Mets Game 115: Win Over Padres
Mets 5 Padres 4
The cardiac kids strike again, and push themselves up and over the Flushing .500.
Mets Game Notes
For the 22nd time in 22 starts, Chris Capuano completed at least five innings; in fact, he went a full six, allowing four runs on nine hits and a walk in an 86-pitch outing. Great? No. Good enough? Sure. He left the game down 4-2 but no big deal when you pitch for the come-from-behind Mets, who have a sudden flair for the dramatic.
Lucas Duda came through big for the second straight night, only this time instead of a game-winning single it was a perfectly placed sacrifice bunt in the bottom of the eighth that put runners on second and third, which in turn led to a Nick Evans sac fly that brought home the tying run.
Duda filled the cleanup spot admirably, going 2-for-3 with a run scored.
Unlike the previous game, it wasn’t a big base hit that won the game but a big walk. OK, not quite as dramatic nor exciting, but we’ll take it, right? We’ll describe it thusly: Ruben Tejada took an uninterested stare at ball four to force home the winning run.
Angel Pagan hit his second homer in as many nights. What’s gotten into him? He’s in the leadoff spot, isn’t he supposed to be slashing singles, dragging bunts, and taking walks? Sheesh.
Wow, how horrendous is the Padres bullpen? I understand they traded away lights-out setup man Mike Adams but didn’t realize that Chad Qualls had fallen so far from his own lights-outness — he was dominant as recently as 2009 but is far from it now. Qualls was crappy on Monday night but really outdid himself in this ballgame — throwing 6 pitches and allowing three runs on three hits, including Pagan’s solo blast. Of course, he didn’t get any help from soft-tossing Josh Spence, whose “fast” ball would be slow in a Sunday softball league.
Next Mets Game
The Mets and Padres play game three at 7:10 PM on Wednesday night. The pitching matchup will be R.A. Dickey vs. Aaron Harang.
The team’s ability to work pitchers and chip away reminds me of teams like the Angels and that is a good thing.
I agree with Gary — it seems hard to believe a team won’t give him more than three years. The talk was that the debate was going to be over a sixth year. We are down to three? I do think (hope?) the excesses of “Werth money” will tone things down, but that might be too optimistic.