Actually, once again, it's a long season, and this is just game two. However, the comfort that Mets fans felt after Johan Santana's performance was undermined by the reality of Pedro Martinez's fragility tonight, as the veteran right hander left the game in the fourth inning due to a strained hamstring. Combine that with the fact that Pedro did not have his best stuff to start the game (he found himself on the wrong end of 4-0 after two innings), and the hope that he can be a somewhat reliable number two or three starter is starting to look less likely.
Martinzez started the game off by hitting Hanley Ramirez with a pitch, a situation made worse by the two-run homer that Dan Uggla followed with. ( I could've sworn that a Marlin fan shown briefly celebrating the hit was dancing around with both middle fingers extended, before the camera cut away.). The second wasn't much better, with Luis Gonzalez leading off with a home run, and Ramirez driving in another run with a triple.
Martinez certainly looked to have settled down in the third, and had retired the first batter in the fourth, when he pulled up lame in the field. By that time though, the Mets had rallied to score three runs in the top of the inning with four straight singles and a couple of sacrifices, and added the tying run in the next inning. The rest of the regulation innings was dominated by strong middle relief pitching from both sides.
The bad news night for the Mets came to its conclusion in the bottom of the tenth, as Robert Andino hit a two-out walk-off homer, off of Matt Wise, to give the Marlins the victory.
The fun fact I learned tonight from the Florida Fox crew came during an interview with Florida starter Rick VandenHurk's dad, as the family hails from the Netherlands. Interrupting the dad's scorekeeping ("Wait........was he safe?" "Go ahead and mark the strike down, and then answer the question" ), it was revealed that they both supported PSV Eindhoven in football, almost certainly the only time that the club's name will ever be aired on Fox Florida.
ESPN RECAP
No comments:
Post a Comment