Game #81: Diamondbacks 5, Mets 3

Turns out the team from Arizona is full of fast learners who took rather quickly to "when it rains, it pours."

Matt Harvey's shutout was ruined by five runs between the 6th and 7th innings and the Mets couldn't muster more than three solo home runs, falling to the D'Backs 5-3.

The Bad Stuff:

• It wasn't a no-hitter, but for 5.2 innings Matt Harvey was lights-out on the mound. Then with two on and two out in the 6th, Cody Ross, the would-be hero of Monday night, took a 1-0 slider and deposited it just over the shortest part of the left field fence. All of a sudden a 2-0 Harvey Day turned into a 3-2 deficit.
• Things didn't get much better in the 7th as Harvey failed to record an out before being yanked. His final line looked much different from his big-league debut in Arizona: 6+ IP, 9 H, 5 ER, 3 BB, 9 K, 110 P.
• Aside from a handful of guys, the Met offense couldn't get anything going against Randall Delgado and company: they had just one at-bat with RISP and left five men on base.

The Good Stuff:

• Eric Young, Daniel Murphy, and David Wright each had two hits, with Wright and Murph launching solo shots in the 4th and 8th respectively.
• Josh Satin reached the pinnacle of his hot streak with his first career home run, a solo shot in the 4th to put New York up 2-0.
• Paid attendance was 41,257. Not all of them returned after the two-hour rain delay, but a combination of Harvey Day and pre-Fourth of July produced one of Citi Field's biggest crowds of the season.

Final Analysis:
Limited as they were, the New York offense did their job in getting Matt Harvey a multi-run cushion. It was Harvey who didn't hold up his end of the deal tonight.

I saw this photo manipulation on MetsBlog earlier today, and it makes me think that we may be putting too much pressure on Harvey to be the savior of the franchise. Don't get me wrong, on the exterior he certainly takes it well, but it must be tough knowing that every time you step on a big-league mound the world expects you to throw a no-hitter.

A couple rainouts delayed it, but the Mets have officially reached the halfway point of the 2013 season, and their record stands at a fourth-place 34-45. Is it great? No, but isn't it what we expected? Recently they've gotten a lot better: with tonight's loss they've won 11 of their last 18. Keep winning at that clip for the rest of the year and they're in playoff contention. "Ya Gotta Believe," right?

MM