It’s official:

• Claudio Vargas has been promoted and will start on Wednesday;
• Matt Wise has finally been activated;
• Fernando Tatis has been added to the 40-man and 25-man rosters;
• Angel Pagan has been place on the 15-day DL (hopefully his 15 days are shorter than Wise’s);
• Nelson Figueroa has been DFA’d;
• the love affair with Jorge Sosa is over.

Rumors that Omar Minaya reads MetsToday for guidance are completely unfounded, btw.

While I like the idea of sending down Figgy to bring up a spot starter, I’m not 100% behind the Vargas promotion. He hasn’t been completely stretched yet, and for him, stretched out is only five innings. He also hasn’t been exactly lights out, posting a 4.91 ERA in two starts. I’d like to know the braintrust’s reasoning behind the decision — in other words, why Vargas and not Adam Bostick or Tony Armas, Jr. Bostick would be a good choice because he has options and could be sent right back down on Thursday, to make room for another fresh arm for the bullpen. Armas deserves a shot based on his svelte 3.02 ERA in eight starts — an impressive number in the hitter-friendly PCL. My best guess is the Mets were looking at two things: the readings on the radar gun and Vargas’ 11 strikeouts in 11 innings. Their decisions tend to follow that thinking, which makes the sabremetricians happy.

As far as Wise is concerned, it’s about time … that was the longest fifteen days in history. There’s no guarantee he’s going to come in and be a lights-out reliever, but someone had to push Sosa out. At least Wise has proven consistency in his history, whereas Sosa has always been an enigma — showing just enough talent to delude evaluators into thinking he has value.

Tatis is hitting a homerun every ten at-bats in AAA, and can play nearly every position on the field. Who knows, he might just stay hot and be a pleasant surprise off the bench.

As for Figgy, I’ll miss him, and hope he finds his way back, eventually. He’d probably fit nicely into a long relief role — the old “Darren Oliver role” we keep talking about.

Nationals 10 Mets 3

A terrible night, from all angles. The weather stunk, the defense stunk, the pitching stunk, and the hitting stunk.

Nelson Figueroa struggled every inning of his outing, allowing a run in three of the first four frames. Most of it was his own fault — he walked five batters, hit two, and made a key throwing error allowing a run to score. He found himself in trouble again in the fifth, as Nick Johnson singled and Rob Mackowiak walked, but Figueroa managed to retire two batters in between. With two outs in the fifth and the #8 hitter up, it looked like he might eke out of trouble one last time and leave the contest still keeping the Mets in the game. Unfortunately, eight-hitter Jesus Flores stroked a double to clear the bases, then scored himself on a single by pitcher Odalis Perez, before Figgy finally retired Cristian Guzman for the third out. By the time the smoke cleared, the score was 6-3 Nats.

Down three was not insurmountable, particularly with Odalis Perez on the mound, but any chance the Mets had to stay in the game was blown away by Jorge “Gas Can” Sosa, who allowed four hits, two walks, and four runs in his one inning of “work”, to give the Nationals a cushy 10-3 lead. On a cold windy night at Shea, a seven-run deficit may as well be death. Not unexpectedly, the Mets offense was unable to get anything going over the final four innings, save for a mini-rally in the seventh highlighted by David Wright’s seventh homer of the season.

Notes

Seventh inning, down seven runs, Ryan Church leading off. What does he do? He swings at the first pitch offered by Odalis Perez and pops up weakly down the third base line. If Willie Randolph had any cojones, he’d sit Church down IMMEDIATELY after that stupidity and set a new tone for the rest of the season. Damion Easley did the same damn thing leading off the eighth, popping up the first pitch to shallow rightfield. Stupidity begets stupidity — and Randolph allows it to happen. Last I checked, it was impossible to hit a seven-run homer with no one on base. Simple fundamentals, people.

Easley did hit an absolute bomb over the centerfield fence in the second inning. Nice shot, and his first dinger of the year.

Figueroa remained a standup guy after the game, taking blame for the loss and giving props to opposing pitcher Odalis Perez. When asked if the weather had something to do with his control, he admitted it could have affected it but refused to make an excuse, citing the fact that everyone else had to pitch in the same weather.

Next Game

Mets and Nationals do it again at 7:10 on Tuesday, with John Maine going against Long Island native John Lannan. Lannan struck out eleven Mets in six innings, holding them to only one run in a losing cause back on April 17th.

Mets 8 Reds 3

It was a good day for Mothers who are Mets fans.

In addition, it was a good day for Mets fans in general, as we saw Oliver Perez finally throw a decent game, and watched offense swing hot pink bats — both literally and figuratively.

Perez was brilliant through five, holding the Reds to only three hits and shutting them out through the first five frames. Ollie struggled in the sixth, allowing three runs on a sac fly by Adam Dunn and a two-run triple by Jeff “Screw the Mets” Keppinger, but the Mets answered with two runs in the bottom of the inning to knock down Cincinnati’s momentum and bag the game.

Carlos Beltran was the offensive star of the game, driving in three runs with a double and his third homerun of the season. Beltran’s homer was immediately followed by another tater off the bat of Ryan Church in the fifth; the back-to-back blasts extended the Mets lead to six-zip at the time.

The Mets bullpen wasn’t perfect, but it held the Reds scoreless through three innings.

Notes

Beltran is now 5 for his last 11 with 8 RBI, 2 doubles, a triple, and a homerun. I think it’s safe to say he’s out of his slump.

Also out of a slumber is Jose Reyes, who had three hits including a cheap double, two stolen bases, and two runs scored. He and Luis Castillo did a great job of setting the table, as Castillo went 2-for-3 with a triple and two runs scored. Damion Easley added a hit and run of his own taking over for Castillo, who left the game with “quad discomfort”.

