Mets Game 11: Win Over Cardinals
Mets 2 Cardinals 1
A marathon, to say the least.
Fittingly, I’m currently in Boston, where a marathon is taking place on Monday. No, I’m not running, and not even sticking around to watch it. I’m here for business, working a different kind of marathon: a wine tasting event that went from noon to 11 PM.
As such, I completely missed watching this game — the first game I’ve missed since 2004. What a game to miss, huh? Considering that the game went 20 innings, had no score for 19 frames, and TV viewers had to endure nearly 7 hours of mindless, hometown drivel from Joe Buck and Tim McCarver, maybe it was better to have missed it.
Looking at the boxscore and the play-by-play, I do have a few questions:
1. The Mets managed only 3 hits through nearly 15 innings against future Hall of Famers Jamie Garcia, Kyle McClellan, Mitchell Boggs, Trever Miller, Jason Motte, Dennys Reyes, and Blake Hawksworth? Really?
2. The Mets were shut out for an inning by middle infielder Felipe Lopez?
3. What in the world was Ryan Ludwick doing, attempting to steal second base in the 19th, down by one, with Albert Pujols at the plate?
4. Did Jerry Manuel outsmart Tony LaRussa by holding out K-Rod until the 19th?
5. Were St. Louis fans charged double since, essentially, they watched two ballgames?
6. How many of you were hoping to see Jeff Francoeur take the mound?
7. Did the high school kids still take the field after the game, even though it was past their curfew?
8. Was Yadier Molina carried off the field on a stretcher after catching 20 innings?
Even though I didn’t watch the game, I get the feeling it wasn’t well played — so I look forward to hearing your comments.
On a positive note, we have to be pleased that the Mets hung in there for 20 innings and finally pulled out a win, even if it took two innings against a backup outfielder throwing BP off the mound. Also, we MUST be happy to have seen Mike Pelfrey suck it up and take the ball on one days’ rest (or was it two by that hour?) to save the ballgame. The fact he did so speaks volumes about his growing maturity, and goes a long way toward building respect from his teammates. Kudos to Big Pelf!
Post your comments below — I’m eager to hear your thoughts.
Next Mets Game
Luckily for these two weary clubs, the final game of the series isn’t until 8:05 PM EST on Sunday, so there will be some rest for the weary. Also lucky (for the Mets), innings-eater John Maine takes the mound against Adam Wainwright, so the Mets bullpen will get at least 4-5 frames of rest.
But mostly because we couldn’t get a hit offa Felipe Freakin Lopez. It looked like he was throwing BP out there. Really thats the best description for how Lopez looked out there, like he was throwing softies for a homerun derby. Mather at least got it up in the early 80’s, which might explain why he couldn’t hit the strike zone, hence why the Mets won.
The pitching of Pelfrey, Santana and dare I say Perez has gotten me excited recently. But did anyone see this offensive crisis coming? We should have, this team sucks with runners on base.
Disturbing… Just Disturbing..
2. The Mets were shut out for an inning by middle infielder Felipe Lopez?
Lopez wasn’t too awful. He threw strikes, including some highly entertaining curve balls. The highlight of the game for me was actually Lopez pitching to Raul Valdes. Valdes won the battle with an infield hit, and was then immediately thrown out trying to advance on an errant throw. The whole sequence was full of laughs. The only other hitters he had to face were the Silver Sluggers Henry Blanco and Mike Jacobs, so that’s why they didn’t score.
A better question is how they only scored two runs in two innings off Joe Mather. He couldn’t throw strike to save his life, so the Mets thought things like swinging away and sacrifice bunts were in order.
Did Jerry Manuel outsmart Tony LaRussa by holding out K-Rod until the 19th?
I think that LaRussa definitely had a few more questionable moves this game. The bad move Manual made today that stood out for me was the teams approach on offense in the 19th and 20th innings. In the end though, LaRussa had exhausted his bullpen too early, and pretty much ceded victory when he was unwilling to put a starting pitcher in the game (Excluding Kyle Lohse, who was of course playing left field).
1) Jerry saving Frankie in the bullpen through countless high-leverage (but non-save, of course) situations only to bring him to the game to blow the save. (And not keeping him for the next inning to at least earn his ‘W’.)
2) TLR not pinch-hitting with his last position player with bases loaded and two outs in innings 12 & 14 and the Mets pitchers actually striking out the Cards’ pitchers. (Thank god Green was on the DL.)
3) Mets offense unable to score more than two measly runs during three innings tossed by Lopez and Mather and using a bunt (!) and two sacrify flyouts in the process.
Good stuff, really. Embarrassing night for Mets’ offense, but a win is a win. If only Maine could pitch 7 innings tonight.
