Angel from Heaven: Pagan wins it in the 12th

The Mets beat the Phillies in twelve by a score of 4-3. Angel Pagan scored Reyes with a single in the bottom of the 12th.

Winning Pitcher:

Jorge Sosa (1-0) threw just one pitch in the game, retiring Pedro Feliz on a groundout. Because he was the last guy to pitch, he gets the win. Scott Shoeneweis is the real hero though. More on that later.

Losing Pitcher:

Tom Gordon (0-2) was cruising, retiring five batters in just thirteen pitches in the eleventh and twelfth innings, but then gave up a two-out double to Reyes and the game winner to Pagan.

Notes:

-Maine was okay tonight, but I don't think he was quite as good as his line indicates. He went 6+ innings, giving up five hits and just one run, a homer by Pedro Feliz in the seventh. But he had just one strikout, and walked five hitters. I didn't think his slider was all that great, and he seemed very erratic, though his ball to strike ratio wasn't all that terrible(35 balls, 55 strikes). He didn't have his best stuff, but was in line for the win until Heilman let the Phillies tie it in the ninth. I think that really shows how far he's come as a pitcher: he can not have his best stuff, walk five and strike out just one, and not really have a great slider, yet still go over six innings, give up one run, and be in line for the win.

-Do you want the bad first or the good? Let's go with the bad. Aaron Heilman is really struggling. He gave up the lead in the top of the eighth inning, and just looked absolutely terrible doing it. He was booed off the field at the end of the inning, and though I don't usually condone booing anybody who wears a Mets uniform, I probably would have done the same thing if I were at Shea tonight. He's had a very slow start to the year, and if the Mets want him to be a set-up man for Billy Wagner, he REALLY needs to be a lot better than that.

We aren't even talking about being consistent yet; he just needs to be somewhat reliable. SNY took a vote at the during the game, asking which player would help the Mets most when he comes off the Disabled List: Pedro, Alou, El Duque, or Duaner Sanchez. The answer was Moises Alou, and that is probably the correct one, but I bet Sanchez got a lot of votes after that eighth inning.

-Aside from Heilman, the Mets bullpen was rather, dare I say it, phenomenal. In the seventh inning, after Maine gave up a home run to Pedro Feliz and a double to Chris Coste, Randolph removed Maine and replaced him with Pedro Feliciano. Feliciano had a rather mediocre outing last night, and it was pretty important for him to get in a groove pretty quickly with the top of the Phillies order due up. He walked Jason Werth on five pitches, and the tension screw around Shea Stadium tightened cruelly. But then he struck out Shane Victorino, Eric Bruntlett, and Chase Utley all in a row, the latter on a steady diet of deadly sliders. When Feliciano doesn't locate his slider, he becomes ineffective very quickly. But when he gets it over for strikes and gets hitters to chase after it, he is almost impossible to hit- especially for lefties.

-For the rest of the bullpen, Wagner pitched a scoreless ninth, Joe Smith was pretty good in the tenth, but put the Mets in a tough situation in the eleventh, when the Phils had runners on first and second and one out, with Chase Utley at the plate Ryan Howard on deck. Randolph did the only thing he could do in the situation, and went toleft-hander Scott Shoeneweis. Shoeneweis had recieved most of the blame for the loss on Tuesday, whether it was justified blame or not. But here, he got Utley to ground into an inning-ending double play, and retired Ryan Howard and So Taguchi to start the twelfth. They replaced him with Sosa only because Pedro Feliz is a right-handed hitter, and Sosa retired him on one pitch. Still, major kudos to Shoeneweis, whom every Mets fan and his brother has ripped for the last year. I admit that I have often fallen victim to this. But, to get some perspective, this is just one nice game. Let's see him sustain it.

-What has Angel Pagan not done for this ball club? Clutch walk-off single in the twelfth, but I just love how he goes the other way from the left side of the plate. He did it twice tonight, and both times got hits. He's been, as Gary Cohen put it on the SNY broadcast, a god-send for the Mets. Ron Darling noted that the only thing Pagan hadn't done for the Mets was hit a walk-off homer. Though he didn't do that, a walk-off hit is a walk-off hit, no matter how far it travels.

-By the way, it was nice to see Reyes smoke a double into the gap there to set up the game-winner by Pagan. That was a frozen rope to right-center. Hopefully he can keep it going into the next series, because as Ron Darling pointed out, the Mets won't be nearly as good as they can be unless #7 gets going.

Wow, I wrote a ton. That's what happens when you feed we malnourished Mets fans with a walk-off win over the Phillies. Ahh....

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.

Thanks, But No Thanks

We all need to get our minds off this losing. Here is some comic relief, courtesy of our favorite relief pitcher: the Show himself.

Take a look at this, I just noticed it on the Mets' website:

http://newyork.mets.mlb.com/nym/community/teammates_evening.jsp

Look at the "Live Auction Items". They look pretty cool. Shagging balls with Carlos Beltran could be neat. Golf is always fun, and I heard Tom Glavine was pretty good, so that would be interesting. A Spanish lesson from Jose Reyes would be entertaining, at least. A hitting clinic with Carlos Delgado might even be beneficial in life. But notice the fifth item on that list: "A pitching clinic with Scott Schoeneweis."

Oh boy, sign me up for that one!

"Hey Scott, what is it like to have a 7.00 ERA?"

"Hey Mr. Showen-whatever, what is the first thing that pops into your head when an opponent hits a three-run homer off of you?"

"It is a lot of fun to be the butt of every Met fan's joke, isn't it?"

"What do you do to walk a batter on four pitches? The mechanics on that must be so complex- could you please show me?"

"What is your favorite way to give up runs?"

"Do you think you could give some of that money back to Mr. Wilpon? I'm sure we could use it do find a suitable replac... I mean another suitable left-handed specialist."