Can you actually give Billy Wagner credit for a save last night?  I guess when you see official scoring you realize how absurd some of this stuff really is.  The guy almost blew the game, yet got credit for his 20^th save of the season.  What are the Mets going to do about this guy?  No one fears him, as a fan I don’t trust him in a big spot; actually, I don’t trust him at all.  And, it wasn’t just his pitching that was bad last night, on the error by Carlos Beltran on the throw to David Wright in the bottom of the ninth-where was Billy Wagner?  I can tell you he wasn’t backing up third.  First, yes, Beltran should not have made that throw, and since he did, Wright needed to knock it down, but even still Wagner needed to back up the play.  All weekend long, Keith Hernandez has been been talking about fundamentals (fundies as Keith calls them)-I guess Billy forgot both of fielding and pitching “fundies” last night.

So, with really no thanks to Wagner the Mets did pull out a win and are now over .500 for the first time since June 5, and are just 2.5 games out of first place.  There are two things I must say about the game.  1-that was NOT a homerun by Ryan Howard-and how is it that we are seeing so many of these blown calls on homeruns, we’ve seen two in Mets games this year, are the Umps trying to get instant replay?  And 2-The Mets could learn a few things from the Phillies, the Mets pitching let the Phillies chip away at that lead.  The Phillies did something last night that we have not seen the Mets do, and that is they never considered themselves out of the game.  Pedro Martinez looked much better last night, in 5 1/3 innings of work, he allowed two runs, both of which were homeruns, one by Chase Utley and here’s a surprise, one by Pat Burrell.  Pedro also walked three and struck out six.  Also, that ball park is awful, I can’t believe how balls just fly out of there, you almost shouldn’t even count the homeruns that are hit in that park, especially the bullsh*t ones that are nothing more than fly balls.

The Mets bullpen did not help much last night, Tony Armas Jr.,yeah, I know he is a “starter”, anyway, he gave up three earned runs in and inning and a third, and Aaron Heilman who pitched well the night before, didn’t pitch so well last night, he did have four strikeouts though, the biggest one was the Pat Burrell strikeout in the bottom of the seventh.  However, he is also the guy who gave up the two run homer to a guy who is mired in a 2-40 (well now 3-41) slump.  And, we’ve already been through the Billy Wagner outing, so I’ll leave it at that. 

The Mets were facing Adam Eaton who in his career has never had a loss to the Mets, but the Mets took it to him pretty hard early on scoring 8 runs in the first three innings.  The Mets had 17 hits Brian Schneider is the only one Met without a hit.  Even Pedro Martinez had a hit last night. David Wright was 2-5 with four RBI, hitting a homerun and a double.  Jose Reyes 2-4 with two runs scored and a stole base.  The bench guys continued their hot streak last night, Fernando Tatis was 3-4 and Damion Easley was 3-5.   

When the Mets left on this road trip, I said I would have liked for them to go 6-2, and thought realistically they would end up 4-4, but after Friday night’s debacle, I was worried that they wouldn’t even finish there.  However, the Mets complete the road trip 5-3 taking 3-4 from the Phillies.  This road trip and the fact that the Mets are now just 2.5 our with six to go before the all star break is bring a little life and excitement back to watching the Mets. 

The Phillies and the Marlins are the two teams ahead of the Mets so, as of today, the schedules for the Marlins and Philles before the all star break are as follows: Marlins have two more games with the Padres, and then four against the Dodgers and the Phillies play three with St. Luis and three with Arizona.  I guess that means that at least for this week, I am a Mets fan and a fan of any team playing the Phillies and the Marlins!  (Oh no!  That means I am actually rooting for the Cardinals!)

The Mets open a three game series with the San Francisco Giants-so if you see Chris “Mad Dog” Russo out at Shea-make sure to give him a hard time.  Giants will have Tim Lincecum on the mound and the Mets will throw Mike Pelfrey.  Game time is set for 7:10 p.m.    

Mets Blog