Mets 4, Rockies 3

Rockies, 7, Mets 2

(6-4)

For a while it looked like the story of the Mets’ night was Jacob deGrom’s dominance.

Then it looked like the story of the Mets’ night was the team losing again despite Jacob deGrom’s dominance.

Then the story of the Mets’ night became an unlikely win for Jacob deGrom when the offense actually came through for him at the last possible second.

And there was still a whole second game to be played.

The Mets staged a beautiful comeback in the first game of the doubleheader, after a 1-0 lead turned into a 3-1 deficit.

deGrom had struck out 9 batters in a row (one shy of Tom Seaver’s major league record) before a Jeff McNeil throwing error ended the streak. A triple, sacrifice fly, and solo homer - all unearned runs - put the Rockies ahead.

In Colorado, though, things feel different, and I kind of had an inkling the Mets might mount a comeback.

A solo home run by Pete Alonso got the Mets back to within one, and then after deGrom pitched a strong bottom of the sixth (14 strikeouts for the second game in a row!) the Mets completed the comeback in the top of the 7th.

James McCann led off with a single, and then Jonathan Villar came up with another big hit, doubling into the corner and scoring pinch runner Albert Almora, Junior. After a Brandon Nimmo single got Villar to third, Francisco Lindor drove in the go-ahead run with a base hit.

It was the fourth win in a row for the Mets, nailed down by a really solid-looking Edwin Diaz.

And it was a Jacob deGrom win, which have come too few and far between over the years.

It was nice to see in a game where he gave up more than he usually does (and another unlikely homer to right, a la Jazz Chisholm), that the offense picked him up.

Maybe this changes the deGrom narrative moving forward.

And then, I don’t know. Did they cancel the second game? Not sure what happened after that.

(Just kidding. The Mets lost game two. But that’s one of those feel-good splits because of the way they won the first game. Two out of three in a three-game series is never a bad thing, especially one that features a doubleheader. Marcus Stroman goes Sunday, and then the Mets head to Chicago.)

Notes: Best info of the night: I had no idea that the Rockies replaced Nolan Arenado with a family member. Apparently Josh Fuentes, who started third base in the first game of the doubleheader, is Arenado’s cousin…It’s nice that Gary Cohen would go to commercial and always mention “in this 7-inning game” because it’s so easy to forget…Almora, rounding third to score that tying run in game one, took a real weird turn around the bag. It doesn’t matter because he beat the tag (barely), but I don’t know if he was expecting to be sent. He hit the bag weird…Credit where it’s due - other than a big hit to Jeff McNeil that got the Mets their two runs, Germán Márquez really shut the Mets down in game two, going the full seven innings - it was a closer game than the 7-2 final indicates…I guess I’ll go with the MLB.TV and radio graphics for now as pictures to accompany these posts. They do a nice enough job of setting the scene

How I Watched: Just SNY all evening. I think we mentioned in that first road series in Philadelphia, the SNY booth is calling road games from the booth at Citi Field. And tonight was the first night where Steve Gelbs was at Citi Field with them instead of the SNY studios. Gelbs has matured so well in that role over the years - he’s fun to watch and listen to. Everyone talks so much about Gary, Keith, and Ron, and Kevin Burkhart got a lot of love when he was in that role, but Steve Gelbs has been a huge asset to the SNY telecasts.

What Else I Watched: Nothing. Haven’t been watching a whole lot of other baseball the past few days.

Notes From Around The League: Another no-hitter the other night. Carlos Rodón of the White Sox was nearly perfect against Cleveland! Fun…Another strong start by Steven Matz on Saturday. He improved to 3-0 with 6 innings of 2-hit, 1 run ball. HIs ERA is 1.47…Atlanta put Drew Smyly on the IL, after Max Fried earlier in the week, and they got beat up on by the Cubs on Saturday. Might be one of those hard-luck years for Atlanta. I’m not upset about it…I guess the one big thing I neglected to mention after the Mets swept the Phillies Wednesday was that it put them in first place, where they still are today. I am expecting the National League East to go down to the wire, but if you look at the division right now, the other teams are kind of a mess. The team maybe playing the best right now is the Marlins, who came back twice in the late innings against the Giants Saturday.