Game 2: Mets 4 Braves 3 (10 innings) Mike Pelfrey pitched seven strong innings, he allowed just two runs on six hits, he walked only one.  JJ Putz came into the game in the eight and stunk up the joint-he allowed one run on one hit while walking two.  Amazingly, after saying in spring training that he had no problem being the set up man Putz has changed his tune; apparently, he has admitted that he is having trouble getting excited to pitch the eighth inning-the adrenaline isn’t there! This is the kind of crap that annoys me to all hell.  Seriously, just shut up and do your job-by the way-I think it is worth noting that when you did have some adrenaline last year in Seattle you still weren’t all that great.  He claims that he is healthy but that, I believe will remain to be seen.  This was a great extra innings game; the Mets had not scored a run until they scored two in the bottom of the eighth off a Jose Reyes double-too bad Reyes was thrown out at third trying to stretch it into a triple.  In the ninth, the Mets tied the game, Carlos Beltran hit a double and with one out stole third-Chipper Jones was very unhappy with the call-but early in the game David Wright thrown out at second on stolen base attempt earlier in the game (and he was clearly safe) so I guess the game sometime hinges on bad calls, Chipper.  Oh and by the way, he was safe.  Anyway, Beltran scored on a sac fly by Luis Castillo.  In the bottom of the 10^th the Mets loaded the bases on a single by Reyes who stole second, Alex Cora was intentionally walked, Ramon Castro walked to load the based. Carlos Beltran came to bat with the bases loaded, Braves reliever Jeff Bennett walked him which scored the winning run.  For a second straight night, Delgado was not in the lineup.   

Game 3: Braves 8 Mets 7 (12 innings) This was a classic Mets Braves battle. The Mets had Jonathan Niese on the mound and lets just say, he didn’t pitch as well as the Mets would have liked. The Braves put up a two spot in the top of the first, but, the Mets came back and scored two in the bottom of the inning. The Braves would take the lead to make it 4-2 but in the bottom of fourth, Fernando Tatis hit a Grand Slam to put the Mets ahead 6-4. The Braves scored the go ahead run in the top of the eighth but the Mets fought back and tied the game in the bottom of the eighth on a homerun by Gary Sheffield.  The game went into extra innings but in the end the Mets couldn’t pull it off.  Ken Takahashi gave up a solo homer to Martin Prado to lead of the 12^th.  The Mets had a chance, Reyes lead off with a double and Castillo moved him over with a sac bunt, but with a guy on third, both Beltran and Sheffield stuck out to end the game.

The worst part about dropping two of three to the Braves is that the Mets could have won all three of these games. I think Jose Reyes had the worst series of his life. His defense, his base running, his show boating…this kid needs to get his head on straight.

Also worth nothing, for a third straight game, the Mets were without Carlos Delgado. The Mets have come out and said that if Delgado isn’t feeling better by Friday they will put him on the DL. This could spell trouble for the Mets. Delgado’s power can’t be replaced by a platoon at first; as much as I like Tatis, I would be remiss to believe that he could take over for Delgado.

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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 40^th HR against the Mets.  And Rodriguez notched his 6^th 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.

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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 3^rd 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.

Game 1: Cardinals 6 Mets 4  Another poor outting by the overpaid Oliver Perez.  Perez pitched 4.2 innings allowing four earned runs on six hits.  He walked five and stuck out four.  I know that Perez has good numbers against the Phillies, Braves and Yankees, and yes, those are big games for the Mets-games the fans really want to win, but if Perez can’t pitch to the teams in between those series, then he is useless to the Mets.  Really though, the Mets had this one and again, scored early and the bats died late.  Also, I’d like to stop hearing how the Mets should have signed Derek Lowe-I really believe that he didn’t want to pitch in New York; the only problem now is that the Mets will have to contend with him in their division-and it seems that Lowe is the only good thing the Braves have going for them at this point in the season.  This is also a game that Daniel Murphy would like to forget; terrible base running and even worse fielding did not really make this one of Dan’s best days.  I know the kid is playing out of position and at the beginning of the season, I felt the Mets were hoping that Castillo would get off to a good start so that they might have the possibility of moving him by or before the trade deadline and actually moving Murphy to second base, there is no indication that the Mets are going to do that it is merely wishful thinking on my part!  You can now point to two games that poor defense by Murphy has cost the Mets a win-I’d like to not have to hold my breath every time a ball is hit in his direction, it has become quite an adventure out there in left these days! 

