Happy Recap: Mets 5 Padres 3

Nothing is ever easy with this team, unless to subscribe to the "all's well that ends well" theory of life.

An exciting game and an exciting moment for David Wright, his first ever walk off home run, but the bullpen's inability to hold a lead is going to doom this team at some point.

Pity poor Johan Santana. I've beat home the point this season that he's the best pitcher in the league, and the highest-paid, and with a bullpen so bad he needs to pitch better and longer, but this is just getting ridiculous.

This was the sixth time in 24 starts this season that the bullpen cost Santana a potential win. Five of those collapses came in the ninth inning. He has eight no-decisions, and in seven of those he allowed two runs or fewer. If he wins 5 of those games he's among the leaders in wins.

What an incredible game-saving double play by Argenis Reyes and Nick Evans.

Unhappy Recap: Padres 4 Mets 2

Another tough loss where the Mets did everything wrong.

They couldn't get a key hit, they made a key error and the bullpen gave up an add-on run making a comeback impossible.

And their starting pitcher dug them an early hole by giving up 2 more home runs. Other than that Pedro was pretty good but I don't understand why he is allowing so many homers this season. He's now allowed 13 homers in 56 innings (roughly 1 in 4) which is absolutely atrocious.

David Wright did not get fooled by the spin on that ball. He took his eye off the ball.

Carlos Beltran is in a terrible slump and he is killing the team right now. It's the same thing we had most of the season with Delgado. A free out in the middle of the lineup, especially when runners are on base.

You can't kill Eddie Kunz for allowing a run but he's going to fight right in with the rest of the Mets bullpen.

Once again the Mets need Santana to pitch a great game to avoid losing a series to the one of the worst teams in the league.

Happy Recap: Mets 6 Padres 5

This sure doesn't feel like a happy recap. But maybe there is a bright side (in addition to winning), the Aaron Heilman as closer experiment ended before it started, and without costing the team a single victory.

Obviously Aaron Heilman sucks and there's nothing that's going to fix him. He's allowed runs in four of his last five outings and been the losing pitcher in four of his last seven. He did have a string of 10 scoreless appearances in late June, so he can be effective but right now he's just awful. He's allowed 9 homers in 60 innings but I agree with Jerry Manuel that his big problem last night was the leadoff walk. He had to have known that with a 4-run deficit the first batter would be taking a strike. Yet he didn't throw a fastball and got himself in a hole.



I know there were other things affecting him, the dropped popup, the missed double play (though Wright was right to take his time) but he gave up the walk, and the home run, and it falls on him.



But thanks to two other players, the Mets won this game. Mike Pelfrey bounced back from a rough outing with another good performance. He did give up a lot of hits, but always managed to avoid major trouble. That's the key to his growth as a pitcher, being able to work out of jams instead of imploding during them.



And of course there's Fernando Tatis. What amazes me is people still want to get another corner outfielder. How could we get someone better than him? The guy has been absolutely incredible, shows almost no signs of slowing down and almost every home run he hits comes in a key spot.



He has 9 homers this season, let's look at the situations:
5/23 vs. Colorado: 6th inning, Mets leading 3-2, solo homer to make it 4-2, but Mets later lost.
7/6 vs. Philadelphia: 12th inning, tied 2-2, 2-run homer gives Mets 4-2 win in the game Billy Wagner blew.
7/8 vs. San Francisco: 8th inning, Mets leading 6-0, solo homer made it 7-0.
7/10 vs. San Francisco: 7th inning, tied 3-3, 2-run homer gives Mets 5-3 lead, they win 7-3.
7/17 vs. Cincinnati: 6th inning, Mets losing 5-4, 2-run homer gives Mets 6-5 lead, they win 10-8 but not before blowing lead and reclaiming it.
7/26 vs. St. Louis: 9th inning, Mets losing 8-7, solo homer tied the game and sent it to extra innings, where the Mets lost.
7/27 vs. St. Louis: 6th inning, Mets winning 3-0, 2-run homer gave Mets 5-0 lead in game they'd win 9-1.
8/5 vs. San Diego: 4th inning, Mets losing 1-0, solo homer ties game.
8/5 vs. San Diego: 6th inning, Mets losing 2-1, 3-run homer gives Mets 4-2 lead in game they'd win 6-5.

Only one of his homers came before the 6th inning. 4 of his homers gave the Mets the lead, 2 tied games, and 2 were in games they were winning. 2 of them were absolutely huge in addition to some other huge hits he's had. Of all the problems this team has, Fernando Tatis is last on the list. I love Fernando-mania.

Unhappy Recap: Padres 8 Mets 6

Another disastrous loss for the Mets. They are fading fast and in big trouble.

