Don't Miss This!

Pat Borzi, a Minnesota sportswriter freelancing for the NYT, sums up last night's OT victory by the Mets over the Brewers, keeping his copy tight:

Asdrubal Cabrera scored the winner when Brewers shortstop Jonathan Villar, with the bases loaded and one out, dropped Matt Reynolds’s liner. Instead of an inning-ending double play, which would have been the third time the Mets had loaded the bases and failed to score, Villar got only one out, tagging Kelly Johnson between first and second.*
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Five Mets relievers combined to allow one hit over the final five innings, with Jeurys Familia closing for his 21st consecutive save.
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The Mets left the bases loaded in the fifth, while the game was still scoreless, and again in the ninth after the first three batters reached base.
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The Brewers briefly appeared to have scored a run in the third on a quirky play that required two replay reviews, covering almost six minutes, to resolve.

With Aaron Hill on second and two out, a Villar grounder struck Harvey in the foot and caromed toward the left side of the infield. Cabrera, the Mets’ shortstop, headed toward the middle but scrambled back in a change of direction to knock down the ball just short of the outfield grass. Villar slid home ahead of Cabrera’s throw, and the plate umpire Larry Vanover, the crew chief, emphatically called him safe.

Mets Manager Terry Collins challenged the call, which was reversed following a 3 minute 1 second deliberation. Then Milwaukee Manager Craig Counsell asked Vanover to review whether Mets catcher Kevin Plawecki had blocked the plate. Two minutes 49 seconds later, the out call stood, keeping the game scoreless.

The Mets loaded the bases in the fifth on two singles, Harvey’s sacrifice and an intentional walk to Curtis Granderson, who was passed despite his .091 average with runners in scoring position. Alejandro De Aza grounded out, stranding them all.

The former Met Kirk Nieuwenhuis tripled and scored the game’s first run in the fifth. The lead lasted only three pitches into the sixth, when Cespedes homered to left-center. Nieuwenhuis stole Johnson’s bid for a go-ahead homer in the sixth with a leaping catch at the center-field wall.

The Brewers put two on with Hansel Robles pitching in the seventh, but Cespedes in center and De Aza in left ran down fly balls on the warning track.

 

In the ninth, the Mets wasted a glorious opportunity, with Wilmer Flores and Johnson following Cabrera’s leadoff walk with singles, putting the go-ahead run 90 feet away with nobody out.

With about 100 Mets fans near the third-base dugout chanting, “Let’s go, Mets!” (and the remaining Brewers fans at Miller Park booing), Milwaukee second baseman Scooter Gennett ran down Plawecki’s pop-up in shallow right, the runners holding. Pinch-hitter Neil Walker took a 1-2 curveball from Jeremy Jeffress for strike three, and Granderson grounded out to second.

Mets reliever Jim Henderson walked two in the ninth, but Milwaukee couldn’t capitalize, leaving runners on second and third. In the 10th, Milwaukee’s Ramon Flores overslid third on a ball in the dirt and was tagged out, a call upheld on video review.

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Collins was willing to take the stroke of luck.

“I’ve seen a lot of major league baseball games,” he said. “That might have been one of the wildest I’ve ever been involved in. You just take the win and go get ready for tomorrow. You don’t try to analyze that one."

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*But Borzi tries, on Twitter:

Patrick Borzi ‏@BorzMN 8h8 hours ago

I've watched video of the Villar play 6 times and still can't decide what his first move should have been. Throw home? Tag everybody? #Mets