The Mets and the Marlins play the rubber game in this series as yesterday's game pretty much went how it would according to paper. The Mets will face Volstad for the first time this year as Maine will make his third start against the fish this year. With yesterday's loss the Mets are back in second place by a half game, but at this point in the season, just winning remains the ultimate goal. Sheff, Wright and Castillo return today as well from their day of rest.

Maine is 4-3 on the season with a 4.18 ERA over 9 G and 57.2 innings. In his last three games he has pitched 18.2 IP with a 2-1 record and a 3.50 ERA. So far against the Marlins this year he is 1-0 in two games and 11.0 IP with a 1.64 ERA, 4 BB and 9 K. He is still building steam and is what this team needs with a rotation spot (Perez, Niese, Redding, whatever) still very much in flux. Here are some stats the Marlins have put on him over the years:
     Uggla  4-20, 2B, HR
     Ramierez 4-10, 2 HR
     Hermida 5-12
     Cantu 3-9
     Bonifacio 0-6
     Ross 0-6
The promising sign for Maine is that yesterday when the bullpen stepped in for Redding they put the Marlins on lock down and they also did that on Friday too. So for Maine, he knows that if he does his part, than more than likely the pen will do their part. Some offense of course would help as well.

Volstad is also 4-3 on year with a 3.69 ERA over 61.0 IP. In his last three startes he has pitched 18.2 IP with a 5.30 ERA, 3 BB and 18 K. He has not pithced against the Mets this year but last year, his rookie year, he made two starts against the Mets and he was 1-0 with a .73 ERA over 12.1 IP, 6 BB and 9 K. It will be interesting to see how the Mets address him one year later now that their are scouting reports out on him and in recent games he has been hit. Here are some numbers the Mets put on him last year:
     Beltran 2-4
     Murphy 1-6
     Wright 2-5
     Castillo 1-3
Hopefully the day off renegerized Wright and Castillo. Also, there are a large amount of current Mets who havn't seen Volstad pitch but they aren't the Mets that historically do bad against new pitchers (in other words just havn't been with the team over the last three years for any large amounts of time) and these are players like Pagan and Sheff. Lets Go Mets! Fry the Fish!

The Mets and the Marlins play the second game of the three game set this afternoon as the Mets face another day of historical challenges. Very similar to last night, the Mets will face a pitcher that they have had very little recent success on, Josh Johnson, and the Mets will send a pitcher to mound who struggled against the Marlins last year, Tim Redding. Other story lines include that the Mets still have a half game lead over the Phils in the division and have 4 game winning streak.

Redding has had two starts so far this year and one has been good while the other one not so much. His totals are 0-1 over 10.2 innings where he has allowed 10 hits, 8 ER, 8 BB and 8 K. Last year he pitched 6 games against the Marlins and lasted a total of 29.0 innings where he gave up 25 ER, 14 BB and 31 K. He will have to emulate Mike Pelfrey as he must get over his demons as well and beat the fish. Here are some stats the Marlins have against him:
     Helms 6-23, 2 HR
     Ramierez 7-13, 3 2B, 3 HR
     Hermida 7-14, 3 2B
     Uggla 1-12, 7 K
     Cantu 4-12, 2B, HR
     Ross 2-9
Short story: A lot of Marlins have good numbers against Redding. Its going to come down to control with Redding. His walks have to go down so when he makes mistakes, they don't hurt him, in other words that BB to K ratio right now has to change. His WHIP is also killing him. Keep those runners off the bags!

The Mets bats will to deal with Johnson again. He had a great game against the Mets when the Marlins beat the Mets 2-1 and then he pitched an alright game against the Mets where he allowed 3 runs over 6 innings, but the Marlins won 4-3. Anyway he is 3-1 on the season over 67.1 IP and a 2.67 ERA. In his last three games he is 0-1 over 17.1 IP and has a 3.63 ERA. This year against the Mets he is 1-0 over two games with 15.0 IP and 4 ER (2.40 ERA) with 2 BB and 10 K. The Mets were able to score runs on him last time and they need to rememebr that they can do that. Here are some stats the Mets have on him:
     Beltran 3-18
     Wright 3-18
     Murphy 2-9, 2B
     Castillo 2-5
     Tatis 4-6, HR
The Mets are goign to have to score runs on Johnson to back up Redding and also to give the bullpen some breathing room. If they can do that, then they have a good chance of extending this streak to 5 games. Lets go Mets! Beat the Marlins!

