A new manager, the same outcome that most Mets fans have come accustomed to this season.  Jerry Manuel’s first game as interim manager of the Mets didn’t go as he had hoped as the Mets were beaten by the Los Angeles Dodgers 6-1 on Tuesday night.  It was supposed to be a big pitchers duel between John Lackey and Johan Santana but Lackey got the best of the Mets while Santana gave up three early runs.

Santana gave up three runs in the first inning as the Mets fell behind early in the game.  An error in the first by Carlos Delgado helped the Angels in the first inning but Santana was still having problems without that error.  Santana ended up throwing six innings and giving up eight hits and five runs (four earned).  Jeff Mathis took Santana deep in the sixth inning as well.

Aaron Heilman and Claudio Vargas both pitched one inning in relief. Heilman pitched a scoreless seventh inning but Vargas gave up a run in the eighth inning on a infield single.

The one run for the Mets came in the first inning when David Wright grounded into a double play that scored Damion Easley.  Easley was pitch running for Jose Reyes who left the game in the first inning with some tightness in his left hamstring.  Hopefully Reyes won’t be out too long but you never know with a hammy.

Mets Blog

The New York Mets beat the Arizona Diamondback’s 5-3 in 13 innings on Wednesday night stopping a five game losing streak.  Because the Braves lost to the Cubs and the Marlins beat the Phillies, the Mets gained a game in the standings and now sit just 6.5 games out of first.   

The Mets scored three early off Diamondbacks’ starter Brandon Webb.  In the fourth innings, Jose Reyes lead off bunting for a base hit, Luis Castillo singled on a base hit to the pitcher and Reyes advanced to third on the throwing error by Webb.  David Wright was retired on a ground out to third but Carlos Beltran hit a single to center field that scored both Reyes and Castillo.  Beltran advanced to third on a ball hit by Carlos Delgado that was deflected off Brandon Webb.  The ball seemed to hit him in the hip, there was an injury delay but Webb stayed in the game until he was removed for a pinch hitter in the top of the sixth.

Mike Pelfrey had the best outing of his career and left the game after pitching to one hitter in the bottom of the ninth inning.  In 8+ innings of work, Pelfrey had thrown 110 pitches, gave up just 5 hits, with 8 strikeouts, two walks, and one earned run.  That run scored when Billy Wagner gave up a three run homer in the bottom of the ninth.  I felt so bad for Mike Pelfrey when Wagner blew the game.  Pelfrey had caught a lot of heat for some of his pitching performances and rightfully so, but as of late he has had three strong outings, in his last three starts he is pitching to a 1.71 ERA

Billy Wagner had his third blown save of the year, his second in the midst of this losing streak.  With two on and two out, Mark Reynolds hit a three run blast on a fast ball that he took over the center field wall.  That marked that second consecutive blown save by Wagner where he did so by giving up a three run homer.  For the Mets bullpen it was the 13^th homerun that they had given up in 11.2 innings.  However, the rest of the bullpen did their job putting up zeros in extra innings, Pedro Feliciano pitched the 10^th, Aaron Heilman pitched the 11^th and 12^t allowing just one hit and had three strikeouts, and Claudio Vargas pitched the 13^th. 

In the bottom of the 13^th Luis Castillo reached on a fielding error by Mark Reynolds, after fouling off two pitches, Carlos Beltran hit a two run walk off homer to right center.  That hit not only won the game for the Mets but it extended their record to 5-0 in extra innings at Shea Stadium this season. 

Happy Birthday to Jose Reyes, he celebrated his 25^th birthday on Wednesday night.  That was just one night after his 5^th anniversary of his Major League debut.  Also, it looks like I might have overestimated just how long Moises Alou would stay off the DL.  He has apparently reinjured the calf strain, the one that landed him on the DL his last go around.  Anyway, he is scheduled for an MRI today. 

 Johan Santana will be on the mound for the Mets in the rubber game of the series, the Diamondbacks counter with Dan Harren.  First pitch is scheduled for 1:10 p.m.  On Friday the Texas Rangers make there way to Shea for a three game interleague series. 