There is never a good time to blow a save but it sure seems like Billy Wagner always picks the worst times to do it. He's been excellent so far this year, yet he still has 3 blown saves.

I don't blame Willie for going to Wagner early, he needed to manage this game desperately, and he felt if he could get out of the 8th, Wagner would be ok for the 9th. But he wasn't.

I think the Mets lost this game when Pedro gave back the 3-run lead in the first inning. Right now I think this team is very weak mentally and when Pedro blew that lead I think they thought "here we go again."

Two Mets did play a great game, first Endy Chavez who should be playing everyday and batting second. He has a great arm and a great head for the game. That drag bunt was perfect. He's the only guy on the team who makes those little plays that win games.

And Carlos Delgado got 3 hits for the second straight day.

Carlos Beltran looked like he wanted no part of Hoffman in the 9th inning.

7 1/2 games behind the red hot Phillies with games against the Diamondbacks, Rangers and Angels coming up. Things are not looking very good right now.

Unhappy Recap: Padres 2 Mets 1

The third straight loss by the exact same 2-1 score.

This team has no heart and no guts and no chance of going anywhere this season. A little bit of a hot streak was interrupted by the Mets entering the same offensive funk they've been in all season. No one can get a hit with men on base, and now they are back below .500 again and trail the Phillies by the largest deficit they've had all season.

Don't blame Oliver Perez for this one. He didn't pitch great but he only allowed one run. On a decent team Perez would have a few more wins. But this team cannot score.

And don't blame Pedro Feliciano either. The bullpen did a pretty decent job and you can't expect them to be perfect, the offense needs to get a hit every once in a while.

I'm so disgusted with this horrible team right now that I can't even bear to back and look at all the failures.

But once again they left the bases loaded, then the next inning left 2nd and 3rd and then in the 5th they stranded a man on 3rd base.

The tenth inning though might have been the worst. Castillo leads off with a walk. And Wright and Beltran, allegedly the two best hitters both strike out.

I don't know how anything is going to change but I now think they have to fire Willie Randolph. This ship is sinking and unless they want to give up this year they might as well make a change.

Unhappy Recap: Padres 2 Mets 1

Another very disappointing game because the Mets need to win pretty much every time Santana pitches, especially when Santana pitches as well as he did.

I don't think getting hit in the shoulder by a pitch affected Santana. The problem was he made a bad throw to third base. It was the right play, but it was made poorly.

And that's the problem with the Mets right now. They are a .500 team because they can't make the plays to win games. They either screw it up on defense, or make a bad pitch, or leave runners on base.

They left the bases loaded in the 5th and 6th innings. I know David Wright crushed the ball and all he got was a sacrifice fly, but this happens all the time for the Mets, they can never get the big play or big hit to win a game.

Unhappy Recap: Padres 2 Mets 1

This is a tough one because of the way it ended, but really the Mets didn't even deserve to be in this one.

What pisses me off about this though is that Scott Schoeneweis didn't even compete. He's been so good this year but you can't lose a game on walks and a hit batsman. Throw the ball over the middle, try to get lucky. He took the Tom Glavine way out.

You can look at this start by Mike Pelfrey one of two ways. You could say he sucked and just happened to get out of some jams. He did give up 11 base runners in 6 innings and get out of bases loaded 1 out situations twice without giving up a run (though in one of those a run had previously scored).

But if you want to look at it another way, he gave up only 1 run in 6 innings and runs allowed is really all that matters. And previously the knock on him was that he folded when things got tough, he showed some toughness in this start which is encouraging.

He lowered his ERA from 5.33 to 4.65 in his last two starts. 4.65 is a respectable ERA for a 5th starter. But the Mets are 3-8 when he starts.

Jose Reyes has 10 multihit games in his last 20. And he made several great plays in the field in this game.

The Mets will have a hard time winning their 4th straight series but it would be a disaster to not salvage at least a split out of it.

Unhappy Recap: Padres 9 Mets 8

Two of the best closers in baseball blow saves in the same game, only two nights after they each gave up runs in the 9th inning.

It started off as a vintage Tom Glavine performance. A steadfast refusal to throw strikes, followed by a bunch of hits, some narrow escapes and eventually a lot of runs. Glavine allowed 6 runs, 11 hits and 3 walks in only 5 innings.

But the Mets almost bailed him out with a monstrous 6-run 6th to take a 7-6 lead. Helped along by two walks and an error the Mets cleared the bases with a 2-run single from Green and a 3-run homer by Marlon Anderson.

The bullpen of Schoeneweis (1 inning) and Feliciano (2 innings), two guys who haven't been overworked held down the Padres for 3 innings.

But Wagner, who still on balance has been good (only 3 blown saves), gave up 3 hits and a walk to start the 9th inning, turning a 7-6 lead into an 8-7 deficit.

