Knock 'em out with one shot

Game 23: Mets 1, Nationals 0
15-8 for the season

...for the rest of the night. Carlos Beltran can claim the line tonight, his solo homer having been one of only three hits for the Mets this afternoon in Washington, and the only that scored a run. the Nationals had six hits, but they weren't able to score against the Mets pitching staff today.

it was another pitchers battle for John Maine, who continues to pitch incredibly well. he went up to 4-0 tonight, and brought his ERA down to 1.35 with this start. he gave up only three hits and struck out eight in seven innings, and then Aaron Heilman, Scott Schoeneweis and Billy Wagner came in and gave up three hits between them to end the game with a shutout.

one could argue that the bullpen owed one to the fielders, and perhaps that's true, but for the last five games or so the Mets are not having good at-bats, much less hitting (unless the Met in question is Carlos Beltran). that's an issue that needs to be addressed, but in the end, this was a sweet win.

notably, Willie Randolph did not walk the starting lineup card out to the meeting at home base today, presumably because the very poor-sighted Tony Randazzo was calling the balls and strikes today.

extra innings are our friends

Game 22: Mets 6, Nationals 2 (12 innings)
14-8 for the season

this one started out being all about the first base umpire, which is never a good thing.

sometimes I wonder, in a game like this-- if you're Willie Randolph, are you just happy with the team for pulling it out in the face of the clearly bullshit calls (all you had to do was watch Willie's lips to see that-- again, no real facility with lipreading necessary), or are you annoyed with them for having crap at-bats and letting it go to the 9th and then the 12th without hitting?

More to come.

Half Full vs. Half Empty

Game 21: Mets 3, Nationals 4
13-8 for the season

if you're a glass half-full kind of person, you might focus on Oliver Perez's second really solid start in a row. he had 9 strikeouts and not a single walk in seven innings, ultimately throwing 120 pitches, much further than starting pitchers are asked to go in the majors these days. I'm mulling a post about how pitching has changed, but it's not fully formed yet, so in the interim I will just say that it was a fun throwback to see a pitcher allowed to go so far into his pitch count to gain every possible chance of a win. from a glass half-full perspective, you might also note that Alou went 3-for-4, LoDuca had a great sac fly in there, and Wright and Beltran both hit (if not at the most opportune times).

however, if that glass is looking half-empty to you, it might be impossible to get past the part where the Mets stranded 9 baserunners over the course of the game, never scored more than one run on any hit, missed chances to score guys from third base at least twice, and ultimately lost by a single run not because the pitching was bad but because the offense didn't produce.

my dad asked me a couple of weeks ago what worries me most about the team, and this is it-- the stranding of batters on base. championship teams don't do that very often. here's hoping this is merely an early-season blip.

what the heck was that?!

Game 11: Nationals 6, Mets 2
7-4 for the season

I have little to say about this performance, other than I have trouble seeing El Duque actually going after the opposing pitcher like that. He's a professional, the ball got away from him... because if he'd wanted to hit the guy, he could have done it in a much less obvious way.

as for the rest of the game, I'm glad I was sitting in a darkened theater laughing rather than in front of my TV (or worse, at the park) being frustrated by a crap performance on the field.

today's game has already been postponed, and even tomorrow's in Philly is questionable. here's hoping tonight's class will be canceled, too...

I said brrr, it's cold in here

Game 10: Nationals 2, Mets 3
7-3 for the season

...there must be some freaky weather in the atmosphere. it's cold in New York. so cold that even Willie Randolph, the most professional of all the professionals in the Mets dugout, complained yesterday about how hard it was to play well in such weather. last night, only Carlos Beltran wore the balaclava* that makes the players look just slightly like stick-up artists but keeps their ears and necks warm. tonight, only the white boys in the infield (Wright and LoDuca) went without. all the various kinds of silliness that attends games played in the dry cold weather that Shea saw tonight were present; broken bats, silly errors, perfectly good hits being blown foul by the wind.

we tuned into the game an hour into it, so we missed both of Washington's runs and the Mets were behind when we started watching. the really good thing about this game is that the production came from the exact people that have been struggling to hit, or to hit early, thus far this year. Delgado had an RBI and Wright had two hits. and then LHJ's favorite player, the one he affectionately calls Julius, was the hero of the game, scoring the winning run on a pinch hit in the bottom of the 7th.

he's some kind of talent, that Julio Franco, 48 years old, 30 years in the game, with his first hit of the year an RBI to score Wright and give the Mets the win. it was a fun game to watch, and gratifying to find that the team can win more than just blowouts.

*LHJ knew what this article of protective wear is called. I am duly impressed, as you should be too.