Mets Blog

The New York Mets coming off a terrible weekend opened a three game series against the Arizona Diamondbacks on Tuesday.  The Mets had John Maine on the mound and Moises Alou back in the lineup.  Early in the day, the Mets held a players only meeting behind closed doors where they discussed their goals for the rest of the season.  They all carried a sheet of paper that is their “blue print” for success.  Written on the paper were some motivational messages like, “team before self”, “We B4 I”, “We have time”.  The Mets plan was to go 62-38, finish with 92 wins and make the playoffs.  However, things didn’t exactly work out for the Mets and their little plan as they dropped the series opener 9-5 and put themselves in the midst of their second five game losing streak of the season.

The Diamondbacks scored first but the Mets came back in the bottom of the inning and scored three runs to take a 3-1 lead.  In the bottom of the second with a runner on base, David Wright hit his 12^th homerun of the season, giving the Mets a 5-1 lead.  That lead would not stay for long as Orland Hundson hit a two run homer in the top of the fifth to cut the Mets lead 5-3. 

John Maine left the game after five innings, giving up five hits, three earned runs, three walks and seven strikeouts; he left the game after five innings because he had thrown 101 pitches.  It has been the same old story for Maine, he leads the majors in the amount of pitches thrown, and he is 30^th in the league in the amount of innings pitched.  John ends up throwing too many pitches early and as a result does not go deep into games.  He doesn’t always make adjustments, or isn’t able to close out innings.  And Tuesday night was no different.

Claudio Vargas was on the mound in relief with a 5-3 lead in the top of the sixth, he walked the lead off man then retired Chris Snyder on a liner to left.  With one and and one on, Justin Upton was hit by a pitch, and a grounder by Jeff Salazar allowed the runners to advance a base; both would score on Augie Ojeda singler that just made it past the glove of a diving Carlos Delgado and rolled into right field.  Ojeda would take second on Endy Chavez’s throw to home, but was stranded there when Vargas retired Chris Young to end the inning.

There was some excitement when in the top of the seventh inning, the weather worsened and the Umps suspended play, Billy Wagner and Scott Schoeneweis came out of the bullpen to help the grounds crew secure the tarp on the field.  All I could think, as nice as it was that they helped out, I figured one of them would end up breaking a finger or spraining their ankle.  Luckily though, the tarp went down without injury and the Mets were on a rain delay for about an hour.  After the rain delay, Joe Smith gave up a homerun to Chris Snyder in the top of the eighth to give the Diamondbacks a 6-5 lead.  The Diamondbacks would hit two homers off Duaner Sanchez in the top of the ninth to make it 9-5.  It should be noted that when Rick Pederson visited the mound in the ninth and when Willie Randolph came to the mound to remove Sanchez from the game, they were both booed. 

As I mentioned before, Alou finally returned to the Mets line up after missing 18 games with a strained right calf.  The Mets are playing their 63^rd game of the season and Moises Alou has played in 15 of them. Judging by this, he should be hurt again by Saturday.  Seriously though, Alou hit the first pitch he saw and drove in two runs.  For the night Alou was 1-2 with 2 RBI.  After the rain delay, he was replaced by Damion Easley because of stiffness in his calf.  Marlon Anderson also came off the DL and pinch hit in the bottom of the seventh.      

 The Mets placed Ryan Church on the DL retroactive to last Friday.  It is thought that he should be able to join the team when they return to Colorado at the end of June.  This whole thing has been a mess and handled so poorly.  Church will not be allowed to resume any baseball activity until he is 100% symptom free, and according to Mets brass, they will make their decision solely on medical advice of Church’s neurologist.  Great, only took them three weeks to figure out what to do.  Consider this, Moises Alou had talked his way off the DL and into the starting line up last weekend during the Padres series, but the Mets waited until Tuesday to allow him to play because they wanted to be “cautious.”   I don’t know if that is an example that the Mets realize that Alou is made of glass or if they really just didn’t pay attention to what was happening with Church but you really have to do a better job than that.  If they had paid closer attention to Church’s condition, maybe he would not be going through this right now.       

Also, I know that it is still technically early, and that headed into play Tuesday night there were 100 games left in the season, but dating back to exactly on year ago the Mets are now 82-82.  There is no reason to believe that the Mets are going to pick it up any time soon and turn this around.  I love the fact that the manager Willie Randolph says that there are still 100 games left to play.  I am sick of hearing that there is a lot of baseball left to play.  What will the excuse be when there are only 81 games left in the season?  Is that still a lot of baseball left to play?  Or, how about last year with 17 games to play, was that a lot less baseball left to play?  Yes, so your point is that the Mets can turn this around.  Funny though, we were saying to ourselves in September there are only 17 games to go, the Mets can’t possibly blow this.  The Mets are not playing well now, they haven’t played well in a whole year, and the fact that it just keeps getting worse, isn’t lost on anyone.  People can clamor all they want about it isn’t Willies fault, or that there is still 100 games to go, but time is running out and the longer the Mets let this go, the harder it will be to over come.  If I was Willie I would be really annoyed by the fact that once the Mets had the lead then went on cruise control.  I don’t know if they have this false sense of security or maybe it is a sense of entitlement, whatever it is, they need to stay in the game, and play the whole game.   

The Mets continue the series with the Diamondbacks on Wednesday night, Mike Pelfrey will pitch for the Mets and the Diamondbacks will have Brandon Webb on the mound.  First pitch is scheduled for 7:10 p.m.

Mets Blog

The New York Mets got rocked on Monday night as the San Francisco Giants beat up on them by the score of 10-2.  The Giants came out and put up six quick runs in the first inning that put the Mets in a big hole that they were unable to get out of.  Talk about a knock out punch right away in the game.

Oliver Perez had a terrible outing as he gave up six runs on five hits while only record one out in the first inning.  Perez gave up two home runs and walked two batters.  That is exactly what you don’t want your starting pitcher to do.

So the bullpen was called on early in the game and Claudio Vargas came in and pitched 4 2/3 innings of scoreless baseball.  Vargas did a ver good job for the Mets.  Carlos Muniz then came into the game and gave up four runs on six hits over 1 2/3 innings.  Once Muniz gave up the four runs, it was all but over for the Mets.

The Mets offense was only able to record six hits in the game.  Usually Giants pitchers give up quite a few hits, but the Mets offense was so bad last night they were lucky to get six.  Jose Reyes and Luis Castillo both had rbi’s for the the Mets.  Reyes had a rbi double in the second inning and Castillo had a rbi single in the fourth inning.

The Mets will try to get back on track as they play the Giants once again on Tuesday.  The Mets are needed to pick up a win as they are back at .500 with a 28-28 record.

Mets Blog

The New York Mets in unlikely fashion beat the Florida Marlins 7-6 in a 12 inning game in which the Mets came from behind not once, but twice to win.  For a second game, Personal Relations Director Jay Horowitz donned a hideous orange jacket.  Horowitz first wore the jacket on Tuesday night, and it seems will have to wear it until the Mets lose, let’s hope he is wearing that jacket for a long time!  The jacket is a leftover from Jeromey Burnitz era and has often been worn by Pedro Martinez as a club house joke.  Well, the luck it has brought the Mets the last two nights isn’t a joke, for the second night in a row the Mets not only notched a win, but they actually looked better as a team.   

The Mets jumped out to an early lead against Marlin’s starter Scott Olson on Luis Castillo’s two run homer in the bottom of the first inning.  The Mets would tack on another run in the bottom of the fourth on a sac fly by Fernando Tatis.  In the bottom of the fifth Jose Reyes would extend the Mets lead with his seventh homerun of the season.  Reyes extended his hitting streak to 13 games, and has safely reached base in 28 consecutive games.   

The Mets had a 4-2 lead in the sixth inning when Oliver Perez seemed to just lose his concentration.  Although Perez had allowed two homeruns earlier in the evening he had been pitching well, but in the sixth inning with one out, Perez walked Wes Helms; Dan Uggla hit a ball that David Wright was unable to make a play on.  So, with two on and one out Cody Ross came to the plate with one homerun under his belt and on a 2-1 count Ross hit his second home run of the game, a line drive to left field, the Marlins would take the lead 5-4. 

At that point, we knew that the Mets were 1-19 when they trailed in the 6^th inning, however, unlike those other games, the Mets didn’t give up.  They got excellent pitching the rest of the way, and in the bottom of the ninth inning, Endy Chavez came to the plate pinch hitting for Ramon Castro and tied the game with homerun to right field sending the game into extra innings. 

The Mets got great pitching the rest of the way, Scott Schoeneweis put up 0’s.  Aaron Heilman who is suddenly the Renaissance man, was dominant in his two innings of work he didn’t give up a hit and had four strikeouts. After pitching the ninth inning on Tuesday night, Billy Wagner pitched in the 10^th  and recoreded two strikeouts.  Duaner Sanchez pitched the eleventh, and actually had an at bat in the bottom of the inning recording a sac bunt.  After leaving a runner is scoring position in the bottom of the 11^th the Mets looked as if they might be in trouble in the top of the 12th when Alfredo Amezaga took Sanchez deep, giving the Marlins the lead 6-5.  But, the Mets would not be deterred this time, with the heart of the order due up to lead off the bottom of the 12^th, David Wright walked to start  the inning and Carlos Beltran hit a single to left that advanced Wright to third.  Damion Easley came up and struck out swinging, up next was Fernando Tatis who was playing for the injured Ryan Church, and he came through for the Mets hitting a rocket down the left field line that allowed both Wright and Beltran to score and the Met to win the game. 

It was great to watch the guys celebrate the victory, the guys rushed out of the dugout to greet Wright, Beltran and Tatis, jumping and pounding on each other, it was great to see them celebrate.  The Mets have had a long arduous season thus far and you really got the feeling that as much as they were elated with the victory, getting a come from behind win like that in extra innings, at least for one night, got the monkey off their backs.  It was a great game and the Mets played well.  

The Mets got good news regarding Pedro Martinez and his first rehab start.  Pitching in Port St. Lucie, Pedro threw 82 pitches, 63 of which were strikes, he gave up 4 hits and two earned runs-everything came in the fourth inning in the 2-1 loss to Vero Beach.  Pedro is scheduled to pitch for the Mets Tuesday against the San Francisco Giants.

Mets got not so great news about Ryan Church. Church visited a neurologist after suffering ill affects from a concussion he sustained in a game against the Braves.  Church has been told that he must rest and he has to avoid light.  Church has also been instructed that he has to be symptom free for 48 hours before he can resume baseball activity. 

The Mets open up a series against the Los Angels, Brad Penny will pitch for the Dodger and the Mets will counter with Claudio Vargas.  First pitch is scheduled for 7:10 p.m.   

Mets Blog

The New York Mets ended their five game losing streak with a 9-2 win over the Colorado Rockies on Saturday afternoon.  They finally found some offense and quickly went to work on Rockies’ starter Jeff Francis, jumping out to a five run lead in the first inning.  When all was said and done the Mets would score 9 runs off 12 hits. The Mets found the spark that has been missing during their losing streak; maybe it was the fact that they jumped out to a 5-0 lead.  However, I think the excitement of seeing rookie Nick Evans make his major league debut going 3-4 with three doubles and two RBI helped a little bit too.  Evans was called up from AA Binghamton where he has played in 43 games, hitting .296 with 31 RBI.  Evan’s offensive production marked only the second time in the last 58 years that a Mets rookie went 3-3 in this major league debut; the last Met to do that was Kaz Matsui.   

The New York Mets lost the first game of a three game series to the Colorado Rockies 6-5 in 13 innings Friday night.  The Mets have now lost five games in a row and have fallen two games under .500.  

Oliver Perez was his usual head case self, he pitched five innings, giving up four runs on six hits, eight walks, yes your read that right, eight walks and two strikeouts.  He was more the Oliver Perez we saw against the Pirates rather than the Oliver Perez we saw Sunday against the Yankees.  What is with this guy?  When he is on, his stuff is great, but you never know which Oliver Perez you are going to get.  Eight walks? 

Aaron Heilman continues to struggle.  I just don’t know what they are going to do with this guy.  It seems like every time he pitches he gives up runs.  His era is now 6.29.  In 24 1/3 innings he has given up 27 hits, 21 runs, 17 of which were earned, 13 walks, and 21 strikeouts.  Is he still thinking he can be a starter? Who knows what is going on with this guy, but things are not going to get any easier for him, especially if the Mets don’t start winning some games.  If he thinks the fans have been brutal thus far, there is still a lot of ball left to play and things will get even tougher, not only for him but for the whole team. 

It was Billy Wagner who let this one get away.  We knew it was a matter of time before he really blew one but too bad it happened when the Mets were two outs away from ending their losing streak.  Wagner worked two innings; he struggled in the ninth giving up three hits, and one run, that was the homerun to Matt Holliday which tied the game.  Wagner did work a 1-2-3 tenth inning though.   

The Mets scored five runs off ten hits.  Carlos Delgado and Fernando Tatis hit back to back homers in the sixth, in fact Delgado had two hits last night to raise his average to a whopping .222, good job Carlos, you’re hot now!  David Wright was 0-6 with three strikeouts and Carlos Beltran was 0-5 with one walk.  The heart of the order is really struggling right now; hopefully getting Ryan Church back in will help some. 

I know that Omar Minaya was in Colorado and reiterated to the press that Randolph is the manager, but how much longer can they keep him?  I am not advocating for someone to get fired, but when you are the head of a team, you are the “boss” and when your team isn’t performing, you have to take some of the blame.  Willie has lost the team.  I had the same discussion this year during football season.  My beloved Huskers struggled in a year when they were supposed to be really good and after a game in which the Huskers turned in an dreadful, uninspired performance where they were outplayed like the Mets were out played earlier this week, we knew that Bill Callahan had to go.  Bill had lost the team, he could no longer lead, and of course, ultimately he did lose his job.  How long can the Mets let this go on?  How many losses?  We’re at five and counting.  This mediocrity has gone on for a year.  We can’t overlook the good things that have happened since Willie took over; the Mets have had a winning record and they did go to the playoffs, but you also can’t overlook the disastrous ending to last season.  I don’t care what the players say, it has carried over.  Every day this goes on the Mets will fall further out of contention, they have to get this fixed before they find themselves in a hole that they can not climb out,  they have too big a payroll to be a .500 teams over 180 games. 

Ryan Church was scratched from the line up last night as he said the flight did not agree with him, he was hoping to be in the line up this afternoon.  Marlon Anderson left the game with a pulled hamstring and it looks like he will have to go on the DL. 

The Mets will send Caludio Vargas to the hill this afternoon and he will be opposed by Jeff Francis.  The game is scheduled for 3:55 start. 

Mets Blog  

The New York Mets played a day night double header against the Atlanta Braves on Tuesday, losing the first game 6-1 and the second game 6-2.  Just when you start to think that maybe the Mets are heading in the right direction after their great weekend against the Yankees, the Mets let us down again and under perform and all that negative talk starts again. 

Tom Glavine started game one for the Braves, and in the first inning the Mets had him on the ropes, jumping out to a 1-0 lead off Luis Castillo’s first home run of the season.  The Mets loaded the bases but Moises Alou hit a line drive to Chipper Jones, and Carlos Delgado hit a long fly ball that was tracked down by right fielder Jeff Francoeur after that, Glavine retired the next 17 batters he faced.  Too bad Glavine didn’t pitch that well when he was with the Mets.   

The Mets offense was feeble once again, I know I’ve used that word before, but how else can it be described?  Seriously, the Mets got one run off six hits off Galvine in the first game, and in the second game, against Jorge Campillo, who hasn’t started in the majors since 2005, they got only three hits and scored zero runs.  The Mets did finally score two in the top of the eighth on and RBI double by Ramon Castro, and an RBI single by Jose Reyes.    

Mets pitching woes continue, where was the John Maine who pitched against the Dodgers last week?  Yesterday’s John Maine pitched just four innings, (but did face two batters in the fifth) giving up eight hits, four earned runs, three walks and two strikeouts.  To be fair the Braves did a good job in their at bats against Maine, and ran counts full, fouling pitches off.  However, Maine didn’t exactly put anyone away either.  It wasn’t just Maine though; Aaron Heilman pitched one inning giving up a two run homer to Brian McCann.  The second game wasn’t much better.  Claudio Vargas coming off that great start against the Washington Nationals started for the Mets, however, he didn’t quite pitch as well as he did last week going five innings giving up four runs on five hits with two walk and one strike out.  The Braves added two more runs off Matt Wise who gave up a two run homer to Mark Kotsay.   

Of course, this negative talk isn’t helped by the fact that Willie Randolph is whining to the press that he is unfairly portrayed by SNY-the Mets own television station.  He also made remarks that the way he is treated might be related to race.  He has since back tracked on the race thing, but still believes that he is misunderstood.  Here is the gig Willie, all that Mets’ fans understand is wins and losses, and if you are whining when you are losing you are not leading.  There is a reason why your team is not performing, and it is hard to believe that it doesn’t have something with you not doing your job.  Funny, you told Billy Wagner to keep things in the club house, but you neglected to take your own advice.  If you guys don’t do something in the next two games against the Braves and in your next series against the Rockies, you’re going to return home to one unhappy Mets crowd, and none of this is going to get easier.   

So, if things aren’t bad enough, Ryan Church was hospitalized after the game with a concussion, he hit his head on the knee of Yunel Escobar when he tried to break up a game ending double play.  Not great news as Church is the only starter who has shown any constancy for the Mets. 

Tuesday was a sad day for this Mets fan when ex Met Mike Piazza released a statement regarding his official retirement from Major League Baseball.  Piazza was the reason I started watching the Mets.  He brought an excitement to Shea Stadium that no one has yet to recapture.  Here’s hoping we get to see Mike sometime in the future, maybe on baseball telecasts.     

First pitch for Wednesday’s night game is scheduled for 7:10 p.m.  The Mets will send Mike Pelfrey to the mound and he will be opposed by Jair Jurrjens. 

Mets Blog   

The New York Mets completed a rain shortened series with the New York Yankees on Sunday night with an 11-2 win.  However, one can only guess what the score might have been if not for an awful call by the umpires in the fourth inning.  The Mets had scored three runs off of Yankee starter Chien-Ming Wang when Carlos Delgado came to the plate.  Delgado hit a shot to left field that struck the foul pole and bounced into the crowd, third base umpire Mike Reilly called it a homerun; however first base umpire Alfonso Marquez said it was a foul ball, and after the umpires gathered to discuss it, the call was reversed by home plate umpire Bob Davidson.  Replays on the telecast showed that the ball was clearly a homerun, and when television cameras caught up with the guy who was sitting next to the foul pole and had possession of the “foul” ball, there was a black scuff mark on the ball and a white scuff mark on the foul pole.  Lucky for those umpires that Delgado went on to hit a RBI single and that those two runs did not cost them a victory.

I was concerned that that call not going the Mets way was going to be a problem.  I thought for sure the Mets would end up losing the game 6-5 and that call would really make or break the game.  But, the Mets went back to work and really did what they had to do to win the game.  Seven of the nine Mets starters all had a hit, David Wright and Jose Reyes each had two hits, Reyes hit a homerun, his second of the series and fourth of the season.  However, the best thing that came out of that blown call debacle was that Willie Randolph actually got fired up.  He went out to argue the call with the umpires, when play resumed, Randolph must have continued jawing from the dugout because ESPN’s microphones picked up the shouts of home plate umpire Bob Davidson yelling “Shut up Willie!”  Although Davidson did not eject Randolph, bench coach Jerry Manuel who really got into with the umpires, was thrown out of the game.

Oliver Perez did a great job on Sunday night.  It looked like he might get into trouble in the bottom of the fourth when after the excitement in the top half of the inning, Perez gave up a lead off single to Derek Jeter and then a two run shot to Hideki Matsui to make it 4-2.  It looked like Perez might lose it in that fourth inning, but he composed himself and went 7 2/3, walked only two, gave up two earned runs on three hits, and struck out five.  Other than that one inning, Perez pitched really well.  He gave the Mets exactly what they needed, going deep in the game and preserving the win.   He is really going to be a big key to the Mets success down the road if they are going to go anywhere this year, and it was good to see him get it together instead of going into complete meltdown mode.

This was a great weekend to be a Mets fan.  The Mets finally played the way you expect them to, as a team they were great.  Ryan Church continues to make a name for himself.  His defense is really good, and he also has put up great offensive numbers, hitting his ninth homerun of the season last night; Church is now hitting .307 with 9 homeruns, 32 RBI.  I just hope that the Mets can capitalize on this momentum and play tough; they are now in second place, just one game out of first and tied in the loss column with the Marlins.  This upcoming road trip could be a big challenge; they’ve got four games in Atlanta and three in Denver against the Rockies.  After the trip, the Marlins come to town for three and then the Mets close out May with three against the Dodgers.  The Mets could really make some headway here in these next 13 games.  It would be great for them to open the up division a bit and put some distance between them and .500.   

The Mets have an off day on Sunday, and open a series with a double header against the Atlanta Braves on Tuesday.  First pitch for game one is scheduled for 1:10 p.m.  The Mets will finally face Tom Glavine who will pitch the first game of the double header; he will be opposed by John Maine.  Claudio Vargas coming off a great start against the Washington Nationals, will start the 7:10 p.m. nightcap for the Mets.

Mets Blog