Mets Game 31: Loss to Giants

Giants 9 Mets 4

Oliver Perez didn’t deserve this.

Ollie pitched very well through the first four innings, cruising like the ace he seemed to be evolving into.

Then came frame five.

The fifth inning began as a comedy of errors, and ended a nightmare. It began with a walk to Ray Durham, and got silly with a botched homerun call by the umpiring crew on a fly ball off the wall by Bengie Molina. If called correctly, it would have put runners on second and third, the Mets still up by a run, and Ollie may not have lost his sh*t. However, that one awful call had a domino effect.

To start, two runs — instead of none — scored on the faux homer by Molina. However, that wasn’t the worst of it; it was only the beginning. Perez rebounded momentarily, but didn’t pitch particularly well, giving up hard line shot outs to Pedro Feliz and Todd Linden. It was more a matter of getting lucky that those batters hit the ball right at somebody. Still, Ollie had a great chance to escape the inning allowing only the two runs, as Barry Zito came up next. However, Zito hit a line drive single up the middle, his second career hit. Randy Winn followed with a ground ball to the glove of Damion Easley, who booted it to extend the inning. Then Omar Vizquel hit a fly ball to rightfield that Shawn Green seemed to have a bead on, but the ball bounced off his glove — extending the inning one more batter as well as allowing a run to score. Rich Aurilia followed with a homerun to left, prompting Rick Peterson to finally emerge from his bird’s nest and have a few words with Perez (about four batters too late). The Jacket apparently didn’t tell him anything useful, because Ollie walked Barroid Bonds on four pitches, then gave up a single to Ray Durham. That was enough for Willie Randolph, who brought in Lino Urdaneta, who proceeded to give up a 3-run homer — this one legit — to Bengie Molina. By the time Urdaneta got Feliz to ground out to third, the Giants had scored nine runs on five hits (two homers) and two errors. Seven of the runs scored after there were two outs.

The Mets thought they could do the same thing in the top of the next inning, waiting until there were two outs to mount a rally. However, all they could muster were two runs, though one of them came through semi-comedic means. Paul LoDuca scored from third when Damion Easley waved at a third-strike curveball that bounced to the wall behind Bengie Molina.

Notes

David Wright might want to either change his bat, or add a nice little bat company (such as Akadema) to his list of investments. Wright broke seven sticks over the last two games. That’s what happens when you are too slow in throwing the bat head out on inside pitches. The most alarming issue is that Barry Zito’s 82-MPH pussball broke three of David’s bats.

Barry Bonds survived another day without his HGH-inflated head over-inflating to the point of self-combustion. It is frightening to think what might happen to innocent bystanders from the flying shrapnel of his skull if the eruption occurs in a public place.

Next Game

Tom Glavine will attempt to win his 294th game at some ungodly hour on Tuesday night / early Wednesday morning. We expect that Matt Cain’s abel to take the hill for the Giants.