The Mets take two out of three in a benchmark series on the road against the team with the best record in the National League, winning on Friday and today, while losing on Saturday. Both of the wins were on TV here (albeit with the Fox Arizona announcers sadly), while the Saturday loss, by a 10-4 score, was on a Faux regional broadcast. Call me crazy and delusional, but I honestly figured that they would actually show the game here, being that Arizona is in the Western division; however, we were stuck with the Cubs and the Cardinals as our "game of the week", to which I said "no thank you!" instead.
I can't really comment on that game in terms of having watched the proceedings, and about the only good thing I can discern from the stats is that the Mets were able to hit Brandon Webb (five hits in six innings, with four runs on the board), the bullpen imploded in the eighth inning, allowing five runs which put the game out of reach, and that the seventh place hitter in the lineup, second baseman Augie Ojeda , knocked in six runs for the game. Also, we do know that the D-Backs lineup is potent from first to ninth, and that Friday's starting pitcher, Micah Owings, is now hitting .429 on 21 at-bats, made an appearance today as a pinch hitter and hit a single.
In Friday's game, John Maine pitched well, but the Mets continued their offensive domination of the Diamondback at Chase Park. Jose Reyes led off the game in blazing style with a lead off triple andRyan Church and David Wright hit home runs to keep the Mets in control for the entirety of the game. Reyes wound up the game with a single, a double and two triples, the last triple coming in the eighth inning when he blasted a ball to deep center field; once he saw that the ball went over the head of Chris Young (as well as heeding the advice of third base coach Sandy Alomar), Reyes kept his motor revved around the bases in an attempt to hit for the cycle. However, the Diamondbacks recovered in the outfield enough to relay the ball home to catcher Miguel Montero, who was waiting for Reyes and tagged him out. At first, I thought Reyes was going to make the play, and I assume that Alomar did as well, but seeing as how the game was going at that point, there was no harm in trying to see what could happen, as long as he wasn't going to do a Pete Rose on Ray Fosse move. The cameras showed Reyes in the dugout afterward clearly trying to catch his breath for a few minutes.
Today's game featured a pretty good pitching duel between former American Leaguers Johan Santana for the Mets and Dan Haren for Arizona. Both had their moments of brilliance, although Santana walked four batters but somehow escaped damage in five of his six innings.
One of the plays that'll be talked about for awhile was the play Mets rightfielder Ryan Church made in the bottom of the eighth with the score tied at two. Lead off hitter Chris Burke laid down a surprise bunt in an attempt to get on base, but Mets pitcher Pedro Feliciano threw the ball into right field. The Arizona third base coach judged that it was okay for Burke to try for third, but Church made a terrific one-hop throw to Wright that just beat Burke to the base.
The Mets added the final three runs in the top of the ninth when a key throwing error by Arizona first baseman Conor Jackson opened the door to victory. Carlos Beltran and Moises Alou led the inning off with singles, and when Carlos Delgado grounded out to first base, Jackson went for the runner going to second instead of the batter; his throw wound up in left field, Beltran scored and the Mets still had runners on first and second with no outs. A Brian Schneider sacrifice, a pinch hit by Marlon Anderson (his first of the year, I think), and a sacrifice fly from Reyes rounded out the Mets scoring, leaving closer Billy Wagner a lot of space in the bottom of the ninth to end the game and give the series to the Mets.
On to Los Angeles, where the Dodgers winning streak of eight games was ended today by the Colorado Rockies.
ESPN RECAP FROM TODAY
REYES ON HIS NEAR-CYCLE
No comments:
Post a Comment