Nimmomania! Applesauce: Padres Get Lots of Hits, Mets Don't, Nimmo Meets With the Media

Let me sum up this game in a single word: Snoozefest. Jon Niese allowed 10 hits over six innings and the offense was mostly silent, as the Mets fell to the Padres 6-1. Cory Luebke held the Mets offense to just a slight whimper over his six innings, as they scored their only run on a gift double off the bat of Ruben Tejada that took a funky hop after hitting off the third base bag. The Padres offense made plenty of contact against Niese, who only allowed 3 runs to score. Pedro Beato allowed a pair of runs in an inning and relief ace Mike Pelfrey came out of the pen for a third of an inning. The relief appearance was his first since that fateful 20 inning game against the Cardinals in April 2010 in which Pelfrey picked up the save. You remember the one. The "Jerry-Troll Classic" where he had his players inexplicably bunt against position players Felipe Lopez and Joe Mather. Yeah...that one.

The rubber game of the series takes place on Wednesday, beginning at a reasonable 6:35 PM on the east coast. Dillon Gee will square off against Padres ace Mat Latos.

With Jason Isringhausen officially picking up save #300 on Monday evening, Terry Collins announced that the Mets will begin to transition to the young guns at the end of games. As assumed, Bobby Parnell will see save opportunities, along with Pedro Beato. Collins is looking at Beato as a potential starter down the linebecause of his four pitch mix, although Beato let it be known he'd prefer to stay in the pen.

One of the big stories of the past few days is the fallout from Monday's draft pick signing deadline, which saw the Mets agree to terms with 5 players, including 13th overall pick CF Brandon Nimmo. Nimmopandemonium or Nimmomania, as I prefer to call it, was in full swing on Tuesday as there was plenty of reaction and other goodies from the beat writing corps and blogosphere surrounding the Mets.

There was also a lot of talk about the improvements that the Alderson regime have made with the system and the drafting philosophy. I think you've got to be happy with how the draft has turned out.

Jose Reyes has resumed baseball activities. Hooray!

The Mets and Port St. Lucie have a tentative deal set that will lead to improvements to Digital Domain Park, prior to the start of 2012 spring training.

Finally, the Mets will be hosting COPD Awareness Day on Saturday, August 20th. I think it's always important to give a shout out for events like these.

Around the NL East

Roy Halladay struck out 14 batters, but Lyle Overbay hit a two run, ninth inning double off of HDay1 to win the game for Diamondbacks by a 3-2 score. The Phillies got a bit of a health scare, as Cole Hamels had an MRI that showed inflammation in his pitching shoulder. Hamels' velocity was at a season low in his previous outing and will skip his next start.

The Bravos beat the reeling Giants 2-1 in 11 innings. Rookie starter/future potential hated Braves stud pitcher Randall Delgado made his second big league start and was excellent, throwing 6 no-hit innings, before allowing a solo home run to end his night. As scary as the Phillies are, it's the Braves that are going to be the Mets' long-term foes, especially if just a couple of those pitching prospects pan out.

The Nats beat the Reds 6-4 in Washington, behind a merely acceptable start from Chien-Ming Wang.

The Marlins completed the non-Mets NL East sweep, as they beat the Rockies 6-5 in the mile high city.

Around the Majors

Ozzie Guillen: Sabermagician? Could it be that through all the profanity, yelling and insanity, Ozzie is actually a progressive manager?

Rough news in San Francisco, as Carlos Beltran is headed to the disabled list with a strained right hand. Bad break for Carlos but I'll just reiterate that it's nice to be on this end of the deal, for once. Carlos will be joined on the shelf by righty reliever Sergio Romo and possibly lefty starter Jonathan Sanchez, who sprained his ankle on Tuesday evening.

The Red Sox turned their first triple play since 1994.

Finally, Juan Nicasio spoke with the media for the first time after getting hit in the head and fracturing the C-1 vertebra in his neck. I'm certainly pulling for Nicasio's quick recovery.