Happy Recap: Mets 7 Giants 3

Fernando Tatis comes up with another huge to hit to keep the Mets incredible run going.

I absolutely love this guy. There seems to be some kind of intangible about him that he is able to deliver when the Mets need him most.

Obviously his late home run was huge but his early double was also a key to victory. On this current streak the Mets have been able to take early leads and hold onto them, their formula for success back in 2006.

John Maine has now replaced Oliver Perez as the most frustrating pitcher on the Mets. He continues to throw way too many pitches, which forced him out of this game in the 5th inning. But even when he pitches well his pitch count seems to go too high too soon. He had 3-2 counts on 9 batters in this game, including the first four.

The bullpen was excellent in holding the Giants scoreless for 4 1/3 innings, especially a day after the pen contributed 4 perfect innings.

Now that Alou is out for the season I think he needs to stick with Tatis in left until his bat either slows down or his glove starts to hurt them (which I don't think will happen). Endy Chavez should play right and bat second while Church is hurt.

Happy Recap: Mets 5 Giants 0

A 5-game winning streak. 2 straight shutouts. And finally a win for Johan Santana.

He only went 5 innings but that was enough to get him off the schneid and enough for him to show off some really good stuff.

For some reason Manuel elected not to bring him back after the rain delay.

And speaking of the rain, why were the announcers freaking out about the rain delay and if it would be an official game or not. It was never predicted to be a massive storm, they knew the game would be completed. Yet for some reason the announcers acted as if Randy Winn killed the President when he swung at the first pitch. Maybe he thought Santana would throw a fat pitch and if he hit it he could get his team back in the game for after the rain delay.

And of course I thrilled to be able to write that the great Ramon Castro came through with a big 3-run homer to give the Mets an early lead. I love Castro and whenever he plays he seems to contribute to a victory. I love the fact that Jerry Manuel is getting him into more games.

Happy Recap: Mets 7 Giants 0

What a game by Mike Pelfrey. I'm so impressed with him lately but I want to point out what impressed me much. So much went wrong for him in the first inning (Easley's error, bad no-call by the umpire when Lewis ran out of the baseline on what should have been called a doubleplay, hitting Molina with an 0-2 pitch) but he didn't get rattled. He kept throwing his pitches and got out of the inning with no runs.

His ERA is now below 4, his record is above .500 and I'm sure his confidence is at an all-time high.

In his last 8 starts (a significant stretch amounting to about a quarter of the season), he is 5-0 with a 2.62 ERA.

He's getting more groundball outs, more strikeouts, fewer walks, everything about Pelfrey has been wonderful.



He has given up only one home run in his last 12 starts (78 1/3 innings), and only 4 all season.

And the offense is pounding the ball as well racking up another huge night with 14 more hits.

Carlos Beltran hit an early 3-run homer which I think was huge because when the Mets were struggling it seemed if they got down early they felt like they would lose. Now if they get an early lead, they feel like they are going to keep adding on, and hold on to it (as evidenced by the 10-9 win, they did hold on). That attitude reminds me of the 2006 team.



There have been false starts for this team before but this is now the longest winning streak since April, and there are many underlying reasons to be encouraged.

Other offensive stars in this game included Jose Reyes (now batting above .300), Damion Easley (continues his hitting streak in lieu of Castillo), Carlos Delgado (16 homers, on pace for 30) and Fernando Tatis (his third homer).



Weird statistical note: The first 7 players in the Giants lineup (excluding Omar Vizquel) are all batting between .279 and .299. Pretty decent batting averages for a team that is 14th in the league in runs scored. Their team batting average is actually 6th in the NL but they are 13th in OPS because they have only 57 homers, last in the league. Three teams have more than twice that many.

Happy Recap: Mets 5 Giants 3

This has now become a prolonged winning streak, exactly what the Mets needed. 7 out of the last 9, but because they lost 7 out of 8 right before it, they're actually worse off than they were on May 18th.

A key during this stretch has been scoring in the first inning, of course helped out by the hot hitting of Jose Reyes. Who by the way apparently had his reached base streak ended because an error is not sufficient to prolong the streak.

