Game 1 Mets 7 Phillies 4 The Mets took an early lead on a Daniel Murphy HR in the first and never looked back. Chan Ho Park started for Phillies and looked like he should have retired four years ago. The real story was Mike Pelfrey who pitched better than his line indicated. He only went 5 1/3 giving up 3 earned but it’s deceiving. He had a minor meltdown in the 3rd giving up all 3 runs but threw the ball well otherwise. What you need to look for with Pelfrey is groundballs. His groundball to flyball ratio tonite was 2-1. 10 grounders to 5 balls in the air. That shows you he’s got good stuff that particular game. Mike also knocked in 2 runs with a sac fly and a single.
Game 2 Phillies 6 Mets 5 (10 innings) This is a game the Mets could have/should have won. In spite of the dreadful performance by Ollie Perez the Mets had a one run lead in the sixth but the Phils tied it on a HR by Raul Ibanez. This guys hitting like he’s Ty Cobb re-incarnate. Pedro Feliciano gave up HR’s to Ibanez and Utley in the two games. Now Pedro’s job is to get lefty’s out, if he’s not doing that, well…. In fairness to Feliciano, giving up a HR in this bandbox is not hard to do. Murphy hit two HR’s here, if that don’t tell you something, I don’t what will. MLB should look into what a joke this place is. No wonder the Phillies have three MVP candidates, all stats are inflated playing 81 games in this whiffle ball stadium. The Mets battled today though. After Perez had them behind the eight ball early I thought they were in trouble with Jamie Moyer on the hill for Philadelphia. But the Mets chipped away and went ahead in the sixth on back to back HR’s by Murphy and Castro and a single from Castillo which scored Alex Cora. Let me take a moment to say how impressed I am with Cora. What a heady, fundamentally sound player. A great addition. The Phils tied it on the aforementioned HR by Ibanez in the bottom of the inning. The Mets almost took the lead back in the eighth but Jason Werth threw out Omir Santos at the plate. JJ Putz looked as good as I’ve seen him so far tossing a scoreless eighth and ninth. Sean Green came in for the tenth (Was Rodriguez unavailable?) and promptly became the pitching version of Rick Ankiel. A slow roller down to third for an infield hit seemed to unnerve Green. Two walks and a hit batter and it was the Mets walking off losers of a game they could have taken.
Game 3 Rained Out..No make up announced yet.
What to do with Ollie Perez? On Saturday after his brutal performance (9.97 ERA for the season) Ollie said he was embarrassed and would accept a minor league assignment to work on his pitching or lack thereof. By Sunday he had though better of this and had cooled to the idea. But now, all of a sudden, according to him his knee hurts and has been hurting since spring training. Hmmmm. Can you say DL? Kinda like Wang of the crosstown evil empire. He went on the DL and is working it out in the Yanks minor league facility in Tampa. Ollie is only 1/3 as bad as Wang was. Wang’s ERA is, like, 34.50 or something. Ollie’s giving up 24 less runs per game than that. But what’s the difference if you accept a minor league assignment or go on the DL and go work out at the minor league facility? Perception? Whatever lets these high strung prima donnas sleep at night I guess.
