The Game

Last night the Mets promptly rebounded from Tuesday evening’s humiliating loss by beating the Philadelphia Phillies by a score of 6-3.

Jose Reyes came to the plate in the evening’s first at-bat, and lined a single into right-center field. After Reyes’ single, Luis Castillo flew out to left field, leaving Reyes at third. A David Wright ground-out chased Reyes down to second; however, once again a Jose Reyes lead-off single led to an unspectacular inning. The Mets did score a run, coming from a Carlos Delgado single. Johan Santana would take the hill with his team up 1-0.

The first batter Johan Santana faced would be Jimmy Rollins. Rollins hit a single to left field, almost letting Johan know that he wouldn’t be able to plow through Philly’s lineup. Santana would retire Chase Utley and Pat Burrell before Ryan Howard stepped to the plate. During Howard’s at-bat, Rollins took off for second base before Johan delivered his pitch. Santana would pick-off Rollins, throwing to first base. However, a very nonchalant Carlos Delgado throw to second base would allow Rollins to reach safely. This would loom large in the inning, as Ryan Howard would go on to hit a two run homer, putting Philadelphia in the driver’s seat.

I don’t know about you readers, but this game gave me plenty of early evidence that this wouldn’t be a game I’d enjoy watching. Having spent 5+ hours watching last night’s figurative Hindenburg disaster, I figured that one night free of the Mets would even things out. So, for my mental health, I shunned Gary, Keith, and Ron in favor of Michael Kay and Al Leiter, and watched the Red Sox take on the New York Yankees.

For the next hour or so, I watched this guy (http://minnesota.publicradio.org/collections/special/columns/baseball/ponson07.jpg) struggle against a potent Boston offense. The one time I had checked SNY, I discovered the Mets to be down by 3-1 (From a Jayson Werth home run). At this point, I completely left the Mets for dead.

Until the 8th inning. At the beginning of the 8th, with the Mets down 3-2, I decided to give the Mets a full inning to come back from the Phillies deficit. Come back from the 3-2 Philadelphia lead is just what the Mets did. After two quick outs, Phils skipper Charlie Manuel somehow let Rudy Seanez face Carlos Delgado with the bases cleared. Delgado, who has had great success against Seanez in his career, took Rudy yard. Carlos hit a solo jack (His second of the evening) to left field, tying up the game. With the monkey off the Mets back, the next two runners reached base. Carlos Beltran nubbed an infield single, and Ryan Church was given an intentional walk after Beltran stole second. With that, Brad Lidge came on to relieve a fatigued Rudy Seanez, and Daniel Murphy strolled to the plate to take on, “Lights out,” Lidge.

Fortunately for Murph, Lidge wasn’t exactly, “lights outs,” last night. His normally devastating slider apeared to be flat, and stayed in the strike zone. When Lidge grooved a slider right over the plate, Murphy took advantage, by stroking a double into the right field corner. One run scored, giving the Mets a 4-3 lead. The next batter would be Brian Schneider, who muscled a single over the head of Pedro Feliz, scoring another two runs. With two innings still to go, the Mets found themselves up by three runs. I now had no choice but to finish watching the game.

Pedro Feliciano started out the 8th for the Mets, and got Ryan Howard to fly out to left fielder Endy Chavez. Shane Victorino then stepped to the plate, and slapped a grounder to third baseman David Wright. Wright nabbed the ball in foul ground, and threw across his body to retire the sprinting Victorino. This was an unbelievable effort, with Victorino’s blinding speed only adding to the difficulty of Wright’s play. After Joe Smith came on to get Jayson Werth to ground out, the Mets came to the plate in the top of the ninth.

After not doing much against rookie Drew Carpenter (Throwing a scoreless inning in his MLB debut), Luis Ayala came on to finish the game. Ayala didn’t receive much trouble from Pedro Feliz, Chris Coste, and So Taguchi (They’d all ground out to shortstop), and easily recorded his 2nd save of the season. After the embarrasing game of Tuesday night, the Mets rebounded on Wednesday to split the series, and leap back into first place.

How great has Carlos Delgado been? Without his (I hate using this word; its probably the worst evaluation of how good a player is) clutch (Arrrgh) two home runs, the Mets may never have been awoken from their offensive sleep. I was a Mets fan calling for Delgado to be released or traded, and boy was I wrong. He, somehow, has a shot to hit 40 bombs in 2008. Where would the Mets be without him?

The Mets will have a night off tonight. The Phillies, however, will take on the Cubs and try to even up first place with a victory. The Mets will open up a four game split with the Florida Marlins on Friday.

The Haiku

Bad breaks, flawed closer
LOBs, dumb manager
Phils are this year’s Mets!

The Boxscore

The Win Probability Added Graph

The Credits

Recap by Milo Taibi
Haiku by Howard Megdal