What a way to open up a series we all had marked on our calendars! Did the magic touch come from the “Wizard” Luis Guillorme? Was it on the tip of Tomas Nido’s bat? Or did it come on the end of a rake that the grounds crew ran across the dirt during the 7th Inning Stretch? I swear the odds of both of those balls getting that close to the 3rd base line and not going foul have to be over a million to 1. Those two plays essentially were the difference makers in the game and took Yu Darvish out. What a game! What a performance all around! Let’s talk about it!

First Things’ First, Yu Darvish: This fuckin guy absolutely haunts me. Multiple times last year and obviously in the playoff game, Yu is a guy this lineup just cannot touch. He’s a fantastic pitcher, and probably a guy that gets over looked a bit when we talk about the best of the best. Hats off the the Mets offense for getting to Darvish early and hard. They attacked him and took advantage of the few mistakes he made, and of course, a little bit of help from the baseball gods (or maybe the grounds crew) for keeping not 1, but 2 balls in play. This was probably the most impressive aspect of this game. The Mets didn’t let Darvish get in their head, the balls that went to the dirt stayed there for the most part. A healthy combination of luck, plate discipline, and a sub-par performance on the mound form Yu, helped elevate the Mets to take game 1.

Mad Max: Excellent night for the veteran, 5 innings, 1 hit, 6 K’s, 3 BB, and ZERO runs! This was certainly the most reassuring thing we saw all night. Max’s first 2 starts were pretty “meh”. Watching Max go out there and shut down a potent Padres lineup, and not get rattled, that was BIG. He physically looked good, and mentally, he looked stellar. Vintage Max Scherzer. There was blood in the water, and a Great White Shark named “Max”, smelled it from a mile away. Would you have liked to have seen Max go a little longer than 5 innings? I would say so. But, it’s early in the year, and that pitch count did get awful high. Overall great performance, and we can’t ask for anything more than this on April 10th.

The Bullpen: Great 4 innings from Curtiss, Drew Smith, Robertson, and Ottavino shutting the door in the 9th. I’m not gonna go into too much depth with these guys, overall great showing by them, 2 hits between them and only 3 walks. This is the expectation from our “A+” guys. Robertson and Ottavino have certainly been there and done that, but it was nice to see Drew Smith have a good inning. He’s a guy that has had a real roller coaster of a career in a Mets uniform. Like many other pitching prospects, Drew has the physical tools to get the job done, it’s a matter of putting it all together and having clean innings, like he did here tonight.

The Offense: I somewhat touched on this before when I spoke about Yu Darvish, but to wrap things up, overall solid showing with the bats tonight. Also Brandon Nimmo stealing a base??!! Good for him, happy to see him get aggressive and be rewarded for it. Overall 7 hits tonight, and the only guys that didn’t get on base was Pete and Escobar, however Eduardo did have a RBI sac-fly that brought in Mark Canha from 3rd, however if Juan Soto actually had a throw on target, there is a good chance Mark gets tagged out at home. But nonetheless Eddie got the RBI and give credit where it is due, especially for a guy who can’t buy a hit to save his life at the moment. Pete had a down night as I said, but he helped carry us through the weekend so all is forgiven. The bats for the most part looked good and it was really nice seeing the guys put rallies together and get on base consecutively, especially in the 7th when they knocked Darvish out of the game. Guys like Yu, can pitch all night and not really worry about a pitch count so much, so it’s important to pounce early, get on base, and steal those bases when possible. Not their best game ever but definitely nice to see the bats heating up, especially against a team not named the Miami Marlins.

What’s Next?: Tomorrow night its David Peterson vs. Ryan Weathers and Wednesday it’s Tylor MeGill vs. Blake Snell. At the end of the day, take 2/3 games, and the fan base would be, and should be happy. Your home, its a normal 7:10 ET start, Max gave you the head start, just take one of these next two games and you can fly to Oakland with a smile on your face. Not gonna make any predictions or talk about how many runs we need to score, etc. Just go out and win 1 more. Show the fan base that the series in Milwaukee was merely a hiccup. Let’s come out hot tomorrow night and keep this rolling! LFGM!