The Mets beat the Marlins by the score of 2-1 in the 11th inning which means that they remain in first place and now have a four game winning streak. They also move to 3 wins and 4 losses so far against the Marlins this season. The reason this win is so remarkable for the Mets is because they not only "beat" a new pitcher (ok, West had their number the entire night except for the solo homer by Santos, so in reality this part wasn't a win for the Mets) but Pelfrey, who was terrible against the fish last year lasted 7.2 innings and allowed only one run, dropping his season ERA to 3.88,  and he only walked one while striking out 6. He has really been good as of late.

Now Pelfrey got his demons but the Mets still needed to win and that was thanks to Omir Santos who seems to only hit when this team needs him the most, but hey, thats what we need on this ball club. His homer in the 3rd provided one run and then he knocked in the winning run in the 11th, and in doing so, he raised his batting average to .276. The Mets really need this guy to stay around because he is a good hitter as well as a good catcher and the Mets made that happen today as they traded away Ramon Castro. I will be slightly sad to see Castro go as he has knocked in a surprising amount of homers for his AB but he has always been an injury risk and when it comes down to it, the Mets need Omir Santos more, a young catcher who not only calls a good game but frames pitches, runs, and gets key hits.

In other notes, Beltran made his return tonight going 0-4 at the plate and Wright also had a o-for day with and 0-5 performance. THe winnign run was scored by who else but Sheffield who has been in the middle of everything good for the Mets this month. With a win tomorrow, the Mets will take a series from the fish for the first time this season, which would be a very nice thing to do.

Wow it must feel like the 60's the mid 90's because right now their is a tremendous excitement about Baseball in Baltimore and it all comes in the form of Matt Wieters, the young minor league player of the year, form first round (fifth overall) pick who will be making his much anticipated debut in Baltimore tonight. Everyday sine his debut was announced, the papers have been covered in Oriole coverage. On facebook, all of my friends who are Orioles fans have status's related to Wieters and it really feels almost like a playoff game in Baltimore tonight as 10 (plus) years of frustrated fans look at Wieters as their hope.

Not too much pressure for a Major League Debut, right?

This is how losing and winning can affect a fan's psyche. We have been reading, watching, writing about Fmart for years now, but when he came up this week it was nothing like how when Wieters' arrival was announced simply because of the state of the franchises. The Mets have been much better over the last ten years than the Orioles. Going back to 99, the Mets have been in the playoffs three times and have a pennant. In the last two years they have been in it till basically the last day of the season. The Orioles the last few years are pretty much eliminated by August. I will not be able to make the game tonight, but I have a lot of friends that will be there, and I am very curious to hear about the energy in the stadium, because it could be something that Orioles fans haven't felt since, well probably 96 or 97.

I wonder what this means for the Nationals as their hopes could very well be pinned on Strasburg when he gets drafted. I heard today he might skip the minors (which I think is extreme and is the subject of another post for another day) but its always interesting to see how hopes can be pinned on these young players. It also makes you appreciate home grown talent like Wright and Reyes even more.

The Mets hope to continue their three game winning streak tonight by taking on the Marlins. The Marlins had the Mets number in the beginning of the season but they are much different team from that point as they are now four games below five hundred. The Mets will have to face a rookie making his second start of the season and they will send out Pelfrey to wrestle with his demons. That being said it should be a very interesting game.

Sean West will be making the start for the Marlins and in his major league debut he got a no decision in a game the Marlins eventually lost as he went out there for 5 innings, allowed 4 hits, 2 runs, 4 walks and 5 K. In the minors this year he was 4-2 over 8 games, where he had pitched 42.2 innings, walked 22, struck out 55 and had a 4.86 ERA. In the spring this year he pitched 4.2 innings with 7 ER, 6 H, 2 BB and 4 K. Now although the Mets usually struggle against new pitchers there are two signs that the Mets need to make sure they remember out there. First his numbers suggest that he has been hit and sometimes hard on all levels. Second, and more importantly, he is a left handed pitcher. That is where the Mets, even without Delgado, have their power.

