Game 1 Mets 6 Braves 4 John Maine evened his record at 2-2 as the Mets edged the Braves 6-4. Maine pitched fairly well as he only had a one inning meltdown, much like Pelfrey did two nights ago against the Phils. Maine imploded in the second giving up three runs on three walks and an error by Luis Castillo. John threw much better afterward seemingly relying more on his fastball. Maine had to be grateful for Jordan Schafer though; the rookie CF for Atlanta leads the league in K’s so far and every time Maine needed a big out, guess who was up? Maine struck out Schafer swinging twice in big spots to keep the Mets in it. The Mets trailed 3-0 going into the sixth when Carlos Beltran and David Wright each hit two run HR’s to give the Mets the lead. Beltran added another two run shot in the seventh. Javier Vazquez had only given up one HR so far this year before giving up three tonite. Bobby Parnell, JJ Putz and Frankie Rodriguez closed it out. Parnell has been awesome so far. Putz gave up a HR to Chipper, what else is new? It’s only his 40th HR against the Mets. And Rodriguez notched his 6th save in 6 chances.
Game 2 Mets 4 Braves 3 Livian Hernandez tossed 6 1/3 strong innings to pace the Mets. Ramon Castro had three hits while Carlos Delgado, David Wright and Carlos Beltran had two each. Beltran is now hitting .404. Please keep it up there Carlos. The game was closer than it had to be. The Mets took a 4-1 lead into the ninth with Rodriguez on the hill but a dropped pop up by Delgado lead to two unearned runs. K-Rod refocused to close it out to preserve the win. Kenshin Kawakami started for Atlanta and definitely caught Keith’s attention in the booth. Everything Kawakami threw was outside. One after another. Outside, outside, outside. Keith was explaining that the players should be watching this from the bench and adjusting as they went to the plate. Castro seemed to do this as his three hits were to the opposite field. At one point Keith even was counting how many pitches were outside as opposed to inside. When a graphic appeared onscreen stating Kawakami had thrown 89 pitches to that point, keith exclaimed..” and I bet 81 of them have been outside!”. I miss Keith when he’s not there.
Mets begin a set with the Phillies at Citifield with another segment of must see TV because Santana will be on the mound against Chan Ho Park.
