Mets 13, Marlins 0; Zack Wheeler, rain drown the Fish offense

NEW YORK—I spent an entire afternoon and evening at Citi Field just to watch that bloodbath? You bet I did.

The Marlins (57-87) have grown accustomed to losing by large margins in 2018, but on Wednesday night, it was immediately apparent that they would come up short. Zach Wheeler cruised into the later innings and Trevor Richards, uh...didn’t in the 13-0 defeat.

• Trevor Richards: 5.0 IP, 7 H, 6 R (4 ER), 1 BB, 2 K (89 pitches)
• Zack Wheeler: 8.0 IP, 4 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 7 K (89 pitches)

The first inning is typically a big obstacle for Richards, so it was encouraging to see him escape it unscathed (despite a 25-pitch workload).

But from the get-go, the right-hander’s stuff was lacking in both velocity and late movement. And his teammates did him no favors.

Only one of the first three Mets runs was earned. Brian Anderson extended the second inning with an error on a hard-hit grounder.

As mentioned in the pre-game thread, it initially seemed as if Mickey Callaway had done Richards a favor by deploying a mostly left-handed lineup. However, one of the few righties, shortstop Amed Rosario, expanded New York’s advantage to 6-0 in the fourth.

Those who follow Don Mattingly’s managerial style closely could probably predict where this went from here. The Marlins skipper has grown fond of putting lopsided contests in the hands of a rookie mop-up man in the middle innings.

Wednesday’s lucky contestant was Ben Meyer, and he got shellacked.

Meyer’s earned run average for the season exploded to 11.00, partially due to a Jay Bruce grand slam that definitely would’ve stayed in play at unnecessarily big Marlins Park. Nice effort from Rafael Ortega.

The only suspense was whether or not Wheeler would be allowed to finish what he started. The Mets assigned the final three outs to Paul Sewald instead.

On Thursday, they once again will try to squeeze in a doubleheader. First pitch for Game 1—weather permitting—is scheduled for 3:10 p.m.

Courtesy of FanGraphs

Attendance: 20,423