Ninth Inning Cluster@#$% Applesauce: Sloppy Pitching/Defense/Managerial Decisions Confuse All, Somehow Still Leads To Mets Win, Former Farmhand Throws Perfecto

Meet the Mets

If you missed out on Saturday's ninth inning, you likely missed out on one of the worst innings of baseball you'll see a pair of Major League baseball teams ever play. Honestly, if suck were an art form, this one would get the big display in the museum. The Mets came back to win 5-4 but it just could have been so much easier. Mike Pelfrey started for the Mets and was excellent over 8 innings, allowing a run on six hits and a walk while striking out three batters. The Giants could never really get much going against Pelf, who consistently sat 93-94 and induced a good amount of weak contact. Ryan Vogelsong shut the Mets down for most of this outing but they broke through for 1 in the 5th, 2 in the 7th and 1 in the 8th to go ahead 4-1. Going into the ninth, Frank Francisco came on for the save and immediately made things interesting, allowing a run and recording just one out. Terry Collins decided to play matchups, as he pulled Francisco and put in Tim Byrdak, who promptly struck out Hector Sanchez. With two outs, Collins put in Jon Rauch to get the final out and he nearly did, inducing a Brandon Belt popup to shallow center. However, the Mets must've decided that they wanted to keep playing as the ball dropped in when Kirk Nieuwenhuis overran it, allowing the tying runs to score. If the top of the ninth was bad, the bottom of the ninth was totally absurd. For starters, Bruce Bochy played Aubrey Huff at second base. No, that's not a mistake. Naturally, the ball managed to find him, as he ran towards first on a potential double play ball hit to SS Emmanuel Burris. Instead of getting two, the Giants got no outs on the play, loading the bases for Captain Kirk, who hit this grounder to set the Mets up to win it. Hat tip to Scott Hairston, who further pissed off Giants fans by kicking Buster Posey's leg, forcing him to throw the ball into the outfield and allowing Ruben Tejada to score the winning run.

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If Sunday's downpour somehow manages to spare Queens, the Mets will take on the Giants in game three of their four game set this afternoon at 1:10 PM. Struggling ace Tim Lincecum takes the hill for the Giants, while Dillon Gee heads to the mound for the Mets. Should you not be busy building an arc today, you can catch the action on WPIX11 and WFAN 660.

Frank Francisco was pulled by Terry Collins in the midst of the 9th inning and the righty wasn't too pleased about the move, though he said he understood why Collins removed him.

Ike Davis continues to struggle but he will not be moved out of the cleanup role just yet. That sounds about right. We're still in small sample size territory, though his pitch recognition and swing have not looked great.

Josh Thole, through the team's Amazin' Calls program, surprised a young fan with a phone call.

Beginning this Thursday, Hofstra University will be hosting a three-day conference to commemorate the Mets' 50th anniversary. The conference will feature lectures, research and stories about the team's history and one of the sessions will be based around the life of Shea Stadium organist Jane Jarvis.

Around the NL East

Remember when the Mets swept the hapless Braves opening weekend? Yeah, about that. The Braves are currently streaking, as they beat the Diamondbacks 3-2 behind the right arm of Tommy Hanson to improve to 10-5 on the young season.

Down 2-0 to the Nationals in the ninth, Logan Morrison connected on a game tying two-run home run against Brad Lidge to send the Marlins to extra innings. Unfortunately, the Nats got a 10th inning sacrifice fly from Ian Desmond to win the game 3-2. The Nats did win but the bad news is that Ryan Zimmerman missed the game with right shoulder inflammation and has already been ruled out for today's game.

Roy Halladay walked three batters in a row for the first time in his career and Cory Luebke shut down the Phillies offense, as the Padres won this one 5-1 in San Diego. To make matters worse, lefty Cliff Lee was placed on the 15-day disabled list with a left oblique strain yesterday. Lee started last on Wednesday, tossing 10 shutout innings against the Giants in a game the Phillies eventually lost. Meanwhile, Ryan Howard is going in for a checkup soon and if he's made enough progress, he may be cleared for more baseball activities soon.

Around the Majors

Saturday was a crazy day around Major League Baseball aside from the Mets/Giants' madness and the biggest story was the perfect game thrown by White Sox righty and former Mets' first round draft pick Phil Humber. The perfecto was the 21st in Major League history and was, incredibly, the 3rd perfect game in White Sox history, as well as their 18th no-hitter. Not even fair.

The next craziest story was what happened in the Yankees/Red Sox game. The Sox jumped out to a 9-0 lead after the 5th inning but the Yankees busted out, scoring 1 in the sixth and 7 each in the 7th and 8th innings against the Sox pen to beat up on Boston 15-9. Ouch. There's some early drama up in the Fens, as the Sox have now lost 5 straight and Bobby Valentine seems to be in some hot water. To be fair, that bullpen looked bad on paper but without Andrew Bailey and Mark Melancon, it's downright abysmal. The Red Sox did fill a hole via trade, as they acquired CF Marlon Byrd from the Cubs in exchange for RHP Michael Bowden. Meanwhile, the Yankees also got some bad news, as Michael Pineda has been shut down in his return from a shoulder injury and will be checked out in New York on Monday.

Matt Kemp is going bonkers on the National League right now. The Dodgers' center fielder hit his league leading ninth home run of the early season and Clayton Kershaw struck out nine, as the Dodgers defeated the Astros 5-1 in Houston. LA improved to 12-3 in the early going and while that's likely not sustainable, Kershaw and Kemp is quite a duo and you'd think having an MVP and Cy Young candidate should be enough to at least keep them in contention for a long time.

A.J. Burnett made his return from the DL after fouling a bunt off his face in spring training and in his Pirates debut, the righty shut out the Cardinals over seven innings, leading Pittsburgh to a 2-0 victory.