Game 2: Cardinals 5 Mets 2 Oh look, more of the same.  Putrid pitching by John Maine put the Mets in a hole early, Maine gave up one in the first, two in the third and two in the fourth inning.  Maine walked five while only striking out two.  Again, the Mets left 11 guys on base;  Carlos Beltran continued to swing a hot bat, but David Wright seems to night be able to do anything at the plate when there is a guy on base-if the Mets are going to do anything, Wright has got to pick it up at the plate.

Game 3: Cardinals 12 Mets 8  Guess what happend in this game?  Oh-right, more awful pitching, more guys left on base, 20 to be exact.  Albert Pujols punished mets pitchers by hitting two homers (but what Cardinal didn’t get a hit?).  Not only did Livian struggle but Sean Green, who has been less than impressive stunk too.  The best thing about this game is, it was the last of the three game series which means the Mets return home to start a three game series with the Nationals.  Not that that will be a given for the Mets as they’ve had trouble with the Nats in recent years. 

Mike Pelfrey will return to the rotation on Saturday after resting a strained forearm-I can’t even predict what we’ll see.  There is talk that Mike Pelfrey (and possibly Oliver Perez) could be sent down if they don’t perfom well.  I’m sure it is just talk because what other options do they have? 

Mets Blog

Game 1: Mets 5 Brewers 4 Highlighted by Gary Sheffield’s 500^th HR the Mets were able to come from behind to edge the Brewers. Livian Hernandez looked good thru 5 innings but lost it in the 6^th. You could see it coming too. Jerry Manuel left Livian in there a bit too long and he surrendered a 3 run homer to Ryan Braun leaving the Mets on the short side of a 4-3 deficit. Sheffield took care of that with a pinch hit HR to tie it in the 7^th. It was a good AB by Sheff too. Fouled off quite a few pitches before getting one on the inside half that he deposited in the left field stands. The Mets won it in the bottom of the ninth when an infield hit from Castillo scored Carlos Delgado from third. 

Game 2: Mets 1 Brewers 0 This is what is going to be known as a “chalkboard” game from here on out. As in “this is how we draw it up on the chalkboard”. Santana goes 7 strong (more on Johan later), Putz in the 8^th and Frankie Rodriguez in the 9^th for the save. This is how we envisioned it isn’t it? The Mets scored the only run of the game in the 7^th on a walk to Castro, an error by Weeks trying to take the throw at first on a sac bunt by Cora, and a hot shot by Reyes. And I mean a HOT SHOT. After Omir Santos made it to third on the error (he was pinch running for Castro. How often do you see a catcher pinch run? But I could run faster than Castro.) But back to Reyes, he knocked the glove off Villanueva’s hand. Seriously. I’m not kidding. He hit a liner back to the box that ripped the glove of his hand. The Brewers got a force at second but the only run of the game had already scored. Santana has now given up one, that’s right, one earned run in three starts. ERA…0.46. Yet, he’s only 2-1. But when Johan is on the mound its must see T.V.

Game 3: Brewers 4  Mets 2 The Mets were like 2 for a million with runners in scoring position leaving a thousand guys on base. Suppan pitched well enough to win and Todd Coffey got an eight out save. Don’t see that too often anymore. Coffey was able to wiggle out of bases loaded, one out, jams in the 7^th and 8^th. He got double plays both times. Both on hard hit shots by Delgado and Santos. Sometimes you hit ‘em right at ‘em. This leaves the Mets hitting .236 with RISP so far this year. Twelve games is not a lot so far but this seems to be a continuation from last year. Let’s hope not. 

But are twelve games enough to get a read? Let’s see, 6-6. Hitting? Eh. Bullpen? Great, lowest ERA in the majors so far. Starters? Santana and Hernandez are good; Maine, Pelfrey and Ollie are erratic. Didn’t we know that already?

Mets Blog

The mets dropped another series, this time to the Pods, to start the season at 4-5. 

