Mets Game 55: Loss to Pirates

Pirates 9 Mets 3

Though many runs were scored in the game, it was far from a slugfest; mearly all the scoring occurred on infield singles and bloop hits.

Mets Game Notes

Chris Capuano pitched well through the first six, but was victimized by a barrage of singles in the seventh. The Pirates collected 5 infield hits in the seventh inning, and even when they reached the outfield safely, the balls were “tweeners” that could have been caught and therefore the runners could only move one base at a time. It was a truly bizarre inning. By the time Capuano exited the game, his final line was 6 IP, 8 H, 5 ER, 1 BB, 2 K.

Interestingly, the Mets scored their first two runs on a two-out Texas Leaguer off the handle of Ruben Tejada’s bat that barely eluded the reach of second baseman Neil Walker. Walker had erroneously broken in two steps on the blooper, and didn’t have enough time to recover as the ball fell into short right-center.

The Mets relievers threw gas on the fire, giving up another four runs. Pedro Beato was charged with three of them, though he wasn’t helped by Michael O’Connor, who allowed two of Beato’s runners to score; it may be time to send O’Connor back to AAA. In case you didn’t notice, the bullpen has allowed 32 earned runs over the last 10 games. Overall, Mets pitching has given up 40 earned runs after the sixth inning in the past 11 games.

Willie Harris made several poor decisions while playing third base, and a few of them led to runs scoring and/or extending rallies. It’s difficult to get angry with Harris, though, since third base is a position he has played only sparingly in his career (30 games total in his 11-year career). Just because a guy can field a ground ball while standing in a particular region of the infield, does not necessarily mean he can perform effectively at the position; there’s more to defense than the physical aspect.

On the bright side, Justin Turner hit his first homer in Citi Field and the first homerun by a Met in Citi Field since May 6 (by Jason Pridie vs. the Dodgers), giving the Mets their first homerun since May 20 (Dan Murphy, vs. the Yankees). Dan Murphy and Carlos Beltran remained hot, as both collected two hits. Unfortunately, the rest of the lineup couldn’t do much against Bucs starter Kevin Correia and the four relievers who followed him.

The Mets were 2-10 with RiSP; the Pirates were 7-12.

Next Mets Game

The Mets look to even things up in the final game of the series, sending Mike Pelfrey to the mound against Pat Maholm. Game time is 1:10 PM, so set the DVR if you — like me — will be at work. Note: the game recap tomorrow will be late since I won’t see the game until after I get home from my real job.