State of the Mets: 4/21/08

Overall Record 10-7

Week 3 record 5-1

Greetings from the left coast. This will be a slightly abbreviated version of State of the Mets as I didn’t see every game this week, and I have stuff to do in San Francisco before I have to go to work tonight. I guess I should start off by saying…what a difference a week makes. Even though there was a sour ending last night, sweeping the Nats and taking 2 0f 3 in Philly ain’t bad at all.

The week began Tuesday at home vs. Washington. Mike Pelfrey continued to impress as he went a career high 7 innings without surrendering a run and with the exception of the 3^rd inning, never made it interesting. As far the offense…David Wright is all you need to know. He hit a 2 run home run in the 1^st inning and added RBI doubles in the 7^th and 8^th to finish with 5 of the 6 Mets RBI’s. Also…welcome back Duanar Sanchez. Oh have we missed you. I love how Willie saved him for the 9^th inning after the Mets went up 4 runs. The reaction was great at Shea for Duanar…now we just need to keep him away from cabs.

Wednesday night was all about the 5^th inning for the Mets. While Maine didn’t have his best stuff he battled (sorry…there are still effects from the Art Howe years) hard for 6 2/3 innings and got a nice boost from Joe Smith to get him out of trouble in the 7^th. Jose Reyes…yes the Jose Reyes…returned tonight with a lead off home run in the 5^th. The next two runners got on for Beltran who cranked his 1^st homer of the year to give the Mets the lead for good. Mets win 5-2.

The series sweep took more time than usual. The Mets had there opportunities but got a gift wrapped win from Nats reliever Joel Hanrahan in the 14^th. The bright spot for the Mets was a clutch RBI single from Carlos Delgado in the 8^th inning to tie the game after Nats starter and Long Islander John Lannon baffled the Mets for 6 innings allowing one run while striking out 11. Delgado’s only hit of the week was a big one. Nelson Figueroa continued to impress with 7 strong innings and the Mets bullpen came through with 7 more scoreless inning for the win. The Mets scored in the 14^th after Hanrahan intentionally walked David Wright and Carlos Delgado to get to pinch hitter Brian Schneider. On his 1^st pitch to Schneider, Hanrahan went with a 55 footer that got to the back stop scoring Ryan Church. The bullpen was a little spent heading to Philly but the Mets finish the home stand 6-3 including a series win over the Phils and a sweep of the Nats.

Oh those hated Phils. I listened to much of the Friday night game on the radio driving home to LI. The highly anticipated pitchers duel of Cole Hamels and Johan Santana lived up to expectations. Through 7 innings the Mets were clinging to a 2-1 lead. The floodgates opened in the 8^th as Hamels tired and the Phils bullpen could not bail him out. After the Mets loaded the bases, Delgado hit a grounder to 1^st that Ryan Howard could not handle cleanly. His only play was to 1^st and the Mets went up 3-1. Super Angel followed it up with a double to give the Mets a 5-1 Advantage. Santana came out for the 8^th, but couldn’t retire the 1^st two hitters and turned the game over to Aaron Heilman. Heilman immediately gives up a 3 run homer to pinch hitter Greg Dobbs, and all insurance is lost as the score shifted to 5-4. To Heilman’s credit he did retire the next two hitters and turned it over to Feliciano who took care of Utley to end the threat. The Mets would score a run in the 9^th and Wagner took care of business in the 9^th for a Mets win.

I watched very little of Saturday’s game since I was on a plane and when I did land Fox had the Dodgers game out here. From the highlights, Jose Reyes hit a huge 2 run home run in the 7^th, and Aaron Heilman gave us all another heart attack before striking out Geoff Jenkins and Jason Werth to get out of a bases loaded jam in the 8^th. Mets win 4-2.

