On a night where the Mets looked lifeless and hapless for nearly all 27 outs, J.D. Martinez ensured that the Marlins would never actually record that 27th out.
He came to the rescue in the ninth inning, blasting a one-out, two-run walk-off homer to put the Mets over the Marlins by a score of 3-2. For the eight innings prior to that, this was shaping up as yet another extremely frustrating Mets-Marlins game. And when you think of frustrating Mets-Marlins games, what do you think of? Certainly some awful walk-offs or bullpen meltdowns in Miami may spring to mind, but one of the defining traits of Mets-Marlins games is, shall we say, less-than-well-known Marlins starters inexplicably shutting the Mets offense down.
Enter Roddery Muñoz. The 24-year-old rookie entered the night with only four starts this year—the first four starts of his major league career—and not a ton of prospect hype. Muñoz, in those four starts, had two strong starts and two clunkers, coming out to a 5.
95 ERA entering the night. Well, we can make a new entry into that list of anonymous Marlins starters to shut the Mets down. Muñoz dominated all night.
He took a no-hitter into the sixth inning, and only allowed one walk and a hit by pitch and struck out five. He faced only one batter over the minimum, and had the Mets hitters in knots. Harrison Bader recorded that first Mets hit with one out in the sixth, and he was the first Met to reach base since the second inning.
On the Mets’ side, Luis Severi.