In our dugout, Pelfrey will be taking the mound as he has a 4-1 record this season over 48.0 IP with a 4.31 ERA. In his last three games he is 2-1 over 20.0 IP, a 2.70 ERA, 4 BB and 11 K. These are the bad numbers though: Last year in 5 games Pelfrey was 0-4 with 20 ER over 25.1 IP against the Marlins. They have his number. He has shown this month that he has the stuff to return to number two in this rotation and this start will be important as its his first against the Marlins this year. Here are some numbers the Marlins have on Pelfrey:
     Ramierez 4-23, HR
     Uggla 7-19, 4 2B
     Hermida 3-11
     Cantu 5-13, 2 2B
     Ross 5-12, 2B, 3B
     Baker 4-8, 2B
The Mets success in this game will have a lot do with Pelfrey. If he can keep the Mets in this game and go deep, then the Mets will have a good chance of giving him his run support. If that doesn't happen, then the Mets will have to hope that their bats are really good. Lets Go Mets! Beat the Marlins!

The Mets got the sweep last night in really a bizarre game. Santana pitched 6 innings and over 120 pitches thanks to a 41 pitch inning. He walked a high amount of batters (6) but at the same time he also struck out 11 batters. He even walked in a run but he still battled back. Murphy hit a homer that was heavily disputed, and wasn't called a homer initially but it was reviewed and ruled a homer. Fmart made not a critical error but a bad mental error where he hit a pop up in front of the plate and just stared at it, and then got out on what would have been an error that would allow him to be on the bag.

Murphy had a big game as even though he had the disputed call, he also hit a key two run double at the end of the game that made the lead almost impossile to reach. Five RBI's was a carear high for him and it was a level of play the Mets needed out of him because right now between all of the injuries the Mets need different players to step up each night.

Through this all, the Mets have regained first place in the NL East and now have a nice 3 game winning streak and have won 5 of their last 6. When it comes to Fmart we have incredible expectations for this kid and he is going to make mistakes. I am trying to not be critical of him because of his age and his experience. This is a hot topic in Baltimore right now (not Fmart but managing expectations) with Matt Wieters starting play on Friday. Now the Mets have the challenge of continuing their winning ways against the Marlins this weekend. Lets Go Mets!

Now I don't know much about the NBA, mostly because when it comes to basketball I stick to my Terps and then remember that I am a baseball fan and it seems to be the only sport I truly understand. I have a feeling that the NBA finals are quickly becoming like the 2003 World Series. Lets go back in time and refresh ourselves with the 2003 ALCS and NLCS. For the ALCS, the series was between the Red Sox and the Yankees. This was before the 2004 and 2007 World Series Championship teams, and Boston was hungry for a championship. On the NLCS side, the series was between the Marlins and Cubs. Although the Cubs have really done nothing on the World Series since then but we all know Chicago is still waiting for those rings to come in the wind.

And as fans we all wanted to see the Red Sox play the Cubs. It would be sport story heaven. Two great teams playing each other and two cities that not just want but need a title (funny how a few years later really changes our opinion about Boston). Well we know how the story goes, those two teams didn't get to move on and the World Series really was the unwanted matchup of the Marlins and the Yankees, with the Marlins winning their second title in their short existance (then prompting a fire sale).

Well it looks like the NBA finals might go the same way as the Magic and the Nuggets might steal the show from the Lakers and the Cavs thus take it away from the LeBron and Kobe matchup we all might want. So the connection here is that we as the public really want to see a specific matchup and we dont get it, which is just the way Sports go. I don't know how strong of a connection it is between the 09 Finals and the 03 Series (depends on who actually gets to the Finals), but it was something I was thinking about during the afternoon commute and I thought I would share.

The Mets go for a sweep against the Nationals for the second time this season as this time they will have their ace on the mound in the form of Johan Santana but they will be facing the same pitcher that beat them last time, Jordan Zimmermann. Notice the two n's at the end of his name, he is not related to Ryan Zimmerman. Many organizations have made this mistake, including the Nationals who spelled his name (Jordan's) Zimmerman on his first set of bats, which caused the Nationals to write in the extra n. Anyway, the Mets have won two straight and 4 of their last 5.

Johan is 6-2 on the season with a 1.50 ERA over 60.0 innings this year where he has only 14 BB and 75 K's. In his last four games he is 3-1 with 27.1 IP, 1.98 ERA, 5 BB and 31 K. The 1.98 ERA is mostly due to his 4 ER he gave up in a win against the Giants earlier this month. In April he faced the Nats and went 6.0 innings, allowed one run, one walk and struck out 10. Here are some Nationals stats against Johan:
     Belliard 4-23, 7 K
     Zimmerman 5-15, HR
     Guzman 8-14, 2B
     Johnson 1-11
     Kearns 2-12
     Harris 1-9
The hottest hitter against Johan by far is Guzman who would love to see Santana tomorrow because after a great start to the season he has really slowed down basically to halt. Hopefully Johan can use that to his advantage and get Guzman to get himself out. One thing Santana would love to see is the Mets to score runs.

Zimmermann really did some good work against the Mets his last time out but since then he has struggled. On the season he is 2-1 over 41.0 IP with a 5.71 ERA. In his last 3 games he has pitched 18.0 IP with 0-0 record, a 6.00 ERA, 6 BB and 21 K. So his K to BB ratio is good, but thats about the only good thing in his last three games. In April against the Mets he pitched 5.1 IP, allowed one ER, 6 H, 2 BB and 5 K. Here are some Mets stats against Zimmermann:
       Beltran 1-3
       Murphy 0-3
       Wright 0-3, 3K
       Santos 1-2
The last time the Mets played the Nationals in April, they were a completely different team then they are now, and I'm not referring to all of the roster injuries, I'm talking about the mentality of this team. Back then it was a losing team, now its a winning team. Earlier this month they got their "killing" instinct back. They have failed at sweeping their last two attempts (Giants and Red Sox) but hopefully the Mets will win this time. Lets Go Mets! Sweep the Nats!

You better believe it.

It seems that it will be sooner rather than later the Orioles will be good. Now the chances of them finishing at .500 might be slim this year but next year teams better watch out. If you need reason to believe it look at the Orioles lineup starting on Friday. Right now in the outfield the Orioles are fielding a strong, young group. The rightfielder should be an All-Star this year in the form of Nick Markakis. The centerfielder is young and is under the radar and his numbers are better than Markakis, of course I am talking about Adam Jones. He is going to be a superstar some day. Their left fielder made his debut recently and he is Nolan Reimold. When I was doing my research project about minor league baseball and its connections to its communities I saw Reimold play a few times and he would crush the ball way over the very high wall.

And on Friday they get to the other player I saw a lot last year, Matt Weiters. He is the real deal. This is with Huff, Mora among other players on the team. The lineup can hit and hit hard. The only thing that is keeping the Orioles from being good right now is pitching but that can change soon as well. Patton, the other major player in the Bedard deal (that brought Jones) is doing very well now and he should be coming up soon for the O's and really they will be in a position this offseason where they will have specific needs, not just general needs.

Things in Baltimore should get very interesting soon.

If you told me before this season that Livan Hernandez would be the first pitcher on this team to pitch a complete game, I would have laughed at you. In fact, I think anyone would have laughed at Livan making this team from the start but he made the team and he has been pretty effective. He did a good job slicing through this lineup and the Mets did a good job backing him up with runs. A lot of that is thanks to a late homer by Sheff, to really put this game out of reach for the Nationals. So far in May Sheff is hitting over .340 and it couldn't be a better situation for the Mets who are not only injuried but they have very little in the power in the lineup with a veteran precence. This was another situation that we probably didn't think we would be in at the start of the season, but we should be thankful for Sheff being here because he has become a crucual piece of the team.

The big story of the game was number 26, Fernando Martinez. He didn't get a hit in this game but he did get an RBI and he is fast. We have been wating for his arrival for a while and now we get to see what he has. This is the perfect time for youth energy on the squad as the team is dropping by flies due to injuries. Lets Go Mets! Lets get that sweep!

The Mets look to take the second game of the series tonight as they play the second game of the series against the Nationals. Last night featured a lot of walks but a lot of clutch pitching to get out of tight spots for the Mets, and they look to continue that as Livan Hernandez, who has seen the Nats a lot via pitching against their players a lot and being their teammate will have to go against an unknown quantity (uh-oh) in the form of Stammen for the Nationals.

Livan is 3-1 on the season as he has pitched 45.2 innings ans has a 4.95 ERA over that stretch. In his last four games he is 2-0 over 24.1 IP and has a 3.33 ERA. Agianst the Nationals last year he was 2-0 in as many games as he pitched 13.0 innings and had a 4.85 ERA. The Nationals lineup is an interesting one for him to face as half the lineup is veterans, which are harder for Livan to trick (in the form of patience) and the other half of the lineup is young, and tends to get impatient at the plate. Here are some stats against Livan:
     Belliard 12-47, 2 2B
     Kearns 12-27, 2B, HR
     Dunn 2-17, 6 K
     Zimmerman 5-16, 2 2B, 2 HR
     Johnson 2-9, 5 K
The Nats bats are probably pretty frustrated after last night, so lets keep up the frustration. Keep them off the bags, keep them off the boards and score some runs.

Scoring runs will be interesting as the Mets will be facing a new pitcher making his second start ever. This is usually a bad sign for the Mets but you never know. Anyway, Stammen in his first start lasted 6.1 IP innings where he allowed 4 runs, walked one and struck out 3 on his way to a no decision in a game the Nationals eventually won. In the minors this year he was 4-2 over 7 games and 40.0 IP with a 1.80 ERA (Triple A Syrcause). In the spring he made only two outings and pitched four innings where he allowed only one run.His track record seems to be pretty good. Lets Go Mets! Beat the Nationals!

The Mets beat the Nationals tonight for the first game of this series despite walking 9 batters in this game. Both teams left a ton of batters on base tonight and in the end it hurt the Nationals more than the Mets. This is very similar to a game that the Mets played against the Pirates early in the year where both teams had the same problem in the game, leaving players on base, but the better team at the end of the day got the job done.

The Mets really built steam in the way of knocking out Lannan thanks to the Umpires taking a long time to make a decision about the Sheff homer. Now from watching the game in Baltimore the announcers were convinced the ball was not a homer. Personally I feel it was very close because although the fan had to reach down to get to the ball, his hands really were not to far away from the fence. (Basically it looked like to me that if undistubred that ball would have hit that ledge between the top of the wall and the fence, which would be a homer) but I also had one view of the play, one more view would probably seal the deal whether this was a homer or not.

Anyway, the Mets got the win tonight against a team they have to beat. The Phillies lost so that means the Mets are only a half game out and now the Mets will face the unknown pitcher tomorrow as Livan goes for the Mets.

The Mets toughest series in the road trip came in the form of the NL West leading and Major League leading Dodgers who beat up on the Mets in three games. Without going into detail, the big problem with these three games was the Mets defense. It was terrible. The Mets lost another shortstop and had to go with Ramon Martinez who between the Dodgers and the Red Sox just kept making errors (although he had some good plays in one of the games against the Red Sox).

The first game had to be the worst game as the Mets had the go ahead run in extra innings in the form of Ryan Church not touch third base and then later would make several mistakes later in the game that would lead to the winning run for the Dodgers. The next game featured another loss by the Mets this time by the score of 5-3 and it started to become obvious that the Mets would need to start hitting homers, which did not happen in that game. The last game was also terrible as the Mets lost 2-1, Reyes had to exit the game and just could not get runners home.

Luckilly for the Mets they would do well in Boston and they would then wrap up this road trip at 5-5 which was fantastic considering the errors and the menal errors the Mets would make in this series and then the injuries the Mets would also have on this trip.

The Mets started off this road trip on a good foot. At the time, the Giants were three games above five hundred and were second in the NL West. The Mets won the first three games of this series before losing the last game. During this time, the Mets had to start to fight through the injuries that would occur during on this trip and would plague the team for the next 10 games and into the current homestand.

The first game the Mets started off with a bang as the Mets had 7 stolen bases and that was without Jose Reyes. And of course the star of that game was David Wright who managed to swipe four bags. With the exception of Parnell, the pitching staff did a very good job in that game as Maine was effective and Krod was Krod as he got the save in a great inning of work. The next game was a really good sign for the Mets as they were able to get a win against Lincecum. However, that doesn't describe the whole story. After two innings, Lincecum was winning 5-1. The Mets fought back against Lincecum and were able to get the win in a game they were supposed to lose because they were facing one of the best pitchers in baseball (especially when dueling Livan Hernandez). The third win in this series was Johan vs Randy as both of these great lefties had off days but the Mets were able to out slug the Pirates to get their third straight win. Despite very good pitching by Pelfrey, the Mets bats fell silent in the last game of this series as some of the injury problems caught up with the Mets but taking 3 of 4 from the Giants is still a great success.

