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Chris Heston’s No-Hitter From The Mets’ Perspective

The Mets lineup had just one batter hitting above .272.

San Francisco Giants starting pitcher Chris Heston, center, celebrates with teammates after he threw a no-hitter against the New York Mets Tuesday, June 9, 2015, in New York. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)

San Francisco Giants starting pitcher Chris Heston, center, celebrates with teammates after he threw a no-hitter against the New York Mets Tuesday, June 9, 2015, in New York. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)

 

The Mets had not been no-hit at home in 36 years before Chris Heston of the Giants did it with a 5-0 victory on Tuesday night.

But if ever a team were ripe to be no-hit victims, against an unheralded and inconsistent rookie pitcher without blinding stuff, it was these Mets. They have not hit or scored with any consistency in weeks. They were playing their first home game after returning from a West Coast trip.

And they sent a lineup into battle with just one batter hitting above .272 (unless you count pitcher Noah Syndergaard, who might be a better hitter than half the guys in this lineup), including Eric Campbell (.194) batting seventh and Anthony Recker (.149) batting eighth.

Even before Tuesday night, the Mets had been striking out with alarming frequency for the last couple of weeks. What was even more notable was that, with a no-hitter on the line in the ninth inning, all three Met batters after Recker was hit by a pitch to lead off the inning, all three of them went down meekly surrendering on called third strikes. Pinch-hitter Danny Muno looked at a third strike, Curtis (“I am not a home run hitter”) Granderson watched strike three right down the middle, and then Ruben Tejada did the same.

Where did this approach come from? The Mets have gone back to their passive method of letting strike three go by without offering at it–in much the same way the front office is not offering at any trade attempts that might bolster an offense that is, without David Wright, Daniel Murphy and (until now) Travis d’Arnaud, frankly pathetic.

The Mets took over first place after beating Arizona on the road Sunday. Then, on Tuesday night, they should have come home to an enthusiastic reception with a chance to build on their first-place lead with the defending World Champs in town. Instead, the Mets looked like a last-place team in August playing out the string against a heretofore mediocre pitcher, and the only noise in the ballpark came from the throngs of Giants fans who now regularly take over Citi Field whenever San Francisco is in town.

Oh, and by the way, the Washington Nationals were right across town in the Bronx, getting beaten again, and keeping the Mets in first place another day, no matter how little they seem to look the part.

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