Cardinals 1 Mets 0

It would just figure that Steve Trachsel throws the best game he’ll throw all year, on the same night that Mark Mulder holds the Mets to four hits and no runs.

Or would it?

Actually, this game is a microcosm of Trax’s career: he often pitches just well enough to lose.

True enough, Trax pitched a brilliant game. And the one run he gave up was the result of a walk to Albert Pujols — which you can’t really blame him for, in a 0-0 game — and a double by Scott Rolen on a pitch that Rolen had no business driving into the gap (it was a split about two inches off the ground).

However, Steve Trachsel seems to have a tendency to throw gems when the other pitcher is throwing a slightly more brilliant one. And the rest of the time, he pitches at a much lower level of efficiency. This is the enigma that is Steve Trachsel, and the reason he is a consistent 14-win, 14-loss pitcher every season.

As tonight’s game showed, Steve Trachsel has the ability to pitch like a number-two starter, and dominate on occasion. But, what every other start has proven, is that he doesn’t have the mental strength, and focus, to pitch like that every game.

Let’s get something straight: I don’t expect Trax to pitch a four-hit shutout every game. However, I do find it overwhelmingly frustrating to see him pitch a game like this against the hard-hitting Cardinals, yet also give up six hits and six runs and have trouble finishing the fourth inning against the Braves. And this is not something unusual, or a function of it being early in the season. This is Trachsel’s career: a great game, a bad game, a mediocre game, a great game, a bad game, etc. His most consistent attribute is his inconsistency.

OK, off the Trachsel wagon. The Mets had exactly two chances to score a run: in the fifth, and in the ninth. In both innings, the leadoff batter hit a double, was advanced to third on the next at-bat, and was left stranded. Kaz Matsui was the goat in the fifth, chasing a pitch out of the strike zone and popping up for the second out of the inning, with the pitcher up next. Though Kaz has shown a good glove and capable bat thus far this year, he definitely is pressing with runners in scoring position. In all other at-bats, he’s shown more patience than in his first two years with the Mets, often getting ahead on the count and getting good pitches to drive. However, that approach seems to go out the window with runners on, as Kaz seems to swing at almost anything he can reach. With the pitcher on deck and a man on third, it is imperative for a batter to be very patient, as the opposing pitcher will tend to throw outside the strike zone, preferring to take his chances with the weak-hitting pitcher instead. Kaz waving at bad pitches was a favor to Mark Mulder. Hopefully someone will take Matsui aside and discuss hitting strategy in that situation.

In the ninth, Jose Reyes led off with a near triple, but held up at second. Mr. Willie did the implausible, ordering Paul “Mr. Clutch” LoDuca to bunt. Why? Why Willie? Why? Why? Why? With Mulder pitching as well as he was, and going as deep in the game as he was, you can’t be giving away outs. Especially when you consider that LoDuca is a veteran hitter, who knows how to move the runner to third on his own, and who has a natural tendency to hit the ball on the ground to the right side. Maybe LoDuca doesn’t get a hit to tie things up, but you have to give him a chance. He likely won’t strike out, and in that situation, probably wouldn’t pop up. With Beltran and Delgado up next, there was a good possibility that Mulder might fall behind and give him a good pitch to hit.

As it was, LoDuca dropped a perfect bunt to move Reyes to third, only to be stranded at the end of the game.

Tomorrow night it’s Jason Marquis vs. Lima Time! Let’s all pray for Jose to pitch like it’s 1999.

Mets 8 Cardinals 3

The rain came down in the middle of the 7th, then the floodgates opened in the top of the 8th.

After pitching six strong innings, but exiting with the score tied, it looked as though tough luck had returned to Tom Glavine. Things looked especially bleak after Glavine’s pinch-hitter, Jose Valentin, flied out for the second out in the top of the sixth (as hot as Valentin has been lately, it seemed strange to pinch-hit for a guy who came into the game batting .500). However, Jose Reyes pulled the unthinkable and coaxed a walk out of Jeff Suppan, proceeded to steal second, and scored on a two-out double by Mr. Clutch, Paul LoDuca.

Then the rain came down, and the field was covered, for an hour and forty minutes. Aaron Heilman waited patiently, then finally started the bottom of the seventh when the game resumed. He pitched a perfect inning, and got back into the dugout just before the floodgates opened.

David Wright was the first gate-busting wave, opening the top of the 8th with a long double. Cliff Floyd was plunked, and Xavier Nady reached on an error by Albert Pujols, which allowed Wright to score. Kaz Matsui followed with a perfect sac bunt to move the runners, and pinch-hitter Julio Franco stroked an inside-out single to right to score Floyd and send Nady to third. Jose Reyes and Carlos Beltran mixed in a couple of cheap singles before it was all over, and by the the time the Cardinals finally came to bat, the score was 8-3 Mets.

