Come again? That sound? Oh, that was just the wind going out of my sails. Yea, it happens sometimes when things are going really well and something comes along that completely humbles me. Such was last night's game against Kyle Davies and the Braves.
The bright side is that Davies shut down a very pedestrian Met lineup. Two of the Mets' best hitters -- Carlos Beltran and Cliff Floyd -- were replaced by two guys who can only loosely be described as hitters, period -- Endy Chavez and Jose Valentin. Take away similar bats to Floyd and Belt from any team and they'll likely have some trouble scoring runs.
One bright spot for the Mets was the performance of Chris Woodward, who provided the Mets' only run and extra base hit with this solo homerun in the third. It took Woody only seven at-bats to match Anderson Hernandez's season total base count (six). As long as both Belt and Floyd are out of the lineup the Mets can't afford to give away four at-bats a game by starting Hern. Woody needs to be in there until the big bats come back, else this team will have all manner of problem scoring runs.
Jorge Julio had his best appearance of the season, striking out two in a perfect ninth inning. It's not like it was a high leverage situation or anything, but any step in the right direction for this guy has to be considered progress. Of course, he's just as likely to lay an egg the next time out, so one decent inning doesn't exactly have me brimming with confidence.
The best thing you can say about tonight's game is that it's over and the Mets get to go out tomorrow afternoon and forget about it. Hopefully one of their boppers will be back in the lineup, and hopefully Jose Reyes will get his hitting shoes back, because he's just straight hacking up there now.