$*&%^ DVR!!

Game 12: Mets 8, Phillies 1
8-4 for the season

oh, I'm so annoyed-- the recording of the game cut out after 2.5 hours, in the bottom of the 6th. the Mets were up 4-1, and I can't even describe the 30 seconds of tension in my body as I called up mets.com to see if we kept the lead. my dad has been known to turn off a ballgame at a certain point, claiming that "if they blow it now, I don't want to see it." suffice it to say that I hadn't yet reached that point when my recording of the game ended.

as it turns out, the team doubled it with a run in the 7th and 3 in the 8th. so many days off at the beginning of the season is never good for the guys, but they performed really well tonight. Glavine got his 293rd win (and I was really glad that Willie and Ron let him hit in the 5th, even with 90 pitches already, so he could keep pitching and get the win), Wright continued his hitting streak, and Moises Alou hit his first homer of the year, drove in 3 runs over the course of the game.

the defense continues to impress-- 3 double plays tonight, one each in the first two innings. I'm continually impressed by the way Glavine wins. He's not a power pitcher, is never going to clock amazing heat over the plate, but he just never. gives. up. His second swing through the lineup showed clearly that he was pitching based on how it had gone his first way through-- the Phillies hitters didn't fall for the breaking ball the first time through, so Glavine just served up the fastballs they weren't expecting. the 5th inning was really impressive-- two strikeouts on the #3 and 4 guys in the Phil's lineup (both on the aforementioned fastballs they weren't expecting), getting himself in trouble and then getting out of it again not by overpowering the hitters but just by being smart and wearing them down. watching good pitching is truly one of the great pleasures in life.

I'm a little worried about Paul LoDuca-- he took a foul tip on his throwing hand in the bottom of the 4th and wasn't able to return to the game after he roughed out the rest of the inning. he looked in pain as he kept shaking the hand out in the dugout after the inning, and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the cold made it worse than it actually was, and he'll be OK to catch tomorrow night in Florida (where it's-- thank goodness!-- warm and humid). in any case, the x-rays they took of his hand showed nothing scary, so let's hope Paulie's hand is good enough to start tomorrow's game.

is anyone sure of what happened before the game started, when Willie talked to the umpires and Garcia (the starting pitcher for the Phillies) was made to go into the dugout and replace his red glove with a black one? as Ron Darling explained the new pitcher's glove rule, it's allowed to be any color other than white as long as it's not "distracting" for the hitters.

I've now changed my DVR to record the show following the ballgames on SNY-- hopefully that'll cover enough time to get the whole game.