The Mets get shutout by the Cubs as they close out the first half

The New York Mets were defeated by the Chicago Cubs on Sunday afternoon by the score of 7-0. The game took place at Citi Field in Flushing,New York. Jon Niese started for the Mets and didn’t pitch well. The Mets bullpen did pitch well. Daniel Murphy led the Mets offense. Ryan Dempster and the bullpen pitched very well for the Cubs. Starlin Castro led the Cubs offense. 
Niese pitched seven innings giving up nine hits and seven runs. He didn’t walk a batter and struck out three. Niese is now 7-4 on the season. Pedro Beato pitched a perfect inning with two strikeouts and Tim Byrdak pitched a perfect inning with two strikeouts. Dempster improved his record to 4-3. He pitched five innings giving up four hits and no runs with no walks and four strikeouts. Paul Maholm pitched one inning giving up two hits, Manual Corpas pitched an inning giving up a hit and James Russell pitched an inning giving up a hit. Shawn Camp pitched a perfect inning with a strikeout.

Ruben Tejada had a hit, Murphy had three hits and David Wright had a hit. Scott Hairston had a hit, Jordany Valdespin had a hit and Niese had a hit. Hairston had a triple, the Mets were 0-8 with runners in scoring position and left six men on base. Murphy had a stolen base.

Reed Johnson had two hits, Castro had two hits and three RBI and Alfonso Soriano had a hit and an RBI. Jeff Baker had two hits and an RBI, Geovany Soto had a hit and two RBI and Luis Valbuena had a hit. Baker had a double and Castro hit a homerun. The Cubs were 4-5 with runners in scoring position and left two men on base.

The Cubs took a 4-0 lead in the first inning. Soriano hit an RBI single, Baker had an RBI double and Soto had a two run single. Castro hit a three run homerun in the seventh inning to make it 7-0. That would be all the scoring in the game.

The Mets lost two out of three to the Cubs to close out the first half of the season. The Mets have had their trouble with the Cubs in the last month. The Mets record fell to 46-40. The Cubs improved their record to 33-52. The Mets still had a very good first half. They had very low expectations and have exceeded them. They are looking to stay in the race all the way to the end, it also helps that there is an extra wild card this year.