Reyes did however make an error, his 10th, that led to a run, and some extra pitches for John Maine. But he made up for that with a 2-run homer, his 8th. Reyes has shown uncharacteristic power this year, but also uncharacteristic bad defense.

John Maine pitched pretty well, but I'd like to see him give the Mets a little more length. Other than Santana there doesn't seem to be a guy on the staff who can pitch more than 6 innings.

Carlos Beltran is now officially on fire. He's 6 for 16 with 2 homers and 7 RBI starting with that game-tying shot against the Dodgers on Saturday. And he was starting to heat up before that.

The Mets have now won their third straight series.

They are 7-2 this season in rubber games of a 3-game series.

Happy Recap: Mets 9 Giants 6

That turned out to be a little more difficult than it should have been, but a win is a win and I'll take it.

And Scott Schoeneweis has been so great this season that I'll forgive him this trespass if he promises never to do it again in a closer game.

I have mixed reviews on Pedro's comeback. He started off well, but lost his steam and only lasted 6 innings. I'm willing to concede that maybe he let up a little once he got the big lead. He did throw a lot of pitches but remember, he's recovering from a leg injury, not an arm injury.



Pedro even got two hits and exhibited some of his trademark enthusiasm which many are convinced will turn the Mets around.



There's not much to say about the Mets 4th inning other than it was awesome and they need to keep it going.

The Mets have now won 6 of 8 games, which is great, except they lost 7 of the 8 games before that.

Jose Reyes's 18-game hitting streak is over but he set a Mets record by reaching base in his 34th straight game, the most in one season.

Unhappy Recap: Giants 10 Mets 2

I think the key thing we can take from this game is not to overreact. Every team has stinkers like this and it's really no better to lose 3-2 than 10-2.

Winning streaks are nice but the key for the Mets is to win series, winning a long stretch of 3 game series is better than a short 5 or 6 game winning streak.

And I'm not sure the Mets can use the whole flying cross-country thing as an excuse. Did Oliver Perez fly out early? If not, he should have.

The Dodgers did the same trip, and they won 8-2.

And the Mets got off to a hot start in the first inning, loading the bases before Tatis struck out. Now Tatis has been so good we can't blame him here. But this game was a little scary because the Mets reverted back to their old ways of stranding a lot of base runners.

Also scary was a Mets pitcher going only 1/3 of an inning. I don't think I need to remind you the last time that happened.

The previous shortest stint of Perez's career was 1 2/3 innings.

The last time the Giants knocked out a starter in the first inning was last year, and the pitcher was Claudio Vargas, who actually did a decent job holding down the fort.

I'm not ready to give up on Oliver Perez yet, but I'm growing increasingly frustrated with his inconsistency.

Happy Recap: Mets 4 Giants 2

This game started like the last two, the Mets allowed two runs in the first inning. In the series the Mets gave up 9 runs, 6 in the first inning (2 in each game). So as a staff their combined ERA was 3.00 for the series (18.00 ERA in the 1st, 1.13 thereafter).

Like Perez and Glavine before him El Duque settled down after the first inning. Randy Winn singled scored on a triple by Vizquel. That was the last hit the Giants got off El Duque. In fact, after that El Duque faced the minimum, 21 batters in his 7 innings. He walked the pitcher but got him on a double play. He got out the last 14 batters he faced. He was awesome, after that rocky beginning.

I often complain about El Duque being up and down, but this season he's been almost all up. He's made 7 starts, 6 great, 1 bad. Overall he is 3-1 with a 2.20 ERA, but take out that one bad start and his ERA drops to 1.13. Also he should be 5-1. His last start was the game Heilman blew and the Mets scored 4 in the 9th to beat the Marlins. And his last start before he went on the DL was the game that went to extra innings 0-0 and Easley tied with a homer in the 10th and Chavez won with a bunt in the 12th.

This time the Mets answered in the bottom of the first with a Reyes run (single, steal, groundout, infield single) and a double by Wright to drive in Beltran. But Beltran collided with Aurilia on that infield hit and bruised his knee. He is going to have an MRI Friday. It could be serious, meaning the starting outfield would all be on the DL. Hopefully, if it's not serious enough to require DL time, he won't be hampered by it nagging at him, like his hamstring injury does.