Pedro Feliciano threw only eight pitches, but the bottom of the ninth lasted over forty minutes thanks to lineup confusion. The Reds batted out of order to start the inning, and Willie Randolph pointed out this mistake to the umpires after David Ross flied out. The umpires were completely confused by the situation, possibly because managers usually bring this sort of thing to their attention after a hit, not an out. What followed were about a dozen conferences between the umpires, the umps and Randolph, the umps and Cincinnati manager Dusty Baker, etc., while Feliciano waited around on the mound. After it appeared to be all straightened out, David Ross came to bat again, and this time stroked a base hit. Strangely, Dusty Baker started another round of conferences after that hit, when he realized Corey Patterson would not get an at-bat. Or something. With one out and down by five in the last inning, with everyone needing to go see their moms after the game, you’d think Dusty would have let the game run its course rather than extend it any longer. Whatever.

Next Game

The Nationals travel to New York for a three-game set beginning on Monday at 7:10 PM, weather permitting. The Mets send Nelson Figueroa to the mound against Odalis (“Don’t Call Me Oliver”) Perez.

mebeliReds 7 Mets 1

It was a close game — a one-run game, in fact — until the eighth inning.

Mike Pelfrey struggled in the first and the fourth, but kept the Mets in the game through six full innings, holding the Reds to just two runs. However, the Mets couldn’t do anything against Bronson Arroyo (the Mets’ last baserunner came in the fourth inning). and the Reds reached for another two runs against Duaner Sanchez — then turned the game ugly with the help of two Mets errors in the ninth.

Notes

Loving Keith Hernandez and Gary Cohen with the lollipops during pregame.

Duaner’s fastball did not have the usual velocity — it was only in the mid-80s, topping out at 87. What was worse, Duaner knew it and you could see on his face and in his body language that he didn’t have his best stuff — he looked concerned and borderline scared.

In the bottom of the third, Carlos Beltran chased David Wright around the bases with an extra-base hit, but Wright was out by about three feet on a good relay throw and good block of the plate by catcher Paul Bako. However, twenty years ago, a player like Wright would have plowed over Bako in an attempt to knock the ball loose. As Keith Hernandez noted, “they don’t do that today.”. Strange, isn’t it? In the old days, when ballplayers made less than a hundred grand, and were subject to team-renewable one-year contracts, and couldn’t afford to suffer major injuries, runners crashed into catchers all the time. Nowadays, with guaranteed contracts in the tens of millions of dollars, players are very careful about physical contact — presumably for fear of injury. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to see D-Wright getting injured in a collision. But at the same time, if that was Ray Knight stampeding home, Bako’s clock is cleaned. A different game indeed.

Aaron Heilman pitched twice in the day, and in his second appearance had a very a low arm angle — which even a Little League coach would recognize as a red flag sign of fatigue. Heilman did pitch a 1-2-3 seventh, but am I the only person on the planet who notices when he’s fatigued and shouldn’t be pitching? And just why, exactly, is Willie putting ANYONE on the mound twice in the same day? (Jorge Sosa pitched twice as well.)

Oh, and since Duaner gave up a few runs and Aaron didn’t, do all the shortsighted numnuts now think the two pitchers should swap roles again? Speaking of, what’s with the morons at Shea booing Sanchez during his outing? I wish all these arse-hole “fans” would return to the Bronx and boo the Yankees.

By the way if you are a Heilman hater maybe his postcard to his mom will warm your heart a bit.

While we’re on the subject of the bullpen, Billy Wagner finally gave up some runs, but they were unearned. However, he did not pitch all that well. A bit of a head-scratcher as to why Wags was in the game at all — and why he remained in after his 20th pitch?

Gold Glover David Wright committed his eighth error of the season. He’s on pace to make 28 miscues in 162 games. Yikes.

Jeff Keppinger five-for-five in the game. That guy’s name is REALLY familiar … where have I heard it before? Oh, that’s right, he was the guy who the Mets had no use for two years ago, when they were in dire need of a second baseman (or was he trying to date Willie Randolph’s daughter?) Funny how he had the best game of his life against his old team, eh?

FYI the SNY TV team will be broadcasting from the upper deck behind home plate for that contest. It was the brainchild of Gary Cohen, who used to watch games from up in the nosebleeds as a kid growing up going to Shea. Tickets up there were once $1.30 (general admission). Did I mention it’s a different game?

Speaking of the SNY broadcasters, Keith Hernandez mentioned that he logs on to MetsBlog “every morning” to “get the scoop”. He also said “that is an excellent blog I must say”. Is it any coincidence that the SNY crew began effusively pronouncing their love for Matt Cerrone and MetsBlog immediately after I started providing commentary there? (OK, maybe it’s a coincidence.)

Next Game

The Mets and Reds play the rubber match at Shea at 1:10 pm. Oliver Perez faces Johnny Cueto. The game will be on CW11.

Mets 12 Reds 6

Ace starter Johan Santana allowed 11 baserunners in six innings, but hung tough and allowed only three runs in leading the Mets to a 12-6 victory.

That’s right — the Mets scored another dozen runs. The offense is suddenly on a rampage, scoring like … um … it’s their job. Brian Schneider hit his first homer of the year, and the man who has been wearing Carlos Delgado’s uniform for the last week also knocked one out, as well as stroking a double. Does anyone know that masked man?

David Wright, Carlos Delgado and Carlos Beltran were a combined 7-for-10 with 7 RBI and 6 runs scored.

After Johan left the game, the Mets bullpen “held” the Reds to “only” three runs in the last three innings. Jorge Sosa pitched a scoreless ninth to hold his job for at least another day.