The race for yesterday's GotD honors was as close as any this year. Nationals 6, Diamondbacks 5 was a worthy contender, a game that remained close throughout and featured four lead changes, the last of which was in the ninth inning. But it was edged out by a hair with a width of .007 WPL by Mets 9, Yankees 7.
Hiroki Kuroda of the Yankees has begun his 40th year on Earth; he's pretty old for a baseball player. He is, however, a year and a half younger than the opposing starter in this game, Bartolo Colon. (Kuroda has not been matched up against a starter older than himself in almost two years - not since facing Kevin Millwood in July of 2012.)
The Mets started the game with a run in the top of the first, as Eric Young Jr. singled, stole second, and came the rest of the way around on a pair of groundouts. Colon worked around a Derek Jeter single in the first, and Kuroda stranded Chris Young after a ground-rule double in the second. The bottom of that inning started with three consecutive Yankee singles by Brian McCann, Alfonso Soriano, and Yangervis Solarte; Colon recovered to get the next two hitters, but leadoff man Brett Garnder then launched a grand slam to take a 4-1 lead.
The offenses laid dormant for the next two innings, with neither team putting a single runner on in the third or fourth. The Mets broke that string in the fifth with a solo homer by Travis d'Arnaud, then tied the game an inning later when David Wright singled and Curtis Granderson homered.
The Yankees responded in the bottom of the sixth, starting with a one-out double by Soriano. Solarte singled him in with the go-ahead run, and Kelly Johnson tripled Solarte around for a 6-4 lead. Brian Roberts grounded to short, with Johnson getting thrown out at home on the play. Gardner singled to put runners on the corners and chase Colon from the game. With Carlos Torres on the mound, Gardner tried the ploy of stealing second to draw a throw - and not only did d'Arnaud throw to second, he threw wildly, allowing Roberts to trot home with the inning's third run.
Alfredo Aceves replaced Kuroda in the top of the seventh, and the Mets quickly went to work against him, as d'Arnaud drew a leadoff walk and Eric Young homered two batters later. Scott Rice and Jenrry Mejia combined to strike out the side in the bottom of the seventh (albeit with Rice issuing a walk and a wild pitch in between), and their teammates struck again in the top of the eighth; Matt Thornton allowed a one-out pinch double to Eric Campbell and a game-tying single to Lucas Duda, and Chris Young greeted Preston Claiborne with a go-ahead 2-run homer on his first pitch.
The Yankees mounted threats in each of their two remaining chances. Solarte and Roberts both singled against Mejia in the eighth, but Johnson grounded into a double play between the two hits, limiting their effectiveness. In the ninth, Kyle Farnsworth walked Jeter and allowed a pinch single to Mark Teixeira, but McCann then hit into a game-ending DP with runners on the corners.
The list of teams who've blown multiple distinct three-run leads in the same game this year can't be too terribly long, right? Because that's what the Yankees did in this game. That's obviously not a positive if you play or root for them, but it does keep things lively, and that's why WPL likes this one.
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