The Mets got two more in the second on a Reyes RBI single. With first and third and one out, Reyes tried to steal second (good play) but he got caught. Then the great Endy Chavez laid down a beautiful bunt for a base hit and an RBI. Just another great heads up play by Endy.

In the fourth the Mets had a threat going with Reyes on first and Johnson on third again, and one out for Chavez. But because he was caught the last time he didn't steal this time, and Endy hit into a double play.

There was a funny moment in the third. With the pitcher on after a walk, Randy Winn fouled a ball off his foot and it bounced to El Duque. Everyone in the park knew it was foul except El Duque and he turned to start a double play and fired the ball right into center field.

After that both El Duque and Matt Cain were cruising. Joe Smith pitched the 8th and Billy Wagner pitched a 1-2-3 night for the save. His 13th in 13 chances this year extending his consecutive saves streak to 31. Not much more you can ask from either of those two guys so far this season.

The game lasted 2 hours and 26 minutes, three fewer than the previous game. And the first game of the series lasted 3:51 but it went to 12 innings, and I'm pretty sure if the Mets had won without the bottom of the 9th it would have been shorter than 2 and a half hours also.

The Mets are 19-7 outside of the NL East and have won all 8 series against NL Central and West teams plus the one against the Yankees.

Unhappy Recap: Giants 3 Mets 0

Momentum is only as good as the next day's starting pitcher. And when your next day's starting pitcher is Tom Glavine you can expect to be in an early hole. Glavine gave up two runs in the first inning. It was the fourth straight start in which he'd allowed at least 2 runs in the first two innings. After that he was pretty good but it was too late.

The Mets could not hit Barry Zito. They put runners on in 6 of the 7 innings against Zito but couldn't get the hit to bring anyone around. His curveball was awesome fooling several hitters, but he also struck out guys with the fastball. He was awesome.

First time the Mets were shut out this season. Baltimore, Detroit and Philadelphia still have not been shut out this year.

Wisely, Bochy brought in Hennessey instead of Benitez to save the game.

Gulliermo Mota came back from his steroid suspension and according to Gary Cohen the reaction was "muted, but decidedly negative." Mota pitched two innings, allowed 1 hit and struck out two.

The Mets 4-game winning streak was snapped. It was their fourth 4-game streak of the year, all of which ended at 4. But they do not have any losing streaks longer than 2 games.

Paul LoDuca got his 1000th career hit in the game.

Happy Recap: Mets 5 Giants 4

What an amazing game! We saw so many things that we have seen before: Perez pitching well, the Mets struggling against a young pitcher, Beltran failing with a man on third, Delgado with a walkoff hit and Benitez melting down.

Oliver Perez was not sharp early, giving up solo home runs to Randy Winn and Bengie Molina in the first inning. Then Perez settled in again. He retired 14 in a row and 18 of 19 before he allowed a third home run, this time to Ortmeier which tied the game.

I know some of you are going to say that 3 runs in 7 innings is not a good start, it's barely adequate. But if you look deeper you'd see that he struck out 8 and walked none, and they basically didn't hit him other than those three home runs. And of course you should remember that this was the worst start he's made of his last four.

Pitching against Perez was Tim Lincecum. He was drafted 10th overall by the Giants last year and has never lost a pro game. He went 2-0 in short season A ball last year and this year he started the season at Triple A Fresno. In 5 starts he pitched 31 innings and allowed one earned run, going 4-0 with a 0.29 ERA. He made his first start for the Giants on May 6 and got bombed, but didn't lose. In four starts since then he's 2-0 with a 2.17 ERA. He's walked 6 (he can struggle with his control) and struck out 28 in 28 innings, excluding that rough first start. He's going to be a star, assuming he can stay healthy. He's listed at 5'11" and 170 lbs.

Lincecum got through the Mets lineup in order the first time through, he retired the first 11 in a row before he walked Beltran and Delgado blasted a game tying homer.

Then in the 6th, he allowed a single to Reyes and a double to Beltran to give the Mets the lead.

In the bottom of the 9th the game really started to get interesting. David Wright hit one that I really thought was going to end the game. It hit the top of the wall and bounced back for a double.