Even though the Mets didn’t accomplish the sweep last night, I was still impressed with their comeback. Big Pelf did not have it tonight. He got through 4 innings only yielding a run but gave up a 3 run bomb to Chase Utley (2^nd of the game, 4^th of the series) to give the Phils a 4-0 advantage. The Mets immediately pounce on Eaton in the 6^th which began on a Jose Reyes triple. Castillo singled him in and David Wright followed with a double moving him to hitting .800 for the series. The scary thing is he was only the 2^nd hottest hitter of the series next to Utley. Beltran got a big 2 run single to make it 4-3 and Ryan Church was able to bring home Beltran to tie the game. The score remained tied a 4 until Pedro Feliz’s pinch hit homer in the 7^th. In the 9^th inning Damien Easley led off with a pinch hit walk. Reyes reached on an infield single to as the go ahead run with no outs. Luis Castillo killed the Mets here. He could not bunt the runners over (what point does he serve) and David Wright fouled out on a ball that was kept in play by the wind (same wind that kept Utley’s 2^nd home run fair). Beltran hit a bullet up the middle that was snagged on an unbelievable play by Eric Bruntlett (yes that Eric Bruntlett) and he threw out Beltran by a ½ step to end the game. After Bruntlett’s performance in the 5 prior games in this matchup, I can’t really complain that he finally did something positive for the Phils.

5 Up:

#1 Carlos Beltran: I have no idea what his stats were this week, but he talked to Reyes and told him to start having fun again. The bat came back for Reyes, as did the stolen bases, as did the wins for the Mets. Somebody please tell Mike and the Mad Dog to shut their stupid traps about the Mets having no leadership on this team.

#2 David Wright: Somehow he is only the 3^rd hottest hitter in his division right now (Larry Jones, Chase Utley). However he carried the Mets Tuesday night and went 8-11 vs. the Phils this weekend. He is playing the exact opposite of his April last year.

#3 Jose Reyes: The Mets go when Jose Reyes is going. The hits are back, the handshakes are back, and most importantly the smile is back. We could look back on this week as the turning point of the season.

#4 Johan Santana: How is he only 4^th this week??!! 7 innings giving up 1 run and striking out 10 in his first start against the Phils definitely set the tone for the week. The reason why Mets fans booed him last Saturday…we are shocked when he doesn’t pitch great. He’s that good. JO-HAAAAAAAAAAAANNNN!!!! JO-HAN JO-HAN JO-HAN!!!!

#5 Billy Wagner: He has to be mentioned here. He hasn’t given up a freaking hit yet this year!!! He is hitting 96-99 MPH and thanks to little need for him in the first 2 weeks, he has been fresh lately. The Mets need to lighten his load during the season to have him at full strength down the stretch. My apologies to Nelson Figueroa, Duanar Sanchez, Oliver Perez, and Ryan Church this week. It was a tough feat to make it into 5 up this week.

5 Down:

#1 Carlos Delgado: I was hoping to leave him off of here this week, but when you are hitting .040 for the week you earn the top spot in 5 down. He is a huge question mark for this season. Alou may come back this weekend, and with him in the lineup I think the Mets need to consider a 5-6-7 of Church, Alou, and Delgado if he continues to struggle.

#2 Aaron Heilman: Raise your hand is you have faith in Aaron Heilman in the 8^th inning. Now raise your hand if you would rather see Heilman than Duanar Sanchez in the 8^th inning. If you have just raised your hand for either of those options, go have your head checked…seriously.

#3 Pedro Feliciano: Naturally I start singing his praise this week and he looks bad on Saturday and gives up a game winning homer to Pedro Feliz on Sunday. I will shut my mouth now.

#4 Ramon Castro’s hamstring: What the hell?! Get healthy already.

#5 Phillies fans: We all know they are the worst. I should expect this crap but cheering when Jose Reyes got hurt Friday Night and booing (and I mean loudly) when he got to his feet and was o.k. is unreal. I root against all Philly sports not because of the rivalry, but because of the fans. Well with the Phillies it is because of Jimmy Rollins and the fans, but everything else is the fans. You stay classy Philadelphia.

