Not a whole lot to complain about in this one, but the best news certainly has to be that off-season acquisition Johan Santana looked awfully good in his season debut with the Mets in Miami today. (The photo is from J. Pat Carter of the AP)
Unfortunately we were stuck with the Florida broadcast team of Rich Waltz and Tommy Hutton; they're good enough, but not nearly as entertaining as SNY's team of Cohen, Hernanadez and Darling. Since Waltz used to be at Fox Seattle, we were reminded of the basketball days of Marlins starter Mark Hendrickson at Washington State.
Both pitchers looked good through the first three innings; Hendrickson got the Mets to swing at balls that were inside, resulting in quite a few pop-up outs. The Mets actually had runners on second and third in the first, with two outs, but that was the result of a fluke play by Marlins centerfielder Cody Ross, who misplayed a shallow fly ball hit by Carlos Beltran that popped out of his glove as Ross attempted to make a diving catch. Somehow, that was ruled a double for Beltran rather than an error, but Curtis Delgado ended the inning by lining to shortstop.
The Mets rallied in the fourth inning with six runs, the first two coming on two doubles, a single and a walk. Hendrickson then got the next two Met hitters out, but then the floodgates opened with the top of the order, as a single by Jose Reyes and a walk from Luis Castillo loaded the bases for David Wright, who hammered the ball into centerfield for a bases-clearing double, rounding out the damage for the inning.
Santana did struggle a bit in the fourth and fifth innings, comparatively speaking with the rest of the game, and it was in the fourth where he allowed both the first base runner ( a walk to Hanley Ramirez) and first hit, a two-run home run by Josh Willingham, to trim the Mets lead to 6-2. In the fifth, Santana gave up an infield single, threw a wild pitch , and then walked a batter to have runners at first and second with one out, but got himself out of that mini-jam with a couple of strikeouts.
Marlon Anderson got another pinch hit, and wound up scoring the final run in the top of the ninth, making it home on a throwing error on Marlins catcher Matt Treanor. Reyes had sacrificed Anderson to second, but then pitcher Matt Lindstrom threw a wild pitch; Anderson was heading for third when Treanor recovered the ball, but his throw wound up in left field. Treanor, however, did throw out two Mets trying to steal a base (Reyes and Wright) but replays seemed to indicate that both runners were safe. Castillo did manage to steal one, back in the third with two outs; he laid a perfect bunt down the third base line to get on base, and promptly stole second in an effort to create something, but the early inning jinx of Hendrickson continued as Wright ended the inning with a fly ball.
Once again, it's a long season, and it was only the Florida Marlins after all, but it was a good enough show to create optimism amongst Mets fans, especially after division rivals the Braves and Phillies had enough problems of their own, as the Braves BLEW TOM GLAVINE'S HOMECOMING AND FAILED TO TAKE ADVANTAGE FROM RECOVERING FROM A 5-RUN 9TH INNING DEFICIT to lose to Pittsburgh in 12 innings, and the Phillies bullpen fell apart to the DIVISION LEADING WASHINGTON NATIONALS. Hey, the Mets'll take care of them later.
METS STORY and GAME RECAP.
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