Delgado Bursts Free As Mets Top Braves

The Mets defeated the Atlanta Braves today 6-3 to take the series from their NL East rivals. Recap and box score is here.

Winning Pitcher

Nelson Figueroa (2-1) got the win, going 5.1 innings giving up three runs on seven hits while walking three and striking out three. As the Mets fifth starter, he is doing just about everything you could ask. He is giving the Mets a decent chance to win every time he pitches, and has the ability to be very good at times. Interesting note on Figueroa: opponents are hitting just .094 against him his first time through the order. When Pedro comes back and Figueroa likely heads to the bullpen, this will probably come up again.

Losing Pitcher

The Mets have been John Smoltz's little punching bag for most of his Hall of Fame career, but today New York got the better of Smoltz (3-2). Smoltz threw just four innings for the Braves, and though he struck out five batters, he surrendered four runs on seven hits and two walks. The Mets scored in the first inning when Jose Reyes trotted home from third following a puzzling wild pitch from Smoltz, and then added the next three runs in a Raul Casanova two-run home run in the second and Carlos Delgado's solo blast in the third. Smoltz obviously did not have his best stuff today, and the Mets took advantage early and often. With both Hampton and Glavine either on the DL or altogether ineffective, I harbor some serious concerns about the Braves' rotation. Chuck James and Jurrjens can only take you so far . . .

Notes

-Carlos Delgado had a big game, going 2-2 with two home runs and three runs scored, and raising his average to .205 on the year. This is a good sign for Mets fans, especially the fact that his first homer was to left field and his second was a bomb to right. Delgado has always puzzled me. He gets good at-bats, but he always seems to miss his pitch - he either fouls it off or misses it altogether. Let's see if he can put some good games and get some confidence, which may be his biggest problem.

- I tire of watching David Wright flail weakly at John Smoltz outside sliders. He might as well just concede an out before stepping to the plate ,and start saving his energy for pitchers he can actually hit.

- Great catch by Ryan Church in right-center field in the seventh inning. He caught it before running into the wall, leaping over Carlos Beltran in the process, and hanging onto the ball for the third out of the inning. Great effort is great to see, especially considering that the Braves would have trimmed the Mets slim two-run lead to one had Church not made the divine-like catch.

- Billy Wagner is a machine. Simply a machine. Ten scoreless innings to start the season, and just one hit off him that entire time. Aside from the I-give-up-leads-like-the-Dutch-build-dikes time bomb Aaron Heilman, the Mets bullpen has been pretty good so far, especially Joe Smith, Billy Wagner, Duaner Sanchez, and Pedro Feliciano (knock on wood).


Johan Santana (3-2) vs. Ian Snell (2-1) as the Mets start a three-game set with the Pittsburgh Pirates tomorrow night at Shea. It's just Santana's second home start of the year, as he lost his first to the homer happy Milwaukee Brewers.

Another Loss

Sigh. I was driving all afternoon, so I heard nothing of the Mets 3-1 loss to the Braves. Smoltz got the win, Heilman got the loss, and very little bad that happened was Santana's fault. Oh, and the Mets offense is anemic. That's about all I know. Series Preview for the Brewers coming tomorrow.

Getting tomahawked like that really smarts

The Mets were plastered 11-5 by the Atlanta Braves in Turner Field today. Game recap here.

Notes

-John Maine was not at his best today, going just four innings, giving up four runs all on 96 pitches. He often looked flustered and out of his niche. It wasn’t exactly the scintillating performance I was expecting in Maine’s first start, and we’ll see if he can get it together soon. With Pedro out, the Mets REALLY need Maine to be great.

-The Mets got the short end of very poor umpiring once again. On Wednesday night, it was the bad call that ruled Carlos Beltran’s home run a double, but that controversy was lost in the Mets 13-0 win. Today, however, in the top of the fifth with the bases loaded and one out, Jose Reyes hit a scalding line drive to centerfield, and the Braves’ fielder Mark Kotsay clearly trapped it beneath his body. The umpire, however, ruled that Kotsay had caught the baseball, and the Braves easily threw out Angel Pagan at second, who was running after seeing the ball hit the ground himself.

