Granderson Walk Off Saves The Day As The Mets Beat The Dodgers

 

It looked like a typical Met win as home runs from Juan Lagares and David Wright coupled with a solid 7 inning performance from Jacob deGrom gave them a 5-1 lead heading into the top of the ninth inning.

But Jeurys Familia in a non-save situation served up four runs highlighted by a 3 run triple off the bat of Chase Utley knotting the game at 5-5. It left a sold out CitiField crowd in a state of shock but that shock lasted a very short time as Curtis Granderson hit a walk off homer to send Met fans home happy.

Coupled with the Naionals 6-2 loss in DC the win puts the Mets in first place-percentage points ahead of the Nationals. This past week, Terry Collins and his Mets have shown a great deal of resilience as they have now won 6 of their last 7 in a week where Lucas Duda went down with an injury, Matt Harvey created a media firestorm and Familia did the unthinkable Friday night.

To me it is a week that symbolizes this Met team as they have a knack of picking each other up when times get tough. It also speaks to the leadership skills of Terry Collins who has put together a bunch of players that realize picking up the slack is a necessity in a long baseball season. David Wright's bat is starting to awaken as well and that may be due to the fact that the weather is heating up which may provide additional comfort for his chronic back condition.

So the Mets prepare for a celebration of the 1986 World Championship team tonight and their fans will get to honor that squad and then watch this year's version that embodies much of the same spirit we saw in Flushing 30 years ago. This promises to be a great summer of baseball in New York. Well, in Queens at least.