But the Mets showed some heart tying the game with hits from Reyes and Castillo, then a stolen base and a sac fly by Wright. I love Castillo now. He has that ability to fight off the pitcher's best pitches and dump a single just into the outfield. And speed kills. Without the stolen base by Reyes the Mets might not tie it up. Hoffman then walked the Carloses and got Alou with the bases loaded to send the game into extra innings.

But Aaron Heilman quickly dampened that enthusiasm by allowing a home run to Adrian Gonzalez. He's now allowed 8 HR this year in only 66 innings.

Two runners on in the bottom of the 10th but the Mets couldn't push the run across.

A very exciting series against the Padres too bad the Mets couldn't get 2 out of 3.

The bullpen is emerging as a major trouble spot.

The starting pitching has absolutely sucked as well, compounding the bullpen's problems.

But the offense has been humming along, scoring at least 5 runs in 11 straight games, but the Mets are only 7-4 in that stretch.

Unhappy Recap: Padres 7 Mets 5

The Mets got about all they can expect from Brian Lawrence (4 runs in 5 innings), he can probanly pitch better but all they can hope for is that he will keep them in the game, which he did.

Carlos Beltran who has been on fire lately got a 2 run double to cut the lead to two.

But the overworked bullpen blew it wide open. Mota came in and retired 5 batters in a row then got an 0-2 count on Adrian Gonzalez. Gonzalez singled then Mota walked Cameron. Two hits later it was 7-2 and the game was basically over.

But the Mets mounted a furious comeback in the bottom of the 9th. Anderson doubled, Conine singled, Reyes made out and Castillo reached on an error by the pitcher (he fired about 5 feet over the first baseman's head from only two feet away). Then it really looked like the Mets were going to come back as a popup was dropped in the short outfield. But Castillo was holding on at first and couldn't get to second in time. But Beltran singled to give the Mets a chance.

By this time Trevor Hoffman was in to face Delgado. A homer would have tied it, but Delgado struck out.

Delgado went 0-5 in this game. He struck out with two on in the first, he flew out with the bases loaded in the third, he fouled out with Beltran on second in the fifth and then in the 9th he ended the game, all four of those times ending an inning. For the season he is batting .175 with 2 out and men in scoring position, but he is only 5 for his last 50 in those situations. Plus it is clear that San Diego has a book on him, he was thrown nothing but high and tight fastballs and he was swinging and missing at all of them.

Happy Recap: Mets 7 Padres 6

How I started this post:

These are the losses I absolutely despise. There's nothing worse than having your bullpen blow a lead, get those runs back, and then have the bullpen blow it again. That's what happened tonight.

But the Mets remembered that Paul is a daddy tonight, and stepped it up big time against the all-time saves leader. Let's start from the top.

Carlos Beltran is en fuego. He smacked a bomb into the wind in the 1st inning to give the Mets a 2-0 lead. He later doubled to put the Mets up 4-1.

But John Maine once again had trouble putting hitters away. He's lost about 3-4 miles off his fastball, and it shows. Batters are fouling off pitch after pitch, making even his outs taxing. By the time he came out in the 6th, he had thrown 117 pitches. Unless you're El Duque, that's way too much.

Scott Schoewenweis came in and looked strong, getting Brian Giles to end the 6th, and he got two outs in the 7th before allowing a hit that Milledge misplayed, putting a runner on second. Willie decided to play the percentages and bring in "Everyday" Jorge Sosa. Sosa has pitched great lately, but not this time, giving up a couple of hits to let the Padres take the lead.

But the Mets seem to have gotten past the phase where this would be the end of the game. Maybe it's because 1-7, there are no easy outs in the lineup right now. They got a Reyes run to tie the game in the 8th. Jose got an infield hit, stole 2nd, took third on a Castillo groundout, Wright walked, and Beltran lined a single into left field. Unfortunately, Delgado and Alou couldn't keep it going.

Wagner was called on to keep the game tied in the 9th, and couldn't get it done. He gave up a run on a couple of singles and a sac fly, and even my cat thought it was over.

But L-Millz kicked off the 9th against Trevor Hoffman with a line drive single to left. Mike DeFelice bunted him to second, and Hoffman-killer Marlon Anderson tied the game with a single to center. Reyes walked, and new Mets hero Luis Castillo singled up the middle to score Anderson with the game winning run.

Great comeback win against a good team. In fact, if the playoffs started today, the Mets would play the Padres.

Brief aside: around the middle of the game, Kevin Burkhardt interviewed "Danny," a construction worker on CitiField. This was unintentional comedy at its finest. Danny told us about his memories of seeing the Jets and Mets at Shea, told Kevin that "cash is king" to us, and admitted buttered rolls, coffee, and donuts are the preferred food of the union workers. Buttered rolls? Well, that is a NYC thing.

