Cincinnati – Edwin Díaz was five strikers in the ninth round on Friday evening when he understood what is wrong.
The most frontal point on the right cleat of Díaz had dislodged, dragging the dishes several times on the mound. Meanwhile, the bases were loaded in a game to a race between Contenters of the National League Wild Card. The drama was high. In the midst of all this, Díaz called for help, stopping the game while the action culminated.
During the next few minutes, thousands of Great American Ball Park fans watched the boy from Batte Mets Jason Pastuizaca Sprint on the ground with a new pair of points for Díaz, who exchanged shoes in front of the mound. Once he has finished lacing his new kicks, Díaz frozen Elly de la Cruz with a quick 99 mph ball and a Gavin Lux withdrawn on a chaotic final game to nail the backup in New York 5-4 Victory On the reds.
The victory increased the margin of New York on the Reds (70-71) to six games with 21 to play for the two teams. The dishes (76-65) remained four on the giants (72-69) for the last stain of NL Card while shooting even with the Padres (76-65) for second place.
“I have already been in this situation,” said Díaz. “I know I have two choices: win the match or lose the match. So I made the right choice: win the match. ”
Although Díaz is indeed not unrelated to high-level spots, he never needed a change of wardrobe in the midst of a chance to safeguard. Although he cannot say when the Metal Spike broke his cleat, Díaz felt likely to slide on the mound for a large part of the ninth round which saw him leave a single and two walks, all without withdrawal.
After rebounding to eliminate Christmas Marte, Díaz ran an account of 1-2 on Cruz before finally calling for help.
While referee Nick Mahrley, the receiver Francisco Alvarez and several Mets Infielders looked at different stages of the disbelief, Díaz withdrew the two shoes, laced the new ones and launched a single warm -up in the middle of a choir of hoots. In the canoe, manager Carlos Mendoza turned to the third base coach Mike Sarbaugh and pointed out: “I don’t think I saw something like it.”
Even after having removed from the Cruz, Díaz remained at risk, while Lux struck a bouncer with two outings on the right side of the inner field. While Luisangel Acuña was going for Crayer, Díaz – Conscious of the match 161 last year, when he failed to cover the first goal in a blown backup against the Braves – sprinted to beat Lux in the bag. Acuña launched a strike in Díaz, who caught her, slammed one of her new shoes on the first basis, slapped her chest with her free hand and shouted.
“This is what makes him what he is,” said Mendoza.
Earlier in the evening, the dishes seemed ready to switch to victory when they hit five points – including a Mark’s Single Venos RBI and a solo circuit – against the left -hander of the Reds Andrew Abbott. But David Peterson made most of the third and fourth rounds, forcing the enclosure of New York readers to make a position.
Ryne Stanek, Brooks Raley and Tyler Rogers did exactly that, combining eight outings mainly without stress before Díaz entered with an advance of a point in the ninth.
Díaz was released for some time later, wearing a new pair of shoes, but with secure victory.
“He certainly did not make things easy,” said Stanek, “but it was Houdini’s hell.”
For the dishes, the victory gave them an increased breathing room in the joker race. With 21 games to do, they are now heavy favorites to secure one of the three Joker points. They can make it extremely difficult on the Reds with another victory or two this weekend.
“We obviously know where they are,” said Peterson. “But at the same time, we did not really focus on this. We are focused on victory for each match, spending 1-0 every day. We were able to do it today.”
