Ok, where did I leave off? I had disparaged Oliver Perez' command of the strike zone, and Luis Castillo's power. Oh, yeah, right. They kind of shoved that back in my face on Wednesday. Well, only kind of. Perez walked four and gave up five runs in six innings, but Castillo did hit a first-inning homer. It was actually a great game, especially for the Mets. Endy Chavez tied it up in the bottom of the 9th off Marlins closer Kevin Gregg with his first home run of the season, and after super-pest Alfredo Amezaga hit a solo shot in the top of the 12th, the Mets rallied for two runs in the bottom to win it 7-6. Fernando Tatis continued his return from the void with the game-winning double, scoring David Wright and Carlos Beltran. You can thank my Strat team for this one, as the losing pitcher was Justin Miller, one of my many one-year wonder bullpen bums.
On Thursday, Wright took care of the Dodgers with a pair of two-run blasts, finally putting a Met in double-digits in that category, as the Mets backed up emergency starter Claudio Vargas with eight runs in an 8-4 pasting of LA. Vargas managed to nearly squander a 6-0 lead, but Carlos Muniz bailed out an ineffective Pedro Feliciano in the 6th with two on and the score 6-4 and got Matt Kemp swinging to end the threat. I was at Ala Moana Center again during this game. They have another Starbucks, in the Barnes & Noble! It only took me half an hour to find that one.
Friday brought another Aaron Heilman disaster. I was back home watching this in the Man Cave on the Big Vizio via MLB.TV. The Mets led 5-4 in the 8th when Pedro Feliciano yielded a cheap hit to Juan (only playing because Andruw Jones got hurt) Pierre. Willie wheeled in Heilman, who completely imploded, again. Kemp doubled, and Jeff Kent, James Loney, and Russell Martin all singled before Willie finally brought in Scott Schoenweis. Scottie gave up a wild pitch and another hit, making the final 9-5. Heilman's ERA is now 6.67, and I'm sure his peripheral stats aren't much better. I'm assuming he's out of options, and they'd have to put him through waivers to send him to New Orleans. That might not be such a bad idea. His confidence is shot, and a change of team may help him. He ain't helping us at all.
The Mets returned the 8th inning favor on Saturday in front of a national television audience on FOX, at least when Ken Griffey, Jr, wasn't going for his 600th homer (Leo Mazzone is doing color commentary? With that ridiculous Brooklyn accent? Really?) My man Chad Billingsley was dominant for seven innings, allowing only four feeble Mets hits and no runs. Mike Pelfrey didn't pitch too badly, except for the first and fourth innings when he gave up single runs each time and the Dodgers botched up what could have been much bigger innings. In the 8th, Joe Torre brought in his normal 8th inning guy, Jonathan Broxton, who ended up looking like a fatter Heilman. Wright started off with a ringing double off the right field wall, and then Beltran tied the game with a huge homer in almost the same area that one-hopped the scoreboard. Carlos Delgado got a rare single, and his pinch-runner, Nick Evans was bunted to second by Damion Easley. After an
intentional pass to Brian Schneider, The Missing One, Tatis, did it again, smacking a base hit up the middle to give the Mets the lead and send Broxton to the post-game spread. Billy Wagner struck out the side in the 9th for his 11th save.
Sunday was Johan Santana time. After a quick run in the first on a Pierre double and Kemp single, Johan was very much the ace, going 7 and 2/3 before being unable to escape a mini-jam in the 8th. The Mets clobbered Hiroki Kuroda again for the second time in less than a month, and held on this time for a 6-1 win. Ryan Church returned from post-concussion syndrome to hit his 10th home run.
This morning, the Mets flew out to San Francisco and will play the Giants tonight. They'll miss Tim Lincecum and get Jonathan Sanchez, one of my Strat team punching bags, and Barry Zito, everyone's punching bag. Aside from the jet lag, this should be a good stretch. They'll head down to San Diego, a team in free-fall, and then come back home to play the slumping Arizona D'Backs and the (equally, to be fair) mediocre Texas Rangers. We're 3 and 1/2 games behind Philadelphia, who has been crushing the ball lately. I think we'll be settling in here for the next few weeks, with Florida zooming past us on their way to fourth place and Atlanta hanging around with us in second or third. If St. Louis finally hits their predicted collapse, we could be in range for the wild card, provided nobody else of importance gets hurt.
Petey's back on Tuesday! Yaaaaayyy!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment