Mets 1, Rockies 0: Pelfrey Rebounds, Bests Jimenez

Mike Pelfrey had his first good start in a while, shutting down the Rockies for seven innings. He allowed just four hits and a walk and struck out four, and he actually missed some bats tonight (last start: zero). To boot, he outpitched Ubaldo Jimenez, who was also terrific, albeit slightly less terrific than Pelfrey. Jimenez lost just his third game of the season to 17 wins, if you're into that sort of thing.

Pelfrey threw a career-high 122 pitches, and PITCHf/x has him throwing 102 fastballs (53 four-seamers and 49 sinkers) and just six splitters. This jibes with what Josh Thole said after the game; it's clear that a concerted effort was made for Pelfrey to lean on his fastball tonight and the results, at least for one game, speak for themselves.

Hisanori Takahashi pitched a perfect eighth and Francisco Rodriguez a perfect ninth to close out the Mets' league-leading 16th shutout of the season.

The offense, on the other hand, was as awful as the pitching was great. They scraped together just four hits and five walks (two intentional). Ike Davis struck out three times and stranded four on base. If you're keeping score at home, Davis's career OPS is .759; Daniel Murphy's is .768.

David Wright is lost again at the plate, which happens with astonishing frequency for someone who is otherwise extremely good at baseball. He saw just 12 pitches in four plate appearances tonight, and one was an intentional walk, so that's just eight pitches to make three outs.

Chris Carter went 1-for-2 with a walk and Thole had the big hit, a double in the seventh that sent Jeff Francoeur (pinch-running for Carter) to third (and Thole to second, naturally) with none out. Francoeur would eventually score the only run of the game on a Jose Reyes sacrifice fly.

The Mets' hitters get a bit of a pass for having faced one of the league's toughest pitchers in Jimenez, though it's not as if they've been lighting up lesser hurlers either.

The Mets almost picked up a game in the standings when the Astros carried a 2-1 lead over the Braves into the ninth, but former Met Matt Lindstrom gave up three runs on two home runs and the Braves won 4-2. The Mets' seemingly insurmountable deficit in the NL East remains 8.5 games.

Poem by Howard Megdal

Big Pelf, at long last, resumed being giant
(A good thing-with these bats, Mets are arm-reliant)
Lone run on Reyes sac fly is all Mets required
Then K-Rod faced three; all three were retired

SB Nation Coverage

* Traditional Recap
* Boxscore
* Amazin' Avenue Gamethread
* Purple Row Gamethread

Win Probability Added

Big winners: Mike Pelfrey, +43.5% WPA, Francisco Rodriguez, +15.8% WPA
Big losers: Ike Davis, -14.7% WPA, Angel Pagan, -12.1% WPA
Teh aw3s0mest play: Thole double in seventh, +16.5% WPA
Teh sux0rest play: Davis strikeout with bases loaded in sixth, -10.3% WPA
Total pitcher WPA: +71.1% WPA
Total batter WPA: -21.1% WPA
GWRBI!: Jose Reyes

Game Thread Roll Call

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