Then after a walk to LoDuca, Julio Franco pinch hit for Gomez. He ripped one right up the middle which looked like the game winning hit but Omar Vizquel made a diving stop, then he rolled over and from his back, he flipped the ball to the second baseman. But his toss was off and the second baseman Kevin Frandsen stretched and caught it with his bare hand for the final out. Just an incredible play.

Willie decided to stick with his lefties until the Giants wasted Bonds so after Feliciano and Wagner each pitched an inning he brought in Schoeneweis who walked Bonds. Then Frandsen hit a ground rule double to right which bounced into the stands (a fan did not touch it), so Bonds had to hold at third. Heilman came out of the pen to get the third out.

Heilman almost picked up another easy victory when Russ Ortiz walked Reyes and Beltran and hit Delgado, but Wright couldn't come through. Heilman stayed on and pitched a good 11th inning.

Joe Smith was terrible in the 12th, he had no control. He walked Vizquel then threw a wild pitch that was so far inside, LoDuca couldn't get to it. A sac bunt put the go ahead run on third with one out. Smith hit the next batter, then Delgado made a mistake. Vizquel hit a grounder right at him but he turned around to step on first before he threw home. Randy Winn slid in ahead of the tag, just ahead of the tag, but the replays show it was the correct call. But the play was so close Delgado could have had him if he had come home with it right away.




But Delgado redeemed himself thanks to another Benitez meltdown. We've seen this so many times before. He came in and his first three pitches weren't even close. Once Reyes reached with a walk you kind of felt that Benitez was going to blow it. Then first base umpire Balkin Bob Davidson who has called more balks than anyone ever, called a balk moving Reyes to second. This one was a little hard to notice, I didn't see any balk. Chavez bunted Reyes to third and Beltran came up with a runner on third and one out...and he failed again. I don't know why he has such problems in this situation. But thankfully the Mets didn't have the stupid contact play on or Reyes would have been dead meat at home.

With Reyes at third and Benitez on the mound and the suddenly red hot Carlos Delgado at the plate, those fans that stuck around were going nuts. Reyes was bouncing down the line off the third base bag. Benitez clearly flinched this time, an obvious balk, which was called by the third base umpire, not Balkin Bob. Later even Bruce Bochy said the second balk was obvious.





With the game tied after two balks, the Benitez meltdown was in progress. And Carlos Delgado finished it off. He crushed it to right field for his second homer of the night, his second 2 homer game in less than a week and his third walkoff RBI of the season.

I hesitate to say that the balks didn't matter because knowing Benitez's emotional state I don't think he would have given up the homer to Delgado had the other things not already transpired.

But after being on the wrong end of some many of these games for several years, it felt very good to be the recipient this time.

This is the type of game championship teams win, and through 50 games the Mets are looking like a championship team.

Happy Recap: Mets 5 Giants 3

John Maine was not sharp to start this game. He walked the first two batters but LoDuca threw them both out trying to steal.

Ruben Gotay gave the Mets the lead in the third with a home run to right. It was his fourth hit in four career at bats against Matt Morris.

Splash! Delgado crushed one into McCovey Cove in right field. Some kayaker rushed to it. His third into the water. I guess he didn't like being tied with Gotay in home runs. The pitch was a big hanging curveball. Delgado's swing was a tremendous uppercut. 9 times out of 10, a curve like that is a little more outside (this one was right down the middle) and Delgado would have popped it up.

After Delgado's homer, Alou blooped a single to center. Then with a 2-2 count Alou was running for some reason. The catcher, Alfonso, in his haste to throw out Alou reached out too early and Green hit his glove with the bat. That's a catcher's interference. Green got first, Alou got second and Alfonso got a sore hand, but he didn't appear to really be hurt, Green probably just got the tip of the glove. The catcher is charged with an error on the play but unlike most errors, Green was not charged a turn at bat. But it was all moot because LoDuca grounded into a double play to end the inning.

After Ryan Klesko doubled to second in the 4th with one out, the Mets elected to intentionally walk Bonds to face Ray Durham. The walk didn't hurt the Mets but Klesko came around to score on a wild pitch by Maine.

I hope CitiField has a cool scoreboard like the Giants Stadium (I have no idea what it's called now). Color graphics, tons of stats. Really gives you a lot of information as opposed to what is at Shea. Although the past couple years the Mets finally went away from the stupid stats they used to have. Shawn Green leads all Jewish players with a .324 batting average on Shabbos (or some nonsense like that).

