Padres 18, Mets 6

The game began with Mets savior Hisanori Takahashi trying to become the first pitcher in more than a century to throw six or more innings and allow zero runs in his first three big league starts. Well, Freddy killed all that noise real quick. The Mets jumped out to a 1-0 lead in the top of the second when David Wright singled, stole second, and scored on an Angel Pagan single to center. The Padres responded with three soft singles by Nick Hundley, Chris Denorfia, and Oscar Salazar, followed by a hard grand slam by Jerry Hairston Jr. Three run deficit? Not a big deal for these Mets. What's that? Three straight ground outs? Blart.

The Padres tacked on two runs in the bottom of the third on a Hundley two-run double which plated Adrian Gonalez and Chase Headley, extending their lead to 6-1. That was still the score in the top of the fifth when the Mets' bats began percolating. Jeff Francoeur was hit by a pitch to lead things off, and Gary Matthews Jr. pinch hit for Takahashi and dumped a broken-bat bloop into center field which he barely stretched into a double. Jose Reyes followed by tripling both runners in, and followed them home on Alex Cora's ground out. Amazingly, the Mets were back in the game at 6-4.

Raul Valdes relieved Takahashi in the fifth and got things started by giving up an infield single to Gonzalez and another single to Headley before walking Hundley to load the bases with nobody out. Then he walked Denorfia. Then he walked Salazar. Then he was removed from the game in favor of Jenrry Mejia, who coughed up a two-run single to Luis Durango to make it 10-4 Padres. Mejia struck out opposing pitcher Kevin Correia, then got Hairston and David Eckstein to ground out to end the inning.

Things looked bleak when the Mets came to bat in the top of the sixth, but after Wright grounded out to short Pagan walked and God Barajas blasted his 11th home run of the season to narrow the gap to 10-6. Then Ryota Igarashi came on for the bottom of the sixth at which point the wheels didn't so much come off as they were torn violently from the axle. Batter after Padre batter reached base only to come around to score moments later. When the dust settled the Mets were in a 16-5 hole and Oliver Perez was in the game. That's coyote ugly right there. Gnaw-off-your-arm ugly.

The Padres tacked on another couple of runs when I wasn't looking, and then the game mercifully came to an end. The final tally was 18-6, as Mets pitchers allowed 18 hits and eight walks in arguably the worst run-scoring environment in baseball*. These teams are back at it again on Tuesday when Mike Pelfrey takes on Wade LeBlanc. Game time is 10:05pm.

* Petco Park actually inflates walks and only marginally suppresses hits overall. It does dampen run scoring dramatically.

Poem by Howard Megdal

On night when Petco Park played like Philly
Mets made banishing of Perez to bullpen look silly
With other Met hurlers providing nothing but follies
In tribute or regression, all pitchers were Ollies

SB Nation Coverage

* Traditional Recap
* Boxscore
* Amazin' Avenue Gamethread
* Gaslamp Ball Gamethread

Win Probability Added

Big winners: Angel Pagan, +9.4% WPA, Jose Reyes, +5.6% WPA
Big losers: Hisanori Takahashi, -43.7% WPA, Raul Valdez, -14.0% WPA
Teh aw3s0mest play: Pagan RBI single in second, +10.1% WPA
Teh sux0rest play: Hairston grand slam in second, -37.8% WPA
Total pitcher WPA: -61.8% WPA
Total batter WPA: +11.8% WPA
GWRBI!: Chris Denorfia

Game Thread Roll Call

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