drive home run down the right field line in the ninth inning. This makes six home runs for Duda over his last four games. Duda’s three home runs accounted for all Mets runs, and three of their five hits on the night.

The Met bullpen was tested this evening and was solid again. Andres Torres, Bobby Parnell, Sean Gilmartin, and Hansel Robles, pitched a stellar 6.2 innings of one run, five hit baseball, allowing the recently resurgent Mets lineup a chance to climb back into the game. However the early deficit proved to be too much for the Mets bats, who only managed to push across the Duda solo shots.

During the game trade rumors were abuzz throughout the stadium and on the television broadcast, the rumor being that the player the Mets traded away to get Johan Santana in 2008, Carlos Gomez, would soon be making his return to Flushing Meadows. Although nothing was official, the current report is the Mets have traded away Wilmer Flores and Zach Wheeler to the Milwaukee Brewers, but much to the fans-and Wilmer’s-confusion, Flores remained in the entire game.

At one point Flores even broke down in tears, making his name one of the hottest trending topics of the night. During the Mets at bat in the bottom of the ninth inning, Flores appeared to be told by manager Terry Collins that his days as a New York Met were numbered, as he headed down the tunnel with the Mets still up in the ninth, Mets captain, David Wright was immediately seen following Flores out of the dugout.

However, as fate would have it, the Mets rejected Gomez’s medical outlook on his injured hips, and the trade never materialized.

The Second Base Coach, with Sean Smith, is the Rockland County Times daily New York Mets blog