Jeff Francoeur: Mets 3, Giants 0

Apparently the blogging software at Amazin' Avenue won't allow me to publish a post that doesn't include "Jeff Francoeur" in the title, so in order to get this up on the site at all I had to abide by the wishes of the Site Bot.

With that aside, holy crap Bobby Parnell! squid92 has already covered Parnell's start in great detail so I'll focus on some of the higher-level things I noticed.

Parnell was extremely efficient, tossing just 86 pitches in six innings and throwing 61 of them -- 70.9% -- for strikes. He allowed three singles and walked nobody, striking out seven along the way. His swinging strike rate was 9.3%, and since StatCorner is acting funky tonight I'll venture to guess that his 2009 swinging strike rate as a reliever is something less than that. When he wasn't generating wind he did a fine job keeping the ball on the ground, posting a 7-4 grounder ratio for the game.

The Mets, in living up to their pejorative nickname, are a mess this year, but games like tonight's are why we stick it out on this sinking ship. We're not merely rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic; there are lessons to be learned that might benefit the 2010 team at the expense of the 2009 one, and I think we're all ready to concede these costs. The decision to move Parnell to the rotation last week received little fanfare and mild criticism in most circles (including this one), and while one great start against a terrible offensive team doesn't render the move a sweeping success, it has given us something positive to reflect upon (and write about) and, perhaps more importantly, gives us another game next week to look forward to.

Johan Santana takes on Matt Cain at 4:10pm tomorrow.

Swag Contest

Swag contest results can be found here and the next game's swag form already available. You can read more about the swag contest here.

SB Nation Coverage

* Traditional Recap
* Boxscore
* Amazin' Avenue Gamethread
* McCovey Chronicles Gamethread

Win Probability Added

Big winners: Bobby Parnell, +35.3% WPA, Pedro Feliciano, +9.5% WPA
Big losers: Fernando Tatis, -5.4% WPA, Anderson Hernandez, -4.7% WPA
Teh aw3s0mest play: Francoeur RBI double in fourth, +11.4% WPA
Teh sux0rest play: Lewis walk in eighth, -4.7% WPA
Total pitcher WPA: +48.3% WPA
Total batter WPA: +1.7% WPA
GWRBI!: Angel Pagan

Game Thread Roll Call

Nice job by fxcarden; his effort in the game thread embiggens us all.