That was the 12th.
I latched on and stuck it out until Big Pelf got the first save of the Mets’ season. Pretty effin’ bad for the offense, pretty effin’ good for the bullpen. Watching Hisanori Takahashi get out of bases-loaded jam after bases-loaded jam was rather entertaining. Watching Raul Valdes against Rolaids Relief Man-candidate Felipe Lopez (the Mets sure made him look good on the mound!) was also pretty entertaining. The one angle that conclusively showed Ryan Ludwick out in the 19th on that boneheaded steal attempt just happened to be the one that the umpire also had. Speaking of boneheaded running, Jose Reyes nailing the aforementioned Ryan Ludwick on the wide turn around third in the bottom of the 16th was a heads-up play, too.
I was starting to wonder if we’d see David Wright on the mound.
On to tonight. Watch what happens–Maine will likely shock all of us and pitch a complete game. Or, he won’t retire a batter.
The offense had a hard enough time scratching out 2 runs in 3 innings against Felipe Lopez and Joe Mather. If LaRussa had stretched out his bullpen a little more I’m sure the Mets would have gone scoreless for another 10 innings. At this pace it looks like a lock the Mets will finish the year with the NL’s most strikeouts and lowest runs scored. Put that together with a pitching staff with three #5 starters and a bullpen that will tire out by mid-May, and we’re in store for a 100+ loss 2010 season. But hey, they’re “playing hard” and “outlasting their opposition.” That’s got to count for something…
Thankfully, though, Joe Buck called in sick for the game and we got to listen to Kenny Albert for the 20 innings. Still, Tim McCarver is completely intolerable. His anti-Met bias runs so deep it’s appalling. I love the comment by Nick above – it’s so true.
The Cardinals finally decided that just playing dumb wasn’t enough to hand the game to the Mets, so they started pitching position players and even THAT was hard for the Mets to take advantage of.
Now to be fair, it is very easy to be pessimistic about this game by focusing solely on the offense but you do have to give the pitching staff credit – they threw 18 straight scoreless innings against a good offense. In fact, the pitching staff overall has been much better than expected and I think that a lot of Mets fans are piling onto the under-performing offense (justifiably so) without giving some amount of credit to the pitching staff for keeping these games competitive.
The fact is that the pitching staff, sans Maine, has done excellent and made almost every game competitive. Unfortunately, the embarrassment that is the Mets offense hasn’t taken advantage of it.
“Auburn was playing Georgia Tech in a late season game that didn’t mean a lot to either team since they were both were tied for last place in the SEC. The game was tied with about six minutes left in the game, when Georgia Tech punted and an Auburn player dropped the ball. A tech player accidentally fell on the ball and they signaled a fumble recovery, leaving Tech on the 20-yard line. That was the closest they’d been to the end zone all year. But Auburn disputed the call and raised all kinds of ruckus.
The argument went on for ten minutes, and finally, the Auburn coach just took his team, walked off the field and headed back to Alabama. Georgia Tech remained on the field, and three plays later, they scored a touchdown!”
The Mets are Georgia Tech in this joke.
But kudos to the entire Mets pitching staff *except* K-Rod.
all-in-all not a great game!
All in all, Larussa basically forfeited this game and the Mets took more than 7 innings to finally squeak one by and win it. It’s doggone embarrassing…
It was funny though that Valdes, who gave up the grand slam to Lopez, got a hit off of Lopez, and would have been a double if he slid into second.
And yes, it was awesome to see Takahashi get into a man on second and third, no outs jam and K his way out. Who knew we would be praising the pitching and damning the offense?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?
5.) I have been to double-headers, and I wasn’t charged double. In the words of Forrest Gump, “That’s all I have to say about that.”
When the Mets scored in the 19th inning, I sat up in my chair thinking, “YES!”. BUT when the Cardinals scored, I slumped back down. When the Mets scored in the 20th, I was thinking, “Come on, hold that run…” {WHEW!} The team I was rooting for WON! YES!
I’m also a big fan of Cora’s jump into the stands with the bases loaded and takahashi shutting it down with the bases loaded.
We should have and could have won both game 1 and last night, but that’s a lot better than the beating I know many of you expected we’d be getting this weekend. I think our guys played hard and I respect it.
As for Jerry Manuel? Saturday bought him time, but Friday and last night were terribly managed. I cringed when they pulled Feliciano against Ludwick… has anyone seen Ludwick’s splits? He’s a MUCH better hitter against righties than lefties!
Answer…Yes they did play! The game started just after 11pm and ended around 1:20am. It will be an experience that they will never forget. OFallon IL vs Hillsboro Mo, Hillsboro won 4-2 over OFallon.