Thanks to the contractual obligations that MLB and Faux have placed on all Saturday baseball games that take place in the same time frame that their regional telecasts air, we were not lucky enough to have been witness to a game in which the Mets lost 11-5, a game that we'll charitably write off as just one of those bad days at the office. And yes, with the current InDemand schedule as it is set right now, there will be no Saturday Mets games for THE REST OF APRIL, barring an act of God.
Today's game, the finale of the short series, Friday's scheduled opener having been rained out and being slated to be played on May 20th, really was a game of inches. However, that's not to undermine the excellent pitching performances that occurred; Johan Santana made his second start and did very well, allowing just one run on seven hits through seven innings. Braves starter John Smoltz did even better, giving up two hits in five innings, while the bullpen gave up just three more in its duty.
The inches came into play in the latter stages of the game, first with Braves first baseman Mark Teixeira's home run over the right field fence that barely cleared it, reminiscent of Carlos Beltran's shot against Florida last week that was taken away by the umpiring crew.
The game was put away in the bottom of the ninth, with Mets runners on first and second and two men out. Catcher Brian Schneider sharply lines a drive over first base and seemingly down the line for a game-tying double. Of course, in situations like this, the first baseman is playing on the line to prevent such a thing from happening, and in this case, Teixeira quickly made an instinctive play on the ball, one that certainly looked like it might succeed in getting past despite his defensive positioning. It was not to be, Teixeira made the play, tossed the ball to pitcher Rafael Soriano covering the base, and that was that.
A disappointing series in a number of respects, what with the shaky pitching from starter John Maine and the bullpen on Saturday, along with the fact that Jose Reyes and Luis Castillo went 1 for 18 in these two games, drawing no walks in the process either. But, the Mets have also allowed just 10 runs in their other four games, so it's not likely that what happened on Saturday will become a weekly occurrence. Still a lot of ball yet to be played though, so it's time to ponder about what happened in Atlanta, but not dwell obsessively over it.
METS RECAP
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