You know things are going well when you can hand in a lineup card featuring the following motley crew:
Anderson Hernandez, SS
Endy Chavez, CF
Lastings Milledge, LF
Julio Franco, 3B (!!)
Michael Tucker, 1B
Chris Woodward, 2B
Ricky Ledee, RF
Mike DiFelice, C
and still beat a tough lefty like Scott Olsen. To be fair, the Mets didn't really beat Olsen. As they have done so often this year, the Mets struggled against the young southpaw and, as they have also done with much frequency, then beat up on the Marlins' shoddy bullpen once Olsen was removed from the game.
The fact that the Mets' "B" team (or as Willie Randolph called it, his "A-" team) wasn't the biggest surprise coming out of Shea yesterday. That honor belongs to Anderson Hernandez, who came into the game with zero career extra base hits and zero career runs batted in. He wiped those blemishes clean off the table with a 400-foot blast into the left-field bullpen (though Hit Tracker pegs it at 381 feet).
Hernandez started the night a career .099/.111/.099 hitter and ended it a .122/.145/.162 hitter. He raised his career slugging percentage 64% in one day, and this is a guy who had 71 career at-bats prior to last night.
Tom Glavine had a very strong outing, going eight innings and allowing just four hits and two walks to nab his 289th career victory. The Mets have now had consecutive very strong starts from their 2-3-4 pitchers, as Glavine, Steve Trachsel and Orlando Hernandez have all pitched great games in the last week. Pedro Martinez is slated to pitch tomorrow, and hopefully the only tears shed will be those of the Marlins' hitters and Martinez mows them down inning after inning.