HE’S ALL WRIGHT!
David blasts 2 HRs, Mets top Phils:
PHILADELPHIA — The first time David Wright stepped into the box against Noah Syndergaard during live batting practice this spring, he knew it was going to be a rough year for hitters in the National League East.
“When he was throwing 98 in the first batting practices against hitters, I knew that opposing hitters were going to be in trouble,” the Mets captain said Monday night after watching Syndergaard dominate.
Monday night, they both made trouble for the Phillies.
Syndergaard dominated for seven innings and Wright hit two home runs in a game for the first time in almost three years as the Mets dispatched the Phillies 5-2 at Citizens Bank Park.
The Mets (6-6) have won two straight and snapped a two-game losing streak against the Phillies (6-8).
Syndergaard allowed one run on five hits, striking out eight and walking two.
The offense that left Citi Field Wednesday with just two home runs to its name, crushed four Monday and has now hit 11 over the first four games of the road trip. Lucas Duda hit a 421foot homer to the second deck in right field off Phillies reliever David Hernandez in the eighth inning for his first of the season. Neil Walker followed with a shot to left field, for the first back-to-back home runs for the Mets this season.
Wright homered in his first atbat Monday night off Phillies righthander Jerad Eickhoff, who battled Syndergaard with seven solid innings of his own. Wright also homered in the eighth off Phillies lefty reliever Elvis Araujo.
It was Wright’s first multi-home run game in nearly three years. The last time Wright hit two homers in a game was June 20, 2013, at Atlanta.
Wright has a special place in his heart for this ballpark.
Last August, in his first at-bat after missing 115 games to rehab spinal stenosis Wright hit a home run here. Monday night, playing after taking Sunday off to rest his back, Wright welcomed himself back to Citizens Bank Park with a solo shot to right field.
These were his 21st and 22nd career home runs at the Phillies home park, the most by any opponent here. It is also the most homers Wright has in any opponents’ park.
Wright is hitting .293 with a .357 onbase and .871 OPS in 98 career games at Citizens Bank Park. His 26 doubles, 22 homers and 69 RBI are his most in any visiting ballpark.
“Maybe it’s I’ve played here so much,” Wright said of Citizens Bank Park being his sweet spot on the road. “I think the more you play at a stadium or a place, the more you comfortable you get with it. I don’t know. I can’t explain it. I also have played here a lot so the more you play somewhere hopefully the more the numbers reflect it. Can’t put my numbers on it. It’s a good place to hit certainly, but other than that I think I play a lot here.”
Syndergaard also has an affinity for this place. After going winless in his first nine career road starts last season, he earned his first win outside of Queens here last August. Monday night he came out feeling good and lighting up the radar guns, hitting 101 mph and 100 mph each three times in the first inning.
“It gives you the most amount of confidence in the world out there,” Syndergaard said of letting loose like that. “You go out there and have the confidence to throw whatever pitch in whatever different scenario.”
Wright said watching Syndergaard face batters is like watching a video game.
“Friends ask me about him and I say think of it this way, when you used to play video games as a kid, if you build the player that you want to build and put all the abilities up to max 10,” Wright said, “he’s that guy that you build in video games.”
Syndergaard was basically a machine out there Monday night.
PHILADELPHIA — Jacob deGrom and his wife Stacey took their son home from the hospital Monday. After a scary week of “complications,” that had the Mets righthander placed on the family medical emergency leave list, their medical scare seems to be over, Terry Collins said Monday.
“They took the baby home today,” the Mets manager said.
And with that, the news turned quickly back to baseball.
“And now, he’s gonna throw his simulated game tomorrow,” Collins continued, “and then we’ll take a look where he is at.”
DeGrom will throw that simulated game in Port St. Lucie in hopes of building his arm strength back up with an eye towards getting back into the rotation as early as this weekend.
“It all depends on what he gets out of tomorrow’s session if he can get his pitch count up to where he can be respectable to start, to where we think he can get deep in the game, instead of looking at four innings or five innings,” Collins said. “We’ll try to get him in a pitch-count situation where he can get us into the fifth or sixth inning.”
With the simulated game on Tuesday, deGrom would slot in naturally for the series finale in Atlanta Sunday. “It’s a possibility,” Collins said. The Mets are off Thursday, and Collins was not committing to anything that would take his other starters too far out of their routine until after they see how deGrom throws Tuesday.
DeGrom has made one start this season, a solid six-inning performance, holding the Phillies to a run on five hits and striking out six in the home opener April 8. He was pulled after six innings, however, with a “tight” lat muscle on his right side. He was held out of throwing drills and his second start of the season was skipped to give him time to rest the lat.
The Mets are convinced the lat muscle is no longer an issue. It was used by the team as cover to give deGrom privacy and extra time to be with his family as they dealt with the complications after the birth of their son.
But the Mets are going to be cautious with deGrom, not just because of the lat issue. After last season’s career-high 216 innings, deGrom has shown some signs of fatigue this spring. He dealt with nagging injuries in spring training. He was scratched from one start with lower back tightness and was pushed back from working off the mound because of a tight groin muscle.
The Mets have also been keeping an eye on deGrom’s velocity, which has been down three to four miles per hour all spring.
For the last week, however, nagging injuries and velocity were least of the Mets and deGrom’s concerns. It had been a stressful week for the new dad. He had flown to Florida to be with his wife for the birth of their first child, Jaxon. He remained in Florida as the baby suffered from a medical issue that required him to