Unhappy Recap: Padres 5 Mets 4

A tough loss for the Mets because they had a chance to win, but there was a bright spot...because they had a chance to win.

I'll quickly fast forward through the action so I can get to my point.

John Maine had another rough start, he gave up 2 runs in the first inning after allowing 4 in the first in his last start. Later he allowed two solo home runs to make it a 4-0 deficit.

The Mets couldn't get anything off Greg Maddux who struck out the side in the first inning, but for some reason only pitched 5 innings and 65 pitches. He told Bud Black that he was tired and he felt something in his left hamstring.

Delgado got one run back in the 7th inning with a home run. Mike Cameron jumped so high, almost grabbed it, it glanced off his glove and over the fence.

Then in the 8th inning it seemed like another listless performance by the Mets offense. Gary Cohen and Ron Darling were discussing how last year a 3 run lead late seemed easy to overcome. Now once the Mets get behind by even one run it seems insurmountable. And I felt the same way, it's like the team knows they can't win. But as soon as Ron Darling said "you never feel like it's going to happen until it does," Linebrink walked two guys and gave up the game tying home run to Wright on the first pitch.



In typical Mets fashion the huge moment was negated by Joe Smith who had no control and promptly gave the Padres back the lead and the win in the next inning.

But I think there might be a silver lining here. Even though this was a tough loss and a little hard to take, I think this result is better than losing 4-1. At least the Mets showed some life and some fire by getting back into the game. And David Wright has been hitting very well lately, if just one more guy could start hitting I think the offense could turn this around.

Happy Recap: Mets 7 Padres 0

This could prove to be a big win for the Mets because in a game they weren't expected to win, against the best pitcher in the league, they exploded for 7 runs and got a lot of key hits from guys who had been struggling, especially with runners in scoring position.

The clutch hitting started in the fourth inning when LoDuca singled to center to drive in Beltran who walked.



Proving the little things win ball games El Duque singled to lead off the 5th, then he stole second. He wasn't being held and got a huge jump. It was his second stolen base in his last two starts, and the third of his career. El Duque scored on a single by Valentin with help from a bobble by Bocachica (Mouthgirl) in center. Then Beltran doubled home Valentin to make it 3-0.

The last pitcher to steal bases in consecutive starts was Tom Seaver in 1967.

It stayed that way until the 8th when Lastings Milledge drove in an insurance run with a sac fly.

Then the Mets broke it open in the 9th off our old friend Royce Ring. And this time it was Delgado who broke free with a 2-run single.

In case you are keeping track, that means RBI hits for LoDuca, Valentin, Beltran and Delgado, all in the same game.



But we shouldn't ignore El Duque. He came up big once again matching Peavy early on, and pitching better. And once the Mets got him some support he stayed strong and turned in a gem. He allowed only 2 hits and threw only 95 pitches in 7 innings and probably could have pitched more.

Hopefully this game will be a jumping off point, but we've seen games like this before and none of them gave the Mets enough impetus to shake off their summer slumber.

Unhappy Recap: Padres 5 Mets 1

Another game full of missed opportunities for the Mets. I am really beginning to worry that they are just an old team that can't do the little things to produce runs, prevent runs and it's clear that they cannot hit with men on base. For the last month and a half the Mets have been a .400 team while getting pretty good pitching. I don't see any signs that this is going to end.

The first blown chance came in the second inning. With Sosa on second Reyes beat out an infield hit (watching him race Wells to the bag was hysterical). But Milledge, who has gotten enough key hits to warrant batting second, hit one hard down the line to third, but it was fielded for the third out.

In the fourth the Mets got their run on singles by Wright, Delgado and LoDuca but Green grounded into a double play to end the inning. Another symptom of a slow old team, rally killing double plays.

In the fifth a walk and a single were wasted when Milledge and Beltran left the runners stranded.

The Mets had one more chance in the 7th, Gotay reached base, and Reyes had a 3-0 count against Heath Bell, he took two pitches in a row and on the 3-1 count Gotay got nailed trying to steal, killing a potential rally.

In the bottom of the inning the bullpen blew up. Joe Smith allowed two singles, then Feliciano came in and tried to get the runner at third on a sacrifice bunt. His throw was horrible and luckily it hit the runner to keep it in the infield. They got one force at home, but Reyes couldn't try on the second ground ball, but they did get out of the inning with only one run.

But that was too much against the Padres bullpen. Linebrink and Hoffman shut the Mets down and the Padres added two runs in the bottom of the 8th including a home run by Mike Cameron.

Sosa pitched pretty well coming off the DL, but like so many Mets pitchers recently a good effort was wasted by an absolutely atrocious offense.