Game 1 – Padres 6 Mets 5 Mike Pelfrey looked shaky (Now we know it’s forearm tendonitis) again.  David Wright brought the Amazins’ back with a three blast but bad outfield “D’ costs the mets for second game in a row. After Daniel Murphy staggered around like a drunk under a fly ball in Miami, Ryan Church turned the wrong way and had a long drive go off his glove for a three base error.  It was hardly a routine play but this IS the majors after all.  This proved to be the deciding play as this runner scored the go ahead run.  I know the guys are still getting use to their new surroundings, but as a team they have made eight errors.  Jerry Manual mentioned that he would like for the Mets to play better defense.  Gee..thanks Skip!

Game 2- Mets 7 Padres 2 Shoddy play by the Friars led to a victory by the home team. The Mets scored 4 runs in the 7^th to break open a close game. This may have been the WORST inning I’ve seen a big league team play in quite some time.  Four runs on no hits. Yeah, I know, Luis Castillo was credited with a hit.  Really?  Bitch, please.  Walks, errant throws around the bases, wild pitches.  Jose Reyes scored from first and he was only tryin’  to steal second.  Solid game for Ollie.  Good job by Manual for getting him outta there on a high note. 

Game 3—Padres 6 Mets 5 John Maine was bad. End of story.  After being staked to a 3 run lead on a long (449ft) HR by Carlos Delgado in the first, maine gave up 5 in the third and one more in the fifth.  Time after time Maine gets a guy down 0-2 or 1-2 and can’t put him away. He’s GOT to develop another pitch.  Fastball up and slider low and away is not cutting it anymore. SD’s LF Headley went 4-4 and was down in the count each time. The difference between elite pitchers and journeymen was on display clearly last night.  Jake Peavy gave up Delgado’s HR then shut the door.  Time after time the Mets had runners in scoring position but Peavy got big outs when it counted.  This is something I’ve noticed Santana does as well. Buckle down with runners on and get out of it.

I think what is most frustrating is the Mets let guys like Heath Bell and Duaner Sanchez shut them out like that.  I know the Mets as a team have said all kinds of stuff about last season and growing as a team and moving on; but really the Mets didn’t have much life in these three games and I do think we are getting close to the point where we might have to start to worry.  The staring pitching has stunk early (with the exception of Johan) and the Mets are still lacking those big hits with runners in scoring position.  The Brewers come to town for three-maybe that will spark something in the Mets when they get to see their old friend Willie Randolph.

On a side note, when Heath Bell came in to close the Mets down I couldn’t help but think how much he lookes like one of my favorite comics: 

Mets Blog

Game 2 Mets 8 Marlins 4. This game was closer than it needed to be.  Livan Hernandez made his Mets debut, he looked good. Hernandez pitched six and two thirds innings allowing two runs on six hits, he walked three and struck out four.  Darren O’Day worked a scoreless eight inning but ran into some trouble when David Wright made a throwing error in the bottom of the ninth, O’Day faced one more hitter before Frankie Rodriguez came in to finish out the game.  I don’t know what is up with David Wright; we’ve seen him do some nice work with the glove but for whatever reason he can’t seem to throw to first.  As far as offense goes, Jose Reyes was 2-5 with an RBI double and a two run homer.  What is even more amazing, Luis Castillo was 4-4 with one RBI and three runs scored, he started the night hitting .100 at the end of the game his average went up to .375 (gotta love what the early season can do for the batting average).  Jerry Manual told Castillo that he needs to be more aggressive at the plate and for at least one night that worked.  Oh-David Wright did have an RBI in the game, but it was off the brick that Dan Uggla uses as a glove, and it came when the game was 6-2. 

Game 3 Mets 1 Marlins 2. Not much to tell here.  Johan pitched his ass off; but Josh Johnson pitched better.  Johnson owns the Mets and now has a 5-0 record against the Mets.  The hitters couldn’t get much going; they finally scored a run in the top of the ninth inning but fell short when Ryan Church flied out to end the game.  The bigger part of all of this is that Daniel Murphy dropped a fly ball with two out in the second; one run to scored and then Ronnie Paulino hit a single to drive in the second unearned run.  The New York press is making a big deal because Johan commented after the game that the differences in the game was the error.  There has been a lot of back and forth about what Johan said, personally I read the quotes in the paper and watch the post game interview and my opinion is…his comments weren’t a big deal. 

The Padres come to town for three games and the opening of Citi Field. The Mets will have Pelfrey, Perez and Maine pitching against the Padres.

Mets Blog