Happy Recap: Mets 4 Dodgers 1

A good pitching performance from Perez and some clutch hitting, sort of, from Beltran kept things going for the Mets.

Let's start with Oliver Perez who really has been awesome all season for the Mets. He really pitched well, allowing only one run on a home run to Nomar.

The Mets got their run in the first inning thanks to some bad defense by the Dodgers outfield. Anderson reached second and Wright got a two out single to drive him home.

But that was it. Nothing for the next six innings. It wasn't until the 8th that the Mets offense woke up. Reyes doubled then scored on an error (bad defense again) on the sac bunt by Anderson. Then Carlos Beltran got his first big hit in what seems like weeks (maybe since the Philly series) and put the game out of reach.

A little bit of trouble in the 8th after Perez and Smith gave up hits but this time Willie didn't hesitate to go to Feliciano and he got two outs to end the inning.

Wagner pitched a perfect inning for the save.

Now one other thing of major import happened in this game; Jose Valentin broke his leg when he fouled a ball off it in the fourth. It was the same leg that has the injured knee.

He will be out until at least September (6 weeks) probably a little longer. I don't wish for people to get hurt but this injury should improve the team because Gotay is hitting so much better. I don't expect Gotay to continue to hit .350 in a larger sample size but Valentin has been so awful, this definitely has to be an improvement.

The other fortunate part for the Mets is that Valentin put off surgery on his knee so that he could reach 400 plate appearances and get the automatic club option for next year at $4.3 million. There's no way he can reach that total now.

I also hope this injury will allow the Mets to keep Alomar on the roster so that Castro can play and pinch hit more.