The Mets however would not fare so well in their next series.

Over the next three posts I will be talking about a few series that I didn't get to review the games due to a busy schedule. Lets go back in time a bit for this one. The Mets opened up this series with the Braves in the midst of a seven game winning streak. The Mets would first lose by a wide margin of 8-2, then won an exciting game in the bottom of the ninth on a walk off walk, and then would lose the rubber game of this series in the 12th inning.

Some notes from this series included a frustrating first game as Santana gave a great performance and it was wasted by a sloppy bullpen followed by some sloppy defense. Really that was what happened in the game as Santana was the star and got no credit for it. The second game was all Beltran as he played great the entire game and then took it to the next level in the ninth inning. He got a double to start it off, and later stole third, on a call that Chipper whined about (and knowing him, the next time we play the Braves he probably will bring it up again) and the Mets drew a few walks and the next thing we know, Beltran is walking into home plate for the winning run. This game was also a big deal because Pelfrey really made a nice start to this game, starting a streak where Pelfrey would be effective on the mound and keeping the Mets in the game. The last game was a tough loss but the Mets might not have deserved this win as they started with allowing over 5 runs in about 5 runs, but the Braves did the same thing.

All in all, it was disappointing to drop 2 of 3 after winning 7 straight, but thats the way the game goes sometimes. The Mets would then after this game embark on 10 game road trip that they faced three very good teams.

Happy Memorial Day folks! To all of the brave men and women who protect our country and our freedoms everyday, I would like to thank you for what you do for this country everyday.

I was at the Orioles game today (probably will post about that later) and during the onfield ceremonies where they were honoring soldiers it hit me how tied to the hip Baseball and American culture is. Its not just how American baseball is (because its not now, its international) but its about how tight of a connection baseball has to our culture (there is a very subtle difference between the two subjects in that statement). Baseball is a Memorial Day tradition. I can't think of memorial day without baseball because its where I have always gone on Memorial Day. It becomes a public forum to thank all of Armed Services in a venue that is inviting to everyone and its a venue to show so many of our aspects of American Culture. It is where Baseball Culture and American Culture hit head on.

I hope everyone out there in Mets land and in the United States (and really all over the world) had a great day today. Once again, thank you to our Armed Forces for protecting us each and every day.

The Mets will be playing the Nationals tonight as they finally return home after a long home trip where it seemed that everyone got injured and the Mets were still able to get out of the trip 5-5 while facing three very good teams. Tonight the Mets will be facing the best pitcher the Nationals have to offer in the form of John Lannan and the Mets will be sending John Maine to face him.

Lannan is 2-3 over 9 games and 52.0 IP and a 3.63 ERA. Over his last three games, he has pitched 18.2 IP and he has a 1.93 ERA, which is very good. With all of his performances considered, it becomes pretty clear that his record is the result of the Nats bats and more over, the Nats pen. In four games against the Mets last year Lannan pitched 22.0 innings and he allowed 11 runs, 5 BB and 22 K. Here are some Mets stats against Lannan:
     Wright 4-15, 2 2B
      Beltran 2-10, 2B
      Tatis 2-5, 2B
      Maine 1-2, 2B
The key for the Mets is to some how, whether its hitting Lannan hard or taking a lot of pitches, need to get him out of the game early because they want to get to that Nats bullpen and do damage there.

Maine is 3-3 on the season with a 4.53 ERA over 45.2 IP and in his last three games he has pitched 18.0 IP and has a 3.50 ERA. He was 3-0 in as many games against the Nationals last year over 17.2 IP with a very nice 1.53 ERA, 9 BB, and 15 K. Maine likes to pitch agaisnt this Washington club. Here are some Nats batting numbers against the Maine Event:
     Zimmerman 4-27, 2B, HR
     Kearns 5-17, 2B
     Belliard 9-15, 2B, HR
     Johnson 2-12, HR
     Guzman 0-8
Remember that series against the Pirates? Well this is the same thing. The Mets need to beat the Nats because they are supposed to beat them and they must in order to keep pace with the Phillies. Lets Go Mets! Beat the Nats!