Following Mr. Willie’s plan to blow out the most valuable bullpen arms before the All-Star break, Duaner Sanchez came on to pitch a perfect 8th. Jorge Julio, the Mets’ closer when up by five runs or more, tried to make things interesting in the ninth, but succeeded in spite of himself, and finished the game without allowing a run and just before turning into a pumpkin at midnight St. Louis time.

Notes

Glavine pitched beautifully, hitting spots and changing speeds like he always does. He is an absolute pleasure to watch, and I pay close attention to each inning he pitches in the same way I viewed at-bats by Tony Gwynn, George Brett, and Wade Boggs at the end of their careers: you know they are special competitors, and they won’t be around too much longer, so you try to soak in every tiny detail they emit before they retire. (I watch Greg Maddux with the same attitude.)

Glavine passed Sandy Koufax on the all-time strikeout list. Not a huge deal, considering he’s pitched about eight thousand more innings than Sandy did. (OK, maybe not 8000 ….)

Cliff Floyd seems to have left his slump behind him, with two hits including a blistering double down the right field line.

Jose Reyes swung and missed wildly at a first, bad pitch, immediately after Tommy Glavine walked on four pitches. I was about to throw something at the TV when Reyes took the next pitch over the wall. He is truly an enigma.

Xavier Nady had another strong game. I suppose it’s time to eat crow on my preseason prediction of poor performance by him.

The Mets will send in the clowns to the mound for the rest of the week, making tonight’s win all the more important. Trachsel and LimaTime go against the Cardinals, and Jeremi Gonzalez opens vs. the Yankees. Dear god …

Brewers 6 Mets 5

This was a game the Mets could not afford to lose, for several reasons.

First off, they had Pedro on the hill. When the back end of your rotation is the crapshoot called Steve Trachsel, Jose Lima, and Jeremi Gonzalez, you need to produce when the sure thing is on the mound. Sixty percent of the time, you have no idea what you might get from your starting pitching, so you have to hope and scrape and pray you can eek out a win at least once or twice. When your number-one guy is out there, and you know you’re going to get a strong 7- or 8-inning performance, you must win. The offense must score, the bullpen must shut down the other team.

Unfortunately, though the Mets’ offense came through (sort of), the bullpen did not. In fact, the bullpen has been faltering quite a bit lately. Could it have anything to do with Mr. Willie’s overuse of the arms? Could my “Shortening the Game” post of less than a week ago already be humming true?

The game went back and forth a few times, not unlike Saturday night’s contest. Pedro uncharacteristically gave up a two-run lead in the second inning, and allowed the Brewers to tack on a fourth run in the fifth. It was not his best performance, but certainly not his worst. When compared to the “effective” starts of Jeremi Gonzalez and Brian Bannister, it was a fairly well-pitched ballgame.

The Mets showed gumption, as they have all year, and fought back to tie the score in the seventh and the ninth (Turnbow blew another save). However, there was only one man on the field who REALLY wanted to win the game: Billy Hall. His heroics came both at shortstop and at bat; he was playing like it was the seventh game of the World Series. In fact, if it was the only game you ever saw of him, you’d think he was on A-Rod’s level.

The Mets, however, had no such player in this particular game — though, remarkably, Jose Valentin was close. Coming of a good Saturday night, Mr. Willie played a Torre hunch and started him again, and he stayed hot, going 4-for-5 (he raised his batting average over 100 points in two days). However, all those hits produced only two runs. We can’t blame it all on Jose, though. The Mets had 15 opportunities to drive in runners, and produced only three times. You can’t do that against guys like Jose Capellan, Brian Shouse, and Danny Kolb.

Luckily, the Mets have an off-day on Monday, so the bullpen gets a rest. But Mr. Willie will have to come up with a better plan of using his pitchers. Either he’s got to find some starters who can get past the fifth (Aaron Heilman !!!), or he’s going to have to carry 10 players and 15 pitchers. This plan of throwing Heilman, Sanchez, and Bradford every single day is already taking its toll.

With a pitching matchup of Jeremi Gonzalez vs. Dana Eveland, one would have to think this would be an unusual game, one where anything might happen. And indeed, nearly anything did happen.

If one would have told you, before the game, that Jose Valentin would be an offensive star of the contest, Duaner Sanchez would pitch like Doug Sisk, and the game would be won on a dinger by Paul LoDuca off of Dennis Turnbow, would you have believed it?

Well that’s pretty much the way things went.

