Syracuse Mets Split First Two of Road Trip

The Mets split with the Scranton Wilkes-Barre RailRiders.

The first full road trip for the Syracuse Mets kicked off by splitting the first two to the Scranton Wilkes-Barre RailRiders. The Mets lost the first contest 9-7 (detailed below) before pulling out a 9-4 victory in game two. 

Syracuse took 5 of 6 from Rochester and had multiple strong performances from their pitching staff including Jose Butto’s International League pitcher of the week worthy start. The ball was in Humberto Mejia’s hand in game one with the task of outdueling Sean Boyle.

The Met’s struck first with a double from Brett Baty that scored Danny Mendick in the top half of the 1st. The momentum continued when Ronny Mauricio took his 4th homer of the season out to right field in the next inning.

The bats then cooled off for Syracuse and erupted for Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. In the bottom half of the 2nd Andreas Chaparro took Mejia deep to make it just 2-1 Mets and another two homers in the bottom half of the 3rd stole the lead altogether. Estevan Florial hit a two run shot to right while Chaparro added his 2nd homer of the game.

With a 5-2 lead in the bottom of the 4th Estevan Florial decided that Chaparro wasn’t going to have the only multi-homer game and hit another 2-run shot to right. Mejia didn’t make it out fo the 4th and had to settle for 3 2/3 innings where he gave up 7 hits and 7 earned runs. Another reason for the RailRiders’ success was Boyle settling in for his remaining innings for a complete 5 frames where he allowed 6 hits, 2 earned and struck out a whopping 9 Mets.

Mark Vientos began the Syracuse response in the 6th with a solo homer of his own, but Oswald Peraza hit a 2-run single for the RailRiders to make it 9-3. In the 8th the Mets had a little more fight with Carlos Cortes bringing in a run on a bases loaded force player and Nick Meyer driving in two more on a double to right. Brett Baty tried to continue the comeback in the 9th with a solo homer to center but the Mets would fall short 9-7.

Jimmy Yacabonis and William Woods minimized the damage, but Jeff Brigham conceded the all-important two runs in the 6th that made the lead insurmountable. Syracuse were able to get to the bullpen of Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, except for D.J. Snelten, but overcoming 9-3 is a lot to ask of your lineup.

The Mets and RailRiders returned to action Wednesday night at 6:35 p.m. as Tony Dibrell squared off against Randy Vasquez. The Mets bounced back with a 9-4 win.