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April 23, 2009 Latest Post John Fitzgerald

Mets Game 15: Loss to the Cardinals

Cardinals 12 Mets 8

The Cardinals completed a three-game sweep of the Mets, by a score of 12-8. It wasn’t even that close.

Mets starter Livan Hernandez went 4.1 innings, allowing 7 ER on 9 hits and one walk. Reliever Sean Green allowed 5 ER in just two innings of work.

After six innings, the Mets trailed 11-3, but they were able to mount something of a comeback, scoring two in the seventh and three in the eigth on home runs from Ryan Church and Carlos Beltran.

Mets Game Notes

Wow … where to begin? If there’s a silver lining, it is that the Mets didn’t roll over and play dead. Despite being down 11-2, they continued to chip away, scoring five runs in the 7th and 8th frames. But it was too little, too late.

Carlos Beltran is as hot as he can be, and putting him in the #3 spot now is absolutely the right move — he is, hands-down, the Mets’ best hitter right now. If only he could stay this hot for more than a two- or three-week period (fingers crossed).

I made fun of Jerry Manuel’s decision to bat Alex Cora second in the order. Naturally, Cora gets two hits and reaches base four out of five times, so it’s my turn to eat crow. That Jerry Manuel is some kind of genius, eh? (Though, I vaguely remember Argenis Reyes pulling a similar feat out of his butt last year, never to repeat it, yet finding himself entrenched in the two spot.)

Beltran is currently the Mets’ best hitter, but Ryan Church is not far behind as second-best.

I keep looking at the averages of Jose Reyes and David Wright — both of whom are over .310 — and shake my head in wonderment. Must be the new math, because it feels like they’re both closer to .250.

I’m purposely not discussing the specific details of the game … how about we just turn the page?

Next Mets Game

The Mets return to Citi Field to host the Nationals in a weekend series beginning on Friday night at 7:10 PM. Johan Santana takes the hill against Scott Olsen. If the Mets don’t win this “gimme” then it’s time to panic.

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John Fitzgerald is an independent film/TV producer. In 2007, he followed former Mets 2B Wally Backman and his minor league team for the TV show, "Playing for Peanuts." Click here for DVD ordering information NOTE: $5 from each sale goes to maintenance costs of MetsToday.com
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  1. n. waldrop April 23, 2009 at 6:25 pm
    Well at least the offense put up a fight, even if it was too late. There’s not much to say about this game. Livan showed us what he is; a pitcher that had an ERA over 6 last year.
    I think a good test of the starting pitching will be this upcoming series with the Nationals. If Pelfrey can make a decent start on Saturday and follow that up with Ollie doing well maybe that will take some of the pressure off the bullpen and maybe get this team back on track. But if the Nationals beat those guys up, it’s going to be a LONG season.
  2. S. Berkowitz April 23, 2009 at 8:10 pm
    I don’t know what to make of any of this. Are they front-loading their bad luck this year, setting themselves up for a September surge rather than swoon? It seems sometimes like this team is still frozen in time, staring at an Adam Wainwright curveball.

    All I do know is that this team needs a new narrative, something along the lines of Bill Simmons’ no-one-believed-in-us, because the “making amends for ’07 and ’08” storyline isn’t cutting it, and might be too much psychologically for any group of players to bear… unless you’re as loose and fortunate as the ’04 Red Sox.

    The only one I can think of is us-against-the-fans, in which the relationship between this team and the fan base grows so antagonistic, the players get angry and succeed in order to spite us rather than to please.

    And that’s my dramatic reading of the situation. I’ll leave the nuts and bolts baseball stuff to you smarter people.

  3. isuzudude April 23, 2009 at 9:35 pm
    It’s nice to see the offense try to mount a comeback, but let’s face it, there were still too many wasted opportunities in the early innings. A runner left on in the 1st. A runner left on in the 2nd. Two left on in the 3rd. Bases loaded with one out in the 5th and only one run scores. Those are the times the Mets need to jump all over the opposition’s starter, but instead they waint until they get down by 8 to start making a surge. Too little, too late in my eyes. Naturally, the offense won’t be helped out, either, when the home plate umpire’s strikezone is erratically inconsistent and 3/4 of every hard hit ball is directed right toward a perfectly positioned defender, but when you aren’t clicking on all cylinders, the breaks are not going to go your way. And I guess there’s no use in complaining about it anyway.

    nwaldrop: I understand your point in that if the pitching can’t shut down the anemic Nats offense, then surely things are shaping up sourly for the Mets, but I wouldn’t put too much stock into this series – even if the Mets take 2 of 3 or sweep. That’s because the Nats are a last place team. If the pitching does well, it’s not a big deal because if the Mets plan on being in the playoff picture in September, it’s not the Nats’ bats they should worry about shutting down, it’s the Cardinals, Phillies, Braves, Marlins, Cubs and Dodgers – you know, the GOOD teams. Otherwise, it just means the Mets can hold down the lightweights of the NL but still get beat down by the contenders. That still leaves them as a mediocre team.

    Anyway, it seems like Jerry is already laying the smackdown on the panic button. Not only has he issued an ultimatum to the rotation by saying they have one more start to get their collective act together OR ELSE (or else what, I don’t know), but he’s also going to be carrying 8 relievers on the team from now on in lieu of a position player. (http://blogs.nypost.com/sports/mets/archives/2009/04/jerry_rotation.html) And here we thought Nelson Figueroa wasn’t going to be needed. Um, whoops! Not only do I believe carrying 8 relief pitchers is a bad idea, but I want to know who goes to make room for superstar Carlos Muniz or Connor Robertson? Is the Sheffield era over already? Has Tatis been non-played off the roster? Will Reed be demoted? Will Murphy get sent to Buffalo to work on his LF defense? Does Santos get DFA, meaning Castro goes it alone as the only catcher on the roster? None of those moves seem to make sense to me, especially considering the replacement is likely to be a seldom-used mop-up man. Ah, Jerry, how quickly the honeymoon ends when the team won’t practice what you preach. He won’t last far past Father’s Day at this pace.

  4. metfan69 April 23, 2009 at 9:51 pm
    Still beating the Nats with good pitching is a start and would give some of the pitchers something to build on. Why doesn’t Warthen call the pitches for Ollie since he has no clue out there, neither do the catchers. Some time soon Ollie has to do something or be sent to BP and maybe try Stokes or bring up someone from AAA, can’t be worse, can it?