The Mets took a tough loss yesterday as Green started the mistakes that led the bullpen to give the Mets a 12-5 loss. As disappointing as losing that game was, even with having the lead, the thing is that we should all be happy about this series and this roadtrip on its own. There are only two teams in recent history that have been able to sweep the Red Sox at home so its a tough challenge. The Mets went 5-5 on a road trip where they faced the number two team in the west, the number one team in the nation in terms of record and the number two team in the AL East in a hostile environment.

And they did this while losing Delgado, Reyes, Cora, Church, Krod and possibly Ramon Martinez.

The Mets are playing down a lot of players and they still playing well with a lot of mistakes. Hopefully this spell will be over soon otherwise the Mets just might have to call up all of Buffalo. We have to think, or hope, that if things were worse (as in these injuries were more serious than they appear to be right now) that Minaya would step in and get Manuel some more players but hopefully he doesn't have to resort to that. Lets hope that Reyes (knock on wood) returns on Tuesday like he is supposed to and this lineup returns to form.

That being said, one thing that I am very happy about, and probably will talk about at length over the offseason is that Murphy is playing first base. At this rate, it does not appear that the Mets will be resigning Delgado for next season. If Murphy learns first base that gives the Mets a lot of options in the OF. There is the immediate fix option of trying to sign Matt Holiday or theres the probably better for our future option of giving Fmart his chance out there. But that is a talk for another day.

The Mets play the early afternoon against the BoSox today as they try to go for a great three game sweep. The Mets, after playing a terrible game on Friday (despite getting the win) played a great game last night with a key hit from Santos. With all of the current injuries on the squad, games like last night show the team that they can win no matter the situation. Redding will be making his second start for the Amazin's and Wakefield will be starting for the Nation (I hate how they are referred to as the Nation).

In his first outing of the season for the Major League club, Redding pitched a no decision going 6 innings, allowing 2 runs, walking 4 and striking out 4. He hasn't faced the Red Sox since 2005 where he allowed 6 runs in one inning of work. Redding continued his good work so far this season last time out as he had a quality start following quality games in the minors. Here are some stats the Red Sox have on him:
     Drew 4-10, 2 HR
     Bay 4-13, 2B
     Lowell 4-12, 3 2B
     Ortiz 1-4
     Varitek 2-3, 2 2B
     Lugo 0-2
The Mets kept the Red Sox undercontrol last night and although a lot that had to do with the pitching, a lot of it had to do with the good defense behind the pitching. That must continue for the Mets to continue winning.

The Mets will have to face the Knuckleball of Wakefield this afternoon. This season he is 5-2 over 52.2 IP and a 3.59 ERA. In his last three games he is 2-1 with 18.2 IP, and 4.82 ERA. In his carear he has pitched 7 games against the Mets with 6 starts over 40.1 IP with a 2-3 record and a 2.43 ERA. Here are the Mets stats against him:
     Sheff 9-38, 2B, HR
     Beltran 7-23, HR
     Castillo 9-20
     Martinez 2-4
     Tatis 2-2, 2 2B
Ideally the offense would not like to have to score the winning runs in the ninth inning. A win gives the Mets a sweep against a good team and will help them go back to home on a hight note to finish off this successful month.

This was a great win for the Mets tonight. Pelfrey made mistakes early, but that was it as the scoring stopped after the first inning and the Mets were down 2-1 the entire night. In the top of the ninth though, against one of the best closers in baseball, Santos got the key, two-run, centerfield homer to give the Mets the lead and eventually the win. This is why I love Santos. He is not an offensive monster, but he is clutch and he plays with grit, he plays the game right. Also, he does something that he does not get a lot of credit for. He frames pitches extremely well behind the plate which is a big help to pitchers.

As great as Santos was, there were a lot of other great moments thansk to other players. First is Putz. Krod went down to injury (someone on this team getting injured? Thats a first) and Putz came up in a key situation to get the save and he did it. Wright, Castillo and Martinez all had their best gloves on in the ninth as Wright made an excellent stop, Castillo protected the throw and Martinez made a great catch out there.

This Mets club has had a rough road trip. They started off 3-0, then 0-4 and now 2-0 as they now have guranteed themselves to at least go 5-5 (and best 6-4) before tomorrow's game which is fantastic considering this week they lost Delgado, Reyes has been day to day, Church has been injured and now Krod. This team is starting to see that they can win when they are down on players and that is key to win a championship ring.