Once again Willie brought in Franco as a pinch hitter against a rightie instead of using one of his lefties like Chavez or Newhan. Franco reached on an infield single, a line drive that almost killed Matt Morris.

This is officially John Maine's worst start of the year. Three runs (a home run to Dave Roberts) and five walks. He had no control at all, he was behind almost every hitter.

On the other hand, Matt Morris was throwing nothing but curveballs even behind in the count. And dropping them in for strikes. In the 7th with two on he went to a 3-0 count on Reyes, then on 3-1 he dropped in a beautiful curve for a strike. Then with the count full he threw two more. Reyes fouled off the first and popped out the second.

Great baserunning by Beltran tied the game and kept Maine's record perfect. Basically he scored from first on a single, thanks to a number of factors. First he was running with the pitch. Second the Giants were employing a shift for Delgado which put the centerfielder Roberts way over to right and very deep. Third the ball was hit very slowly. Fourth Roberts has a very weak arm.

A classic Armando Benitez meltdown. We've seen it so many times from the other side. LoDuca led off with a single, but Gotay fucked up the sacrifice. Benitez walked Chavez which was the start of the problem. Then a little bit of bad luck for Armando. Reyes hit a bloop which fell in between the second baseman and right fielder. Benitez was clearly rattled after that and started Wright with a 3-0 count. On 3-1 Wright ripped one to left. It scored two but it was hit so hard that even Reyes couldn't score.

Billy Wagner gets another 1-2-3 save and the Mets take 2 of 3 in San Francisco and go 5-2 on the short West Coast road trip.

Happy Recap: Mets 4 Giants 1

Mets finally got off to a hot start like they used to do last season. Reyes, Wright and Beltran all doubled. Then with Beltran on second and none out Delgado and Alou got him over and in with outs.

Looks like Wright is more comfortable in the 2 hole. One of my worries was that Wright would lose his aggressiveness in situations like that (Reyes on second none out). But he got a good pitch to hit and smoked it.

Mets added another in the second on a Reyes triple with LoDuca on base.

That juiced up bastard Barry Bonds is now only 10 home runs away from Hank Aaron.

Home plate umpire Brian Runge was taking so long to call balls and strikes both Gary Cohen and Howie Rose were clearly getting annoyed.

But if you have to give up a homer to that prick it's best to do so with nobody on in a game you lead 4-0.

Glavine walked Bonds with a man on his next time up and Feliciano got him to end the 8th inning.

Wagner pitched a perfect 9th for the save and Glavine finally has win #294. Now we have to hear about the quest for #295.

Unhappy Recap: Giants 9 Mets 4

I don't want to revisit old wounds but Zito's curveball completely fooled Mets hitters.

It was a great pitching matchup for the first half of the game. Two lefthanded pitchers with contrasting styles. Hard fastballs and sliders from Perez, changes and curves from Zito.

Omar Vizquel is almost as old as Julio Franco but he made a couple of great plays in the first inning on two loopers.

Fun battle between Bonds and Perez in the 4th inning with a man on. Maybe I thought it was fun because Perez struck him out looking on a pitch on the inside corner on a 2-2 count. Bonds has also swung and missed on a pitched outside the strike zone in that at bat.

The fifth inning was an unmitigated disaster. It started with a home run that should have been a double. It bounced on the top of the wal and came back into play, without being touched by a fan.

Those runs may have scored anyway because at best it would have been second and third with no one out. The next two batters hit flyballs.

The problems came with two outs and no one on and the score 2-1. Perez who should have settled down after that gave up a single to Zito. Then a ground ball which Easley booted, and Zito had stopped running to second. After that Green dropped a flyball he absolutely should have caught. Just a horrible play. I don't think he lost it in the lights. He just had his glove in the wrong spot.

That's when Perez lost it. He gave up a 3 run homer to Aurilia, then walked Bonds. They finally took him out after Durham singled. Then Urdaneta came in and behaved just like his predecessor Ambiorix Burgos. Bengie Molina hit his second homer...of the inning. And that was the end of that ballgame.