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.

Mets Fall to Marlins in Ten

The Mets fell to the Marlins 5-4 in ten innings in Miami on Tuesday night.

Winning Pitcher

Reliever Justin Miller (1-0) gets the win after pitching a scoreless top of the tenth. Not all that much more to say about him.

Losing Pitcher

Matt Wise (0-1), after retiring the first two batters on impressive strikeouts, surrendered a walk-off home run to Robert Andino in the bottom of the tenth inning. He just hung a change-up and Andino took him deep. Don’t get too angry with Wise for this one; it’s just one of those things.

Notes

-Pedro wasn’t terrible. He just really struggled locating his fastball early, as both homers came off of fat fastballs. Pedro told SNY’s Kevin Burghart that he felt his hamstring “pop” in the fourth, and that he will be going to New York tomorrow to have an MRI. Hamstring problem= not good because it will never go away. This will be a persistent issue. We all expected this, just not this early in the year. Get well soon, Pedro. We really need you.

-Major props to the bullpen. Jorge Sosa came into the game after Pedro was hurt and pitched 2.2 scoreless innings. Then Schoeneweis and Smith combined for a perfect seventh, and Aaron Heilman was phenomenal in throwing a scoreless eighth and ninth. Even losing pitcher Matt Wise looked great on the first two batters, striking out the first two hitters on change-ups, but he just hung the last change and Robert Andino hit it out. It’s just unfortunate that the Mets offense couldn’t contribute quite enough, and they couldn’t claim the win. But that doesn’t change how well those three guys (Smith, Show, and Heilman) pitched.

-When will the no-names quit plaguing the Mets? I mean, come on, Robert Andino? He sounds like a career minor leaguer.

-No Met really stood out offensively other than Brian Schneider, who was 3 for 4 with a RBI and a walk. Everyone got a hit except for Beltran, but only Schneider recorded multiple hits.

-Oh, where are you Gary Cohen, Ron Darling, and Keith Hernandez? These Marlin announcers are so annoying. We’re in the middle of an extra inning game and they are ripping the Shea Stadium broadcast booth. You know, the Mets ARE building a new ballpark for that very reason…

-Carlos Beltran recorded his first assist of the season, throwing out Dan Uggla at second after Uggla tried to stretch a bloop single into a double.

-David Wright hit a bomb to deep centerfield in the top of the ninth which would have been out of every ballpark in the National League except this one, San Diego, and maybe San Francisco. Arghh….

-This loss isn’t all that aggravating. The offense was okay, the pitching was great except for the first two innings from Pedro and one poor pitch from Wise. This loss would be very tolerable if Pedro wasn’t hurt in the game. Now this puts the Mets in a really tough spot in the rotation way earlier than we were hoping to deal with it.

Tomorrow’s game:
7:10 pm

Oliver Perez (0-0) vs. Andrew Miller(0-0). The Mets need to start the season off with a series victory. And they need to rest their bullpen, which pitched six and a third innings tonight. They could use a big start from Perez.

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.