But Randolph argued the call passionately, and it was eventually overturned, but the Mets were given just one run, despite the fact that Pagan would have scored easily from second. Still, it was just an awful call.

-I swear, Gotay will really hurt us before the end of the season.

-The relief pitching was pretty bad, outside of Joe Smith. Jorge Sosa and Scott Schoeneweis were the worst, with Sosa giving up a grand slam to Kelly Johnson in the seventh inning, effectively putting the game out of reach. Uggh, shades of 2007. Get it together, guys.

-I’m ready to move on to tomorrow, and the exciting Santana-Smoltz matchup. I hate losing to the Braves, so let’s hope Santana can work his magic.

Okay: STEP AWAY FROM THE EDGE!!

The recent skid by the Mets is admittedly concerning. Let me give a brief rundown of the stats for the Mets during their 2-9 stretch here in the month of June:

-They have lost eight of their last nine games.

-They have lost nine of their last eleven since sweeping the Marlins at the end of May.

-If it had not been for two wins by throw-in starter Jorge Sosa during this stretch, the Mets would be 0-11 in June. That is a .000 winning percentage, if you're wondering. Ouch.

-Since May 9th, a 5-3 win against the Giants in San Francisco, the Mets are 16-15 (a record obviously skewed by the recent drop-off), are hitting just .257 as a team, and have scored 105 runs and have just 99 RBI's- both stats are near the bottom of the National League.

- The team ERA during this stretch is 4.13- pretty high.

- The Mets have been unable to score runs recently: in 22 of the Mets' 39 games since May 1st, the Mets have scored four runs or less. The Mets have scored more than three runs in just three of their eleven games in June, two of them losses regardless. They have scored two runs or less in five of those eleven games. I'm beginning to wonder whether this offense might be a bit overrated. There is no way this is all a result of Moises Alou's absence.

-Jose Reyes, after hitting .356 in April and winning player of the month honors, is hitting .269 since May 9th, and is really struggling at the plate. I don't have the same subjective confidence as I used to have when he stood in the box, and I'm sure he doesn't either.

-Carlos Beltran, after hitting .356 with six homers and 23 RBI's in April, hit .234 in May with two homers and twelve RBI's. In June so far, he is hitting .194 with one homer and one RBI. In addition, he has drawn just one walk in June. He is in the slump of all slumps- but it is still masked by his incredible April. His stats since the beginning of May are (almost) worse than Carlos Delgado's during April, the only difference being that Beltran was hitting .356 before his slump, while Delgado, for all intents and purposes, was hitting .000 before his. This naturally makes Beltran's slump much quieter. Since May 1st, his average has plummeted from .356 all the way down to .278.

-I'm not sure which number is worse: that Scott Shoeneweis' ERA is 7.06, or that the Mets are paying him 3.6 million to do it.

These numbers are all VERY bad, and I would be lying to you if I said I wasn't worried. Frankly, all this losing is getting very old, and this team is becoming hard to watch. However, every team has losing streaks, and every team has bad ones. Last year, the Mets went 3-7 before their famous 9-1 road trip. Everybody has slumps and skids. And every team comes out of them eventually. The Mets will be no exception. They are too talented, too experienced, and too resilient to not play better.

The Mets just need someone to get hot, catch a couple breaks, and get some good pitching to get back on track. A nice old dominant-in-all-facets cruiser tomorrow could really be helpful, especially heading back to New York to play the Yankees- who are suddenly playing very well of late. A loss tomorrow against the Dodgers to finish the sweep would be very bad. I am of the opinion that tomorrow's game is a must-win. The Mets have to get the ball rolling somehow. I am confident that they will get it turned around. All they need is a couple hot players, some good breaks, and off they go on a nice little winning streak. I've almost forgotten what it feels like to win a couple games in a row...

Did You Know...
All this talk about the Braves being "back to dominance" is getting on my nerves. Atlanta started the year a sparkeling 7-1. But the Tomahawks are just 28-29 since, and 7-11 in their last 19. I guess this doesn't speak very favorably to the Mets, who are just two games up on the Braves right now.