Playing The Game The Wright Way Applesauce: Mets Play Spoilers, Pummel Hated Braves, Wright Crushes Two Bombs

What a difference a day makes, eh? A day after Terry Collins reamed out his team for "giving up", the Mets went into the Turner Field House of Horrors and surprisingly ended up trouncing the wild card leading Braves by a 12-2 score. David Wright was the offensive star in this one, ripping a pair of home runs and Lucas Duda had four of the team's twenty hits. Jose Reyes contributed a 3-5 effort to up his lead in the batting race over Ryan Braun to four points (.334 for Reyes, .330 for Braun). Perhaps the play of the game on the Mets side, however, came in the 4th inning when Jason Bay went to the apex of his leap and robbed Alex Gonzalez of a home run, Endy-style. Just an awesome moment. After the game, Wright was hesitant to give Collins a boatload of credit for the offensive explosion, calling the outburst mostly "a coincidence". So let me get this straight--not only is the guy a great baseball player but he's also logical? TRAID the man! (No, not really).

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Saturday's game against the Braves will feature R.A. Dickey on the hill up against Tim Hudson for the Braves. The game is a 4:10 PM start and can be seen on Fox as the game of the week, meaning we'll likely get to hear some of the fascinating insights of Tim McCarver. With Joe Buck presumably in football land, perhaps we'll get a little Matt Vasgersian, who will hopefully not relive this great moment in announcing history from a Mets/Braves matchup back in April.

There was some news on the Jose Reyes front on Friday. First, it was reported by Jayson Stark that the Mets do not want Jose to hang them out to dry this offseason and that they want a quick decision from his camp. As it should be. Then, Carlos Beltran "selfishly" lobby Jose to join him in San Francisco next year. Beltran, unsure where he'll end up in 2012, told the Giants to get more offense if they want to retain his services. Jose reacted to Carlos' lobby after the game. I know it's a pretty long shot but it'd be pretty awesome to see Jose and Carlos reunited in New York in 2012.

Former Mets closer John Franco is going to tutor Bobby Parnell on the "mental side" of the closer role. Working on building Bobby's confidence is certainly a good thing and working with a revered closer like Franco obviously couldn't hurt. Let's hope he can get through to him, for the sake of the bullpen. Also, wasn't this supposed to be Jason Isringhausen's role?

Terry Collins doesn't want to mess with David Wright's defense, as he thinks he's just going through a slump.

In minor league news, the Savannah Sand Gnats were a strike away from clinching the SAL Championship on Friday evening but the Grasshoppers tied the game at 9 apiece and then eventually won it 11-9 in 11 innings, forcing the decisive fifth game tonight in Savannah. Not a good start for Erik Goeddel, as he allowed 7 runs in just 4 innings.

In other system news, Binghamton starting pitcher Brandon Moore was suspended for 50 games after testing positive for a drug of abuse. Moore, who is scheduled to represent the Mets in the Arizona Fall League, will begin his suspension in April. And finally, minor league pitching coordinator Rick Tomlin was fired by the club, despite what seemed to be a relatively successful season for Mets pitching prospects.

Around the Majors

The Phillies fell to the Cardinals by a 4-2 score in 11 innings and coupled with the Braves loss, the Cardinals are now just 3.5 games behind in the wild card race. With around a dozen games left in the season, this should certainly make things interesting.

Javier Vazquez tossed a complete game, five hit shutout as the Marlins defeated the Nationals 3-0. Looks like the Nationals gave up against the Marlins, right? Or could this just be coincidence? Probably the latter.

Around the Majors

The Red Sox defeated the Rays 4-3 to widen their lead in the AL wild card hunt to 4 games. Josh Beckett made his first start after an ankle injury held him out of the rotation for 10 days. Joe Maddon also was ejected for arguing balls and strikes, complaining that the "human element" was siding with Boston.

The Tigers clinched the AL Central Division title behind eight solid innings from Doug Fister, as they defeated the Athletics 3-1.

Ryan Braun reached the 30-30 plateau as the Brewers beat the Reds 6-3. The Brew Crew's magic number is down to 7 games over the Cardinals, who are 5.5 games behind Milwaukee.

Finally, Jayson Stark pins the Dodgers and Marlins as the two surprise big spenders this coming offseason. Huh? That's certainly going against conventional wisdom there.