Looking back at Mets history:

April 20 2003

Current Record 8-11

Overall Record 66-95

Mets 7 Marlins 4

In what seems like a rarity in his Mets career, the Mets score 5 runs in the bottom of the 7^th to get Tom Glavine a win bumping him to 3-1 on the season. The Marlins led 3-2 heading to the bottom of the seventh thanks to a Derek Lee solo HR and RBI singles by Juan Pierre and Alex Gonzalez. The Mets 5 run 7^th was started by a leadoff home run by Vance Wilson. The Mets would score the go ahead run on a squeeze play with Roger Cedeno laying down the bunt base hit scoring ray Sanchez and would add insurance runs on a 2 RBI single from Mo Vaughn and an RBI ground out by Shinjo. Mike Stanton allowed a leadoff home run in the 9^th but the Mets hold on 7-4.

April 20, 2000

Current Record: 9-7

Overall Record: 94-68

Mets 5 Brewers 4 10 innings

Melvin Mora’s walk off home run off Curtis Leskanic in the 10^th inning gives the Mets their 4^th straight win of what would become a 9 game winning streak. The Mets trailed 4-1 heading into the 7^th inning in part to Brewers home runs by Charlie Hayes and James Mouton off Mets starter Al Leiter. The Mets would score 3 runs in the 7^th thanks to a lead off home run by Derek Bell as well as a two run single by Todd Zeile that plated Edgardo Alfonzo and Robin Ventura. Pat Mahomes, Dennis Cook and Turk Wendell would combine for 4 scoreless innings of relief with Wendell recording the win.

April 20, 1986

Current Record: 5-3

Overall Record: 108-54

Mets 8 Phillies 0

The Mets score 4 in the bottom of the 1^st inning which is more than enough for Sid Fernandez who would pitch 8 innings of 2 hit ball in a victory for the Mets. The Mets sweep the Phillies after getting swept at Philadelphia the week before and the sweep began an 11 game winning streak for the Mets. The big blow in the 1^st inning for the Mets was a 3 run homer for Danny Heap of Phillies starter Kevin Gross. Sid Fernandez allowed a leadoff hit to Gary Redus to start the game and only gave up a 5^th inning single to Mike Schmidt from there. Even though El Sid was dominant on the mound, his crowning achievement had to be in the bottom of the 6^th inning. After leading off the inning with a single, Fernandez moved to second on an error by second baseman Luis Aguayo. Then the unthinkable happened. Sid Fernandez steals third base and on a throwing error by catcher John Russell comes home to score the 6^th run of the game. Wow.

April 20, 1969

Current Record: 5-7

Overall Record: 100-62

Mets 11 Cardinals 3

After falling behind 3-0 in the 1^st the Mets score 1 in the 2^nd, 5 in the 5^th, 2 in the 7^th, and 3 in the 9^th, to rout the Cardinals. Nolan Ryan would come out of the bullpen to throw 4 and 2/3 scoreless innings to pick up the win for the Mets. In the big 5^th inning for the Mets, 3^rd baseman Kevin Collins smacked a 2 run homer to tie the game. Bud Harrelson would later score on a bases loaded walk to Ed Kranepool which was immediately followed up by a 2 run double by Ron Swaboda. All 11 runs were driven home from the 5-8 hitters with RBI’s from Kranepool (2), Swaboda (3), Grote (4) and Collins (2).

April 20, 1962 (off)

April 19, 1962

Current Record: 0-7

Overall Record: 40-120

Cardinals 9 Mets 4

After two weeks of baseball the expansion Mets were still without their first win. They would have to wait 3 more days before that historic victory. After a Ken Boyer 4^th inning home run and Stan Musial RBI single later that inning, the Mets would quickly respond in the bottom half with 1^st baseman Ed Bouchee’s 2 run home run to tie the game. The wheels fell off for southpaw Al Jackson in the 5^th and the Cardinals scored 4 times with the big hit coming once again of the bat of Stan Musial as he drove home 2 more runs with his 1 out single. Cards starter Ray Washburn last 8 innings yielding 4 runs, which was good enough for the victory.