As if the starting pitchers weren’t enough, Mr. Willie compounded the uncertainty of the game by starting Jose Valentin in left field. And guess what? He went 2-4 with four RBI, effectively matching his entire 2006 production in one game. If not for his atrocious play in left field, I would even be inclined to state that he’s finally proven useful.

Maybe more mysterious than Valentin’s effectiveness, was the Mets’ bullpen’s ineffectiveness. Aaron Heilman needed 44 pitches to pitch two innings, and gave up three hits and a run. Not awful, but not the usual Aaron. The other half of the dynamic duo—Duaner Sanchez—however, was miserable, giving up four runs on three hits, including back-to-back horme runs, before being tossed by the ump for throwing a beanball. He managed to do all this in one-third of an inning, taking a page out of Bartolome Fortunato’s handbook on pitching.

Even Billy Wagner gave us a scare, despite striking out three in the ninth. The boxscore makes it look like an easy save, but if you watched the game you know it was anything but. The only Met pitcher who you could say had an easy, effective outing would be the winning pitcher, Chad Bradford, who threw eight pitches, seven for strikes, in two-thirds of an inning.

Naturally, there will be some Met correspondents and officials who believe that Jeremi Gonzalez was also effective in this game. But then, I suppose we’ve really lowered the bar to think that a five-inning start — where one gives up three runs — is quality. Heck, I keep hearing about how great Darren Oliver is doing, and I’ve yet to see him enter and exit a game without giving up a run (and most of his outings are one inning or less).

Thankfully, the Mets had enough offense to make up for the pitching deficiency. Carlos Beltran is borderline hot right now, as he hit another bomb, his ninth of the year. We heard all about LoDuca being a clutch hitter and he certainly fulfilled that moniker with the game-winning blast in the ninth. Xavier Nady continues to make me look dumb, and Jose Reyes stole his 13th base of the year. And though Chris Woodward went 0-2, he seems always to be doing something useful, whether it’s working a walk, running the bases intelligently, or advancing a runner.

It was good to see the Mets win a wild one; these are the type of back-and-forth games that good teams win consistently.

Brewers 9 Mets 6

This game was lost before it started, when the lineups were handed to the umpire and Jose Lima was listed as the starting pitcher.

The Great Lima Experiment must end now. It is ludicrous to believe that the worst pitcher on the worst pitching team in baseball last year will somehow find the magic to be a legitimate #4 or #5 starter.

The Mets already have too many experiments in the pitching laboratory: Pedro Feliciano as LOOGY, Darren Oliver as who-knows-what, Jorge Julio as setup-in-training. Julio and Feliciano, at least, show some promise, and Julio has youth and talent on his side. Oliver and Lima need to go, Lima first.

The bright spots: Carlos Delgado continues to pound the ball, and Endy Chavez continues to make me look stupid by playing remarkably well in all facets of the game. Cliff Floyd had a couple hits and a walk, and seems to be moving out of his slump. Billy Wagner struck out three in a perfect eigthth that meant nothing.

Heath Bell got pounded again, which is really too bad, as Mr. Willie has no confidence in him to begin with. I hope they don’t send him down. It certainly wouldn’t make sense, since Randolph continues to give has-beens and never-wases such as Lima and Oliver chance after chance to fail. I would hope that he’d extend the same length leash to someone with potential, such as Bell.

Phillies 2 Mets 0

One of the worst rules in MLB is calling a game “official” after five innings. In fact, this particular game was actually called after 4 1/2 innings, as the Phillies were winning and did not need to bat in the bottom of the fifth. Preposterous that half of a game counts as an “official game”.

Of course, I wouldn’t think it were as preposterous had the Mets been winning … hee hee … but seriously, when you think about it, it really doesn’t make much sense.

There really isn’t a whole lot to say about this soaked-out half-game … it was wet, they played four innings, and next thing you know the Phillies have a win.

Looking forward to a weekend of the Brewers, and the Mets’ magical mystery pitching staff ….

Mets 13 Phillies 4

Batting coach Rick Down delivered an aggressive strategy during his pregame talk with the lineup, and the Mets were obviously listening, as they exploded for 16 hits and 13 runs. By the third inning, they had given Tommy Glavine a ten-run lead, and from there on Glavine pitched on autopilot en route to his 280th career win.

Compounding the Phils’ difficulties was their inability to field the ball, as they made four errors, all leading to runs. In contrast, the Mets were nearly flawless, with David Wright, Jose Reyes, and Kaz Matsui all executing web-gem worthy plays during the game. Reyes and Kaz combined on a fantastic double play in the first, which Kaz made look easy. In addition, I want to point out that tonight was another evening where I witnessed Carlos Delgado make some really nice scoops. All I heard about Delgado was that he was nearly as bad as David Ortiz in the field; however, I’ve so far been pretty happy with his performance at first. Sure, he’s no Gold Glove candidate, and his range is limited to balls hit right at him, but he really hangs in there and picks the ball well on short throws. With his bat, I’ll take his scooping as a bonus.

