OH, MY HAMMY!

That didn't go well.

Pedro Martinez' healthy period lasted all of three and one-third innings in 2008. After inducing a grounder from Matt Treanor (how's that name for irony?), Petey grabbed the back of his leg and called out the Mets trainers. ESPN is reporting that he heard a "pop" in his hamstring. It might have been champagne coming from Phillies' and Braves' clubhouses.


Pedro wasn't exactly looking like Johan Santana at the time, ceding homers to Dan Uggla and Luis Gonzalez in his brief stint. According to the fine Marlins broadcast team of Rich Waltz and Tom Seaver-killer Tommy Hutton, Luis Gonzalez is third on the all time list for homers by a left fielder (only Mr. Bonds and Mr. Williams are his betters), which was pretty shocking to me at least. He still throws like a particularly unathletic girl.


The Mets erased a 4-0 deficit to tie the game, mostly with walks, singles, and sac flies. Marlins starter Rick Vandenhurk was no Dutch Master, throwing 76 pitches in 3-plus innings of work and giving up three of the four runs. That left the decision to the bullpens, and both were outstanding. After Renyel Pinto bailed out Vandenhurk in the third inning, the rest of Florida's pen yielded only a questionable infield hit to Brian Schneider for the rest of the game. It's a shame that the Marlins will have to wear these guys' arms out, because they look pretty good when fresh. The Mets pen was equally as good, especially Jorge Sosa, who finished up for Pedro in the third and went two more scoreless frames.


The 4-4 score held until the bottom of the 10th, after I had given up and gone to bed. Fifth Met reliever Matt Wise served up a nice fat one to someone called Robert Andino, who smacked it over the scoreboard in left field for the game-winner. All 27 Marlins fans left at the game drove home through the chowder-like south Florida humidity happy, and the Mets dropped to 1-1.


I was watching the game, as I will most games this year, on MLB.TV. I chose MLB.TV over ExtraInnings from the cable provider because I travel so much. At home, I have a 42" LCD TV, to which I have connected a spare PC in the VGA input of the TV. It works great, and I love being able to check my Strat team's live stats between innings. I bought the Premium package to take advantage of their higher resolutions. This year, they upped the highest resolution to 1.2 megabits, but I ended up watching most of it at 800 kilobits because the 1.2 feed kept freezing up at least twice per half-inning. MLB makes you download some kind of "web accelerator" if you want to watch the 1.2 feed, and as soon as I saw that, I knew it wasn't going to be very good. I can only hope Time-Warner continues to improve their bandwidth up to broadcast quality, because this accelerator business will never cut it. Maybe in 2013 I'll get a decent picture.


The Mets take on the Istiophoridae again today, with Oliver Perez matching left arms with rookie Andrew Miller. Miller is on my Strat team, so I fully expect a thumping from the Mets' bats. I only hope young Andrew can keep it from turning Buerhle-esque.