As a baseball fan, you've got to love comeback wins. But two days in a row? That's just awesomesauce to the max. The Padres bullpen faltered at the hands of the mighty Mets offense again, as they scored three in the eighth to propel themselves towards a 5-4 victory on Tuesday. Ruben Tejada walked with the bases loaded in the eighth to knock in the anticlimactic go-ahead run and Jason Isringhausen threw a perfect ninth to save it, the 299th of his career.
Chris Capuano started for the Mets and was thoroughly mediocre over his 6 innings. Angel Pagan hit a solo home run and Nick Evans hit a sacrifice fly to help close the gap in the 8th inning. The comeback victory incredibly marked the first time in 46 years that the Mets won two games in a row in which they trailed by two or more runs in the eighth inning or later. The other two times they came back from two runs down in the 8th inning on consecutive days? April 23-24, 1965 and May 19-20, 1962.
Game three of the series takes place Wednesday evening at 7:10. His Knuckleness R.A. Dickey takes the mound, looking to extend the Mets win streak to three games, while Aaron Harang will throw for the Padres.
The game against the Marlins that was rained out on August 3rd has been rescheduled as part of an August 29th doubleheader.
The Mike Baxter love continues in the media, as both the New York Times and Mets.com published articles on the Whitestone, Queens native. This is kind of like the love Smithtown's Own Frank Catalanotto received last year, except for the fact that, you know, Baxter has a chance to positively contribute on the field with a bat and a glove.
In injury news, Ike Davis got a second opinion on his ankle injury and it sounds pretty similar to the original diagnosis: 3-4 weeks of rest, with a decision on surgery following shortly thereafter. Jayson Stark states that Jose Reyes' hamstring injuries will likely cost Jose Reyes millions of dollars. So since Jayson says that, expect the exact opposite to happen.
It looks like David Einhorn is once again moving close to an agreement with the team. Of course, we've said this a few times already, so until Einhorn is legally in possession of the deed to his 17% of the Mets (or however businessmen do these things), I won't hold my breath.
Could Chris Schwinden be a potential rotation piece next year? It'll be interesting to see how the front office pieces together the rotation in 2012.
Finally, the Mets are talking with two different major league franchises who are interested in moving their spring training home to Port St. Lucie.
Around the NL East
The Marlins continue to troll the Mets. Down 3-0 in the 7th inning, John Buck hit a game tying three run homer and the game ended up going into extra innings, where the Marlins decided to do what they do best--lay down and die. The Braves won 4-3 in 11 innings. The Bravos did suffer a potential blow, as their ace Tommy Hanson traveled back to Atlanta to get his ailing shoulder checked. Dan Uggla extended his hitting streak to 30.
At last check, the Phillies led the Dodgers 2-0 in the 7th inning in Los Angeles. In other news, former Phillie Lenny Dykstra was back in court and donning an orange jumpsuit. That's right...former Phillie.
The Nationals got six scoreless innings from Chien-Ming Wang, as they beat the Cubs 3-1.
Around the Majors
Mariano Rivera is human. After blowing a Sunday Night lead against the Red Sox, his fifth blown save of the year, Rivera allowed a go-ahead two run homer in the 9th inning to Bobby Abreu.
Carlos Beltran was out of the lineup for the second game in a row with a hand injury. Get well soon, Carlos.
Finally, a scary story in Cincinnati, as two MLB.com writers were robbed at gunpoint around 1:30 AM on Tuesday as they left Great American Ballpark. Barry Bloom and Thomas Harding fortunately were uninjured but lost some cash in the holdup.