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June 24, 2007 Mets 2007 Games Joe Janish

Mets Game 73: Win Over Athletics

Mets 10 Athletics 2

What a difference a weekend makes.

Less than 100 hours after we were ready to press the panic button, the New York Mets have righted the ship and swept the Oakland Athletics out of Shea Stadium.

John Maine was nearly spectacular, giving the Mets seven strong innings, allowing just five hits, two runs, and no walks, striking out six. In addition to his mound performance, Maine helped himself on offense by adding a sacfirice fly and a sacrifice bunt.

However, Maine didn’t need to use the bat — he had plenty of offensive support. The Mets scored early and often, crossing the plate in every inning but the sixth and seventh.

Jose Reyes started the carousel of runners rounding bases with a leadoff double and scored when Jack Cust threw the ball away. Maine’s sac fly an inning later put the Mets up by two, and a Damion Easley double scored David Wright and Paul LoDuca to go up by four. In the fourth, Carlos Gomez reached first on a bunt single, was sacrificed by Maine to second, then scored the fifth unanswered Mets run on a single by Reyes.

The A’s finally broke through with a solo homer by Cust in the fifth, and scored again in the sixth when Eric Chavez singled in Mark Kotsay. However, that was all the scoring they’d do on the day — unlike the Mets.

After taking two innings off, the Mets offense struck again in the seventh when Jose Valentin slugged a three-run homer. Carlos Beltran smacked a two-run single in the eighth to close out the scoring.

Notes

Guillermo Mota had a long but effective outing, striking out two, walking one, but allowing no hits or runs in a 20-pitch eighth.

Manager Willie Randolph felt bad for the A’s, and brought in Scott Schoeneweis in the ninth as a peace offering. However, the Athletics were too down emotionally to take advantage of the gimme, and went down 1-2-3.

Jose Reyes, Jose Valentin, and Carlos Gomez all went 3-for-4.

The Mets drew four walks. Nice.

Randolph sat Ruben Gotay to preserve his .302 average. Gotay will start again in July sometime.

Next Game

The Mets host the St. Louis Cardinals at Shea on Monday night at 7:10 PM.

Joe Janish began MetsToday in 2005 to provide the unique perspective of a high-level player and coach -- he earned NCAA D-1 All-American honors as a catcher and coached several players who went on to play pro ball. As a result his posts often include mechanical evaluations, scout-like analysis, and opinions that go beyond the numbers. Follow Joe's baseball tips on Twitter at @onbaseball and at the On Baseball Google Plus page.
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  1. JimmyJ June 25, 2007 at 12:31 am
    Great weekend series. I hope next weekend will be even better.
  2. sincekindergarten June 25, 2007 at 4:33 am
    ‘Course, getting to that next weekend with a seven-game win streak will be even better . . .
  3. archeress June 25, 2007 at 9:23 am
    sorry your guy Gotay wasn’t part of yesterday’s romp,
    but credit is due Easley, no? He really cracked a good one at the right time. And Valentin. What is Willie going to do when Endy is back? Sometimes it feels like an embarrassment of riches.

    my annual trip to Shea yesterday couldn’t have been more fun. The Gomez kid is seriously fast. Wow.

  4. joe June 25, 2007 at 9:28 am
    I think Easley hits just enough homeruns to make people think he deserves to be in the lineup. Kind of like a 9-to-fiver who does just enough not to get fired.

    Yeah, Easley gets props for hitting a bomb, but he was overall 1-for-5 and was one of the major culprits of the team-wide issue of overaggressive, unintelligent hitting of the last two weeks.

    When Endy comes back, Gotay goes down — unless Gomez is in a slump. I agree with you, Gomez is fast — maybe the fastest player in all MLB — and is getting the most of his speed.

    Glad you enjoyed your annual trip to Shea!