Nick Plummer will remember the moment right from his first major league debut.
The Mets’ hero of the night didn’t record his first major league hit before the ninth inning of the Mets’ 5-4 win over the Phillies on Sunday. And he sent Phillies reliever Corey Nebel’s first pitch into the abyss to tie the game, sending it into the extra innings.
The Mets won the walk-off double from Eduardo Escobar at the bottom of the tenth inning, winning the three-match series.
Plummer, whose Walk Up song is affectionately the theme song for Super Mario, was celebrated with the melody of the game that appears when Mario rescues Princess Peach as she runs into her house.
Incidentally, the last mate to score his first big-league home run was Jeremy Hefner—now the team’s pitching coach—who did so exactly ten years ago to date.
This was enough to propel the drained Citi Field crowd and the Mets, who, just before the inning, were heading for a loss.
Reliever Adam Ottavino came up with a two-run lead for Jolie Rodriguez in the eighth inning, two runners on first and second and two outs. Ottavino then left Nick Castellanos a 96 mph four-seam fastball lead-changing a three-run home run lead, erasing the Mets’ offense and Chris Bassitt to start and carry on the game. Two of those runs were added to Rodriguez’s total in the night.
The Mets (32-17) were receiving hits, and put up quality starting pitching for the match. All that, plus a Phillies (21-27) defense that struggles more than that, is not of late.
Bassit needed 12 pitches to retire his first three Phillies, recreating only the first inning of Sunday’s Nightcap. The Mets’ first three batsmen in the lineup, Luis Guillorme, Starling Marte and Francisco Lindor, each scored runs in Amazon fashion at the bottom of the innings.
To take the rally forward, Guillorme first cranked a hard-hit double from mate Jack Wheeler to the left field corner. Marte followed up with a single. Lindor hit what should have been an easy grounder to turn up a double play, but what really played was a bunch of hesitations by the Phillies that eventually ended with a throwing error home, forcing Guillorm to score. got permission. And Lindor managed to get to base safely on the choice of a fielder.
Phil’s confusion continued when Pete Alonso hit what should have been a regular right-flyer. But despite all chases from Castellanos, Rhys Hoskins and Gene Segura, the ball was able to fall to the ground for a single to load the base. Alonso was also surprised that his hit was not caught, while the crowd grew as the ball landed and Oh-ing was foreshadowing the game before it fully blossomed.
Successive grounders from Escobar and Mark Kanha scored the second and third runs. Those three runs would have been needed by all the Mets—at least until the eighth inning—even after Bassett’s third inning.
Bassit’s early career as a Mets starter did not go unnoticed.
It was at his highest level, with four wins and a no decision allowed in those games to have more than one run on his watch.
And it had some tough ups, like two losses and two no-decision games in which he gave away three or more earned runs. His worst outing came against the Giants in San Francisco on May 24, when his ERA reached 3.91 after giving up eight earned runs on eight hits.
He still played a big part of the five mate wins. Sunday was certainly a welcome retreat for Bassit from his last brutal trip to San Francisco.
Bassett retired six of his first seven batsmen before loading Bass on a double and back to back walks in the third innings. The Mets knocked him out with a double on the grounder from Alec Bohm, which still allowed one runner, Odubel Herrera, to score. He was out of the innings after another batsman, Bryce Harper, walked in and dismissed Castellanos.
He was not happy with the events of the previous series, but he breathed a sigh of relief that the innings was over and the damage was kept to a minimum.
The Phillies employed Bassit, but he was able to finish with only one earned run on two hits in which three batsmen went and seven strikeouts in six innings.
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