Some notes:

Jose Valentin’s value to the team continues to sink. In the eighth, he was on deck when Kaz Matsui attempted to score on a sac fly, and would have been tagged out if the catcher had not dropped the ball. Where the heck was Valentin? His role was to be directly behind home plate, shouting direction to Kaz as to whether he should slide or come in standing. Instead, Valentin was busy pine-tarring his bat or trimming his mustache or who knows what. Sure, it’s a tiny detail when you’re up by ten runs, but the size of the lead doesn’t mean you stop playing winning baseball. If it were a one-run or tied ballgame, and Matsui gets thrown out because he doesn’t slide, it’s Valentin’s fault.

Jose Reyes hit the only Met homerun of the game, and he did it from the right side. From the left side, he looked absolutely awful, swinging defensively even when ahead on the count, and waving at poor pitches.

Jorge Julio pitched another scoreless (but not adventureless) inning, though he “only” struck out one.

Heath Bell made his first appearance of 2006, and gave up one earned run on three hits, while striking out two with a vicious forkball. While watching the inning on SNY, I was ticked off to hear negative comments by both Ron Darling and Keith Hernandez, who seemed very down on Bell’s performance. They made references to Bell being very successful at AAA, but not able to put it together at the ML level. Did either of these kumquats notice that the Mets had a ten-run lead? You pitch differently when you have a huge lead: you throw strikes early and often (Tom Glavine referred to this strategy during an in-game interview, so I didn’t pull it out of my butt). As a result, you are going to give up some hits here and there. The one thing you don’t want to see is a pitcher being too fine and giving up walks. So Bell was doing his job, throwing strikes (20 pitches, 14 strikes, btw), a few Phils stroked some hits, and the dynamic dimwits are all over him.

Hernandez and Darling, by the way, might be the worst broadcast duo in Mets history. The only ones worse were the occasional three-inning episodes of Hernandez and Tom Seaver. Thankfully, Hernandez has backed off a little on his condescending, self-serving, holier-than-thou comments, but he still has too much negativity and anti-Met attitude. Some may say it’s Keith trying not to be a “homer”, but I think it is what I call the waybegone phenomenon: a player who can’t let go of his own past success, to the point where he cannot give credit to anyone succeeding today. He constantly points out everything that every Met is doing wrong (which is my job, by the way), and compares their performance to back when he was playing. That’s nice insight once in a while, but when it is your total MO, it gets a little old, fast. Further, as quick as Hernandez is to bash a Met, he’s just as quick to give credit to opposing players. I guess that’s where he’s trying to be objective/impartial. Whatever … it’s easy to mute the TV, which I normally do.

Phillies 5 Mets 4

Everyone has been so concerned with the Atlanta Braves, yet the Phillies are now right in the Mets’ rearview mirror at only three games back. Tonight’s game was an example of what happens when a good team (the Mets) runs into a red-hot team (the Phillies): everything seems to go right for the hot team, despite the best efforts of the good team.

While it’s true the surging Phils are establishing themselves as a team to be reckoned with, this game is nothing to be concerned about. SO many things fell into place for the Phillies: the near-catch by Nady that turned into a triple; the dropped catch by Burrell that turned into a forceout at 2B; the awful strike-three call on Kaz in the eighth; the triple by Dellucci in the ninth, which was fair by about three-tenths of an inch; and of course the misplay by Heilman on the swinging bunt by Abreu that ended the game. If any of those plays go the Mets way, the Mets probably win.

Despite all the balls bouncing the Phillies’ way, the Mets did not bury themselves, but instead phought back, phorcing a blown save by Philadelphia closer Phlash Gordon. What the Mets are showing this year is that, no matter the circumstances, they will be competing, and will not go down easy. Theirs is the tenacity of a champion.

With the emotional outcome of this game, don’t be surprised if the momentum carries over into game two, and don’t panic if the Mets drop another one. It’s early in the season, and over the long haul, it looks like the Mets will be the dominant team in the East.

However, I would like to slap poker-faced Pat Gillick, who before the season was telling anyone who would listen that he absolutely did not expect the Phillies to compete for first place this year. Sorry, pandering Pat, we see right through the ruse: you have an up-and-coming team THIS year, and no amount of self-pity will excuse you if the Phillies fall short.

This promises to be a fun and exciting summer !