NEW YORK – A Jair Jurrjens-Dillon Gee pitching matchup might not have quite the allure of say Roy Halladay vs. Josh Johnson, but the way the two dueled Saturday night at Citi Field they lacked for no substance.
When the two got going, the game was downright uneventful. It got interesting when some outside forces got in on the act.
A rare Alex Gonzalez error with one out in the seventh broke Jurrjens’ rhythm, and a Fredi Gonzalez decision backfired in a five-run eruption in the seventh inning that led to a 5-0 win for the Mets.
The Mets evened the series 1-1 entering Sunday’s night finale on ESPN.
Jurrjens and Gee dueled for a scoreless game through six innings before the Mets broke through the tiniest crack in the seventh inning. Alex Gonzalez fielded a grounder from Jason Bay, but bobbled it as he prepared to make a throw, committing his fourth error of the season.
Jurrjens then lost his grip, allowing the next three runners to reach on a double, a hit batter, and a broken-bat RBI single to pinch-hitter Jason Pridie.
With one out and the bases still loaded, Fredi Gonzalez removed Jurrjens after he had thrown 90 pitches. Jose Reyes turned on the second pitch he saw from reliever Scott Proctor and cleared the bases with a triple.
Gonzalez said afterward he didn’t want Jurrjens to face Reyes for a fourth time in the game in that situation, with the bases loaded.
“Every starting pitcher wants to be in the game, and everybody wants to pick up their teammate when they make a mistake behind them,” Jurrjens said. “I just wanted to have the chance to help pick up Alex, and I didn’t have that chance.”
As painful as Reyes’ triple on a questionable call was Friday night, this one was worse for the Braves. Gonzalez said reliever Eric O’Flaherty was available, despite recent back stiffness, but he had the matchup he wanted bringing in right-handed Proctor to face the switch-hitting Reyes.
“He’s had some pretty good numbers against him,” Gonzalez said of Proctor, who had given up one hit in five career at-bats vs. Reyes. “Hey, that’s just the way it goes. Looking at the big screen, I thought it was a decent pitch, too, that Reyes hit the ball down the line on.”
Jurrjens was trying to become the second pitcher in baseball history to open a season with 10 consecutive starts with six or more innings pitched and two or fewer earned runs allowed. Instead he gave up four runs, three of them earned, in 6 1/3 innings. The four runs allowed were the most Jurrjens had given up since his last start of last season, a four-run outing against the Nationals.
A major-league-leading ERA of 1.51 entering Saturday’s game rose to 1.75 for Jurrjens, now 7-2.
“I made two bad pitches, two change-ups and tried to be too perfect on [Ruben] Tejada, and I hit him,” Jurrjens said. “You can’t keep escaping from jams all the time, and I wish I could get that pitch back, but it’s too late. I’ve just got to keep moving on.”
The Mets have won each of Gee’s eight starts this season, and he moved to a perfect 6-0 after seven shutout innings against the Braves.
Dan Uggla gave the Braves their best scoring chance off him with a leadoff double in the fifth, his first extra-base hit in 17 games, since his game-winning home run off Halladay on May 15. But he and Joe Mather, who had walked and moved to second on a Jurrjens sacrifice, were stranded in scoring position.
The Braves had the hitter they wanted up, but Martin Prado grounded out to shortstop on a nine-pitch at-bat.
“He’s a lot like J.J.,” Uggla said of Gee. “J.J. spots up so good hitting corners and working both sides of the plate and very rarely does he ever leave a pitch in the zone. When [Gee] is hitting the corners with his offspeed pitches at the knee, it’s really tough to square balls up and sit on certain pitches.”
