Wednesday, July 19, 2006

Happy Recap: Mets 8 Reds 3

Another grand performance by Carlos Beltran. He became the 23rd major leaguer to hit grand slams in consecutive games. David Eckstein was the last to do it, for the Angels in April 2002.
Beltran was hitless in his first 3 bases loaded at bats this season.




Beltran now leads Wright in HR (by 6), RBI (by 1), runs (by 9) and almost all of the cumulative offensive categories, despite missing a couple weeks and having 50 fewer at bats than Wright.
To head off controversy, yes I love Wright, and yes I know we can debate whether batting third or fifth in this lineup is more advantageous to statistical accumulation.
When David Wright hit cleanup for a few games he was on fire.

Which leads me to Nady and Valentin. These two guys will need to hit to prevent the bottom of the order from become a string of automatic outs and runners left on base. They produced in this game. Both hit solo home runs to give the Mets a 2-0 lead, and both had singles to start the 7th inning, which culminated with Beltran's slam.

Pelfrey once again pitched well enough to win. Once again he pitched to a lot of run support. And once again he reminded me of Brian Bannister.

Mets defense turned three double plays for him.
Griffey hit into on in the first to end the inning. Then Hatteberg hit into one in the second to make it two outs none out. Pelfrey loaded the bases that inning (with help from an error) but got out of it. Then another 1 out double play by Griffey in the third. He had two men on in the 5th and got out of it.
The baserunners caught up with him in the 7th, when he allowed 2 runs on 3 hits. Could have been worse but defense helped him again with another outfield assist, nailing Clayton at second.

Pelfrey threw 98 pitches in 6 innings. He walked 3 and gave up 7 hits (all singles). The Mets have had only 2 other pitchers win the first to starts of their careers (Gary Gentry and Dick Selma).

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

didn't bannister win his first two starts?

Also, how come you don't post all this in Paulspoop

Wednesday, July 19, 2006 7:12:00 AM  
Blogger Paul said...

Bannister won his first two decisions. He got a no-decision in his first start, the second game of the season, Wagner blew, and Julio gave up 4 runs in extra innings. All Mets posts will be made at the Happy Recap.

Wednesday, July 19, 2006 11:27:00 AM  

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