By William Coppola Contributor Bronx Chronicle Sports
What the heck is going on here in major league baseball? Don’t the New York Mets know that you can’t win games without hitting 457 foot home runs? Their amazing 5th walk-off began with a blistering lead-off double by the hottest hitter in baseball today, Amed Rosario who has 31 hits in the past 22 days.
What followed next was this thing the broadcasters were calling a dunt or a bunt I think.
What we saw was Mets second baseman Joe Panik crouch down and just let the ball hit the bat. No swinging for the fences! It was as if he was giving up his time at bat to advance Rosario to third with this odd stroke, if you could call it that. The next batter Peter Alonzo could now possibly score him with just a fly ball and tie up the game. Who ever thought of this bunt thing by Panik is a blooming genius!
With first base open and Alanzo coming up with 40 home runs under his belt, the Indians wisely walked him. What followed was pure “Mets Magic.” Good teams make breaks happen and I am convinced that this is a better than good team right now. Facing Indians closer Brad Hand, Michael Conforto hit what looked like a sure game ending double play ball to first baseman Carlos Santana who threw perfectly to shortstop Francisco Lindor.
The problem for the Tribe was that Hand fell asleep and didn’t cover first. Don’t you hate it when your hand falls asleep? Well the Indians surly did tonight. The result was Conforto was safe and Rosario scored the tying run. It was now only just a matter of time before those Loyal Mets fans would see their never say die ball club pull off another walk-off win. J.D. Davis would eventually line a ball to the wall in left after a nine pitch at bat to score Conforto with the winning run.
But it was this new thing they are calling a bunt that would be the key to the Mets putting themselves in a position to win this game.
This is the way the game was meant to be played. Plenty of nail biting action with the whole team involved. We got to see a real team effort where these amazing athletes showed all of their skills.There was also that wonderful thing in baseball where people make mistakes as in Hand not covering first. That is what makes baseball so much fun to watch. It is the imperfectly perfect game
Watching five, six or even seven home runs in a game will never be as much fun as watching a team scratch out hits to put runners in scoring position and then watching a manager make his moves. The strategy of giving an intentional pass to a power hitter who now would become the possible winning run was a gutsy move by Clevelands manager Terry Francona.
Having Panik sacrifice bunt Rosario to third by Mets skipper Mickey Callaway was old school baseball.
In that same situation a guy who should be bunting more, Brett Gardner would have been swinging for the fences at Yankee Stadium’s short right field porch. That is ho hum boring. Right now the Mets are the most exciting team to watch in baseball.
They are not going away and are playing meaningful exciting baseball as the fall approaches. They are playing good baseball against good teams and you can’t ask for more than that.
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