Mets Game 116: Loss to Padres

Padres 9 Mets 5

Those who turned on the game in the 8th inning expecting to see the cardiac kids work their magic may have been disappointed.

Mets Game Notes

R.A. Dickey‘s knuckleball was flat and straight, and his fastball provided no relief. As a result, the Padres scored in each of the first three frames to jump ahead with a 5-0 lead.

The Mets fought back but the Padres kept piling on, scoring another four runs against relievers Pedro Beato and Bobby Parnell.

Something is not right with Parnell. His throwing arm is a shade behind the rest of his body, and I’m not sure why. I did notice that he’s tilting his shoulders a bit as he comes out of his knee lift and begins his stride; the front shoulder tilting up and back shoulder down. I don’t recall him doing this before and wondering if it has something to do with the timing issue. In any case what is happening is his throwing hand is a beat behind where it should be when his front foot is landing. The result is the front side is ahead of the back, making it very difficult to stay “on top” of the ball at release and also putting strain on the right shoulder. Additionally, he is often landing on his heel instead of the middle of the foot; this prevents him from using his front leg to pull the body forward and also puts most of the stress of deceleration on his throwing arm. This minor glitch could be a temporary, one-game thing — something that could correct itself by the next time he goes on the mound. Despite the glitch, Parnell had no problem breaking triple digits a few times and humming in the 97-98 MPH range.

Parnell missed the bag trying to cover first base in the ninth, then neglected to check on the runner at third; he had a good shot at throwing out Jesus Guzman, who had ventured far down the third base line.

Another major fundie mistake occurred in the bottom of the fourth, when Ruben Tejada inexplicably did not slide on a play at the plate after tagging up from third on a fly ball. The ball reached home plate slightly before Tejada, and he might have had a chance to score had he slid, because the throw was high and the catcher had to reach up above his head to catch it. Instead, Tejada ran straight up and into the tag. Added note: on-deck hitter Justin Turner — standing a few feet behind the plate — was clearly telling Tejada to slide. Shades of Carlos Beltran.

On the bright side, #7 and #8 hitters Josh Thole and Ruben Tejada combined to go 7-for-10 with 3 runs scored; no other Met had more than one hit, although as a team they collected 15 hits.

Padres right fielder and leadoff hitter Will Venable went 4-for-5 with 3 runs scored and an RBI.

Angel Pagan committed his 8th error of the season in the second inning, overthrowing the cutoff man on a RBI single. Eight errors is far too many for an outfielder. Pagan left the game with back spasms but isn’t expected to miss any more time.

The Padres pulled off a double steal with a steal of home in the ninth inning. As a Mets fan, not something I wanted to see. As a baseball fan, a well-executed and exciting play.

Next Mets Game

The fourth and final game of the series begins at 12:10 PM on Thursday afternoon. Jonathon Niese pitches against Cory Luebke.