Mets snap Jays’ 11-game streak
NEW YORK — The pre-game storylines stood in bold relief, beckoning a flock of the city’s — and some of the country’s — star baseball writers.
The Blue Jays rode in on an 11-game winning streak, featuring baseball’s most fearsome offence. R.A. Dickey was returning to the scene of his Cy Young glory. And one of the elite prospects the Jays traded for him, Noah Syndergaard, was pitching for the Mets. The headlines were written, just waiting for the stories.
Travis d’Arnaud, the other Jays prospect who came to New York in the Dickey deal, was not in the Mets’ lineup, but assuming he can shake a long-standing injury jinx, he remains the Mets’ catcher of the future. And as Syndergaard would show later, he has the makings of an ace.
“That’s part of the script,” Dickey told a media gathering before the game, referring to Syndergaard’s chance to thumb his nose at the team that drafted him. “Both of those guys are really, really good players, and I don’t expect that they’re going to disappoint the Mets in any way. I think they’re both going to be good for a long time.”
Syndergaard, 22, arrived in the majors in May. His results have been mixed but promising. Asked Sunday about pitching against the Jays, he said he felt no extra inspiration.
He certainly pitched as though he did. Over six brilliant innings, the young fireballer struck out 11 and allowed two hits and one run — a first-inning homer by Jose Bautista. Jays starter Mark Buehrle, with his contrasting arsenal and his typical guile, was almost as effective. But he left trailing 2-1 after seven, having allowed but one earned run.
Then in the ninth, with Mets’ closer Jeurys Familia poised to shut down the streak, Bautista homered again. And in the 11th, the offence that habitually bludgeoned opponents during the streak used two walks, a Chris Colabello single and a sacrifice fly by Dioner Navarro to take the lead.
But with two outs in the bottom of the 11th, Brett Cecil and Liam Hendriks could not hold the fort. The Mets won 3-2, denying the Jays a franchiserecord 12th straight victory.
Cecil had two outs after allowing a walk. But Lucas Duda dumped a bloop hit down the left-field line with the outfield playing deep. That tied it. With Duda on second, Hendriks came in and surrendered an RBI single to Wilmer Flores.
Syndergaard, a six- foot-four, 242-pound right-hander, smothered the vaunted Toronto offence. Both of the hits he allowed came in the first inning. He retired 16 of the last 17 batters he faced and five of the last seven by strikeout.
For five innings, Buehrle held a narrow edge. Syndergaard had made a mistake pitch in the first, and Bautista hit it into the second deck in left field. Meanwhile, Buehrle did not allow a baserunner until Duda led off the fifth with a double. He got no farther.
But in the sixth, a throwing error by Toronto shortstop Jose Reyes, a picture-perfect sacrifice bunt by Syndergaard and a couple of well struck hits gave the Mets a 2-1 lead.
Before the game, Dickey spoke of the “nostalgic” feelings that enveloped him as he returned to Citi Field for the first time since 2012, when he won 20 games and the Cy Young Award. Soon the media questions turned to the Jays’ win streak, and their offence, and Dickey obligingly offered an appreciation.
Of the streak, he said: “You’re always walking that razor’s edge of trusting in the streak and not taking it for granted too.”