It's pretty amazing that we can go from "We're screwed!" to "Suck it, Philly!" in less than two days. Following the Tuesday night debacle there were some alarmist Mets fans who were ready to hit the panic button. Now the Mets are 4-4 and find themselves a game up on the Phillies and a game-and-a-half behind the soon-to-be-fourth-place-or-maybe-even-fifth-place Marlins. Even though the Phillies practically handed the Mets the win on Wednesday and the bats were mostly anemic on Thursday, I still feel 1000% better than I did two days ago. With apologies to Dinah Washington...
What a difference two days make
Forty-eight little hours
Though there's still not much power
Mmmm... things do seem right again
Through Tuesday was lame, boys
Now nothing's the same, boys
The Mets have some game, boys
Now not so much pain
John Maine allowed only one run in six innings, but he didn't really pitch very well. He was behind in the count all night, walked five batters and recorded just one strikeout. I suppose he could be commended for toughing this one out despite not having his best stuff, but even though the result was good I can't say I was terribly encouraged by the ride.
On the bright side, the bullpen was astounding, with the exception of Aaron Heilman who stunk. Again. The rest of the 'pen combined to throw five scoreless innings, allowing just two hits (though three walks) and striking out six. Even Shea Stadium pariah Scott Schoeneweis received a lukewarm round of applause after inducing a groundball double-play of Chase Utley to end a Philly thread in the 11th inning. Show was booed robustly on Tuesday night so it was nice to see him redeem himself last night. He's a fellow member of the tribe and we have to support our own.
David Wright managed to coax two walks out of Phillies pitching, but he otherwise looked inept at the plate against off-speed pitches of any variety. I guess we should be happy that he is OPS-ing .845 despite hitting just .233. Behind Wright, Carlos Beltran reached base two more times but struck out in big situations in the 8th and 10th innings. Ahead of Wright, Angel Pagan picked up three more hits -- including the game-winner -- and is hitting .370/.457/.519. Carlos Delgado had an off night, collecting just a lone walk in five plate appearances.
Has anyone else noticed the utter dearth of homerun power on this team so far? If you don't already know the answer, how many homeruns would you say the Mets have hit this season? If you've watched all of the games to this point, just think back and try to remember when a Met has homered. Ryan Church hit one against the Marlins; that's one. David Wright also hit one against the Marlins; that's two. Delgado hit one in the home opener; that's three. Umm... Oh, Carlos Beltran hit one in Florida, but the umps took it away; that's still three. Err... Yea, that's it folks. Through eight games the Mets have mashed a whopping three homeruns. Twenty-one players have at least three homeruns this season; so do the Mets. The D'Backs' Mark Reynolds has five homeruns all by himself! Frank Thomas is hitting .182 and *he* has three homeruns. I know that steroids are gauche and all, but hit the weight room, fellas, eh?
The April scoreboard for the Swag Contest has been updated, and anonymous has an eleven point edge through the first eight games. The scoreboard is updated shortly after every game.
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