The Game

Culminating with Sunday’s 4-0 shutout, the New York Mets were swept by the lowly Houston Astros over the weekend for the first time in 15 years. The Amazins continue to prove that 2007 was no fluke as they have now managed to lose five games in the division standings over the course of eight days (which is actually tougher to do than lose seven games over 17).

Mets’ starter Oliver Perez took the ball for New York and didn’t pitch that badly. After struggling through the first inning, Ty Wigginton lead off the second with a long home run to put the Astros up 1-0. Houston scored their final three runs off Perez in the fourth inning thanks to RBI doubles by Hunter Pence and Humberto Quintero which sandwiched an RBI single by Darin Erstad (whom I honestly thought was out of baseball until this weekend). Perez’s final line (six innings, four runs, eight hits, no walks, and three strikeouts) was mediocre at best, but looked Cy Young worthy compared to the way the New York offense handled themselves. The Mets were 1-10 with runners in scoring position on Sunday and left 11 men on base. They were awful on the basepaths and generally took the look of a team that wanted to get out of Houston as quickly as possible. This loss, combined with the Phillies’ latest come from behind win, now puts the Mets a full three games behind Philly while sitting in third place in the NL East race.

The Met woes extend far beyond their lost weekend in Houston as news broke that John Maine was heading to the DL and closer in name only Billy Wagner may not be far behind as he awaits an MRI on his forearm. The combination of shaky pitching health and their lack of timely hitting paints a grim picture in Flushing as the season winds down. As we learned last year, pennants are won in August and September. So far the Mets are 0-3 in August.

The Haiku

Mets make LOB
Into an art form: Kaz and
Wiggy thump ex mates

The Boxscore

The Win Probability Added Graph

The Credits

Recap by Chuck Buono
Haiku by Howard Megdal