Mets 5 Dodgers 4

It’s been a while since we had one of these — watching the TV at the edge of your seat, nervous energy flowing through the veins right to the last pitch of the game. In the end, all Mets fans breathed a collective sigh of relief as Billy Wagner saved the contest, and preserved Chip Ambres’ status as a hero.

Who is Chip Ambres? The career minor leaguer came up big by bouncing a single past a diving Nomar Garciaparra and into leftfield to score Lastings Milledge with the go-ahead run in the top of the tenth inning. He’s the man most likely to return to New Orleans when Moises Alou returns on Tuesday, but he made his short stint significant.

El Duque pitched a fairly good game, but was hurt by the few mistakes he made — first, a gopher ball to Rafael Furcal on his second pitch of the game put the Dodgers ahead 1-0. Then in the fourth, he allowed a single to Luis Gonzalez and a two-out RBI double to James Loney to make it 2-zip.

Meantime, the Mets struggled to get anything going against lefthander Eric Stults — whose only Major League victory came against the Mets last September. That is, until the sixth inning. After Orlando Hernandez struck out swinging, Jose Reyes rapped a triple into the rightfield corner, and was brought home via a hard-hit double to left by Lastings Milledge. L Millz moved to third on one of Carlos Beltran’s trademark grounders to the right side, and scored when David Wright dumped a two-strike pitch safely into shallow leftfield for an RBI single.

However, Hernandez gave to lead right back to the Dodgers in the bottom of the inning, by walking Gonzalez and then allowing a two-run homer to Nomar Garciaparra. Garciaparra, incidentally, had hit two homeruns in 89 games in 2007 — before hitting two in three games against the Mets in this series. El Duque struggled through the remainder of the inning, but completed it without allowing another run.

The Mets did not score in the seventh but did reach Roberto Hernandez for a run in the eighth. Jose Reyes led off with a double and advanced to third on a Milledge shot off Bert’s glove. Beltran followed not with a grounder to second but a fly ball, scoring Reyes with the Mets’ third run of the game.

In the ninth, with the Dodgers again turning to Jonathan Broxton, Carlos Delgado led off with a rare infield single off James Loney’s glove and was immediately replaced by Anderson Hernandez. AHern reached second on a wild pitch, then was pushed to third on a grounder to short by Paul LoDuca. With the count 0-2, Shawn Green lifted a shallow fly into rightfield that Matt Kemp lost in the sun, scoring AHern with the tying run and landing the hustling Green on second base (ironically, and inexplicably, Kemp was brought in at the beginning of the inning for defensive purposes). Green scampered to third on the second wild pitch of the inning by Broxton, but was stranded there when both Ruben Gotay and pinch-hitter Ramon Castro struck out swinging.

Pedro Feliciano retired the Dodgers 1-2-3 in the ninth to hold the tie, and that set the stage for the unlikely hero.

After D.J. Houlton retired Jose Reyes on a groundout to lead off the inning, Lastings Milledge rapped a single to left. Beltran then walked, and David Wright grounded to Garciaparra to start what looked to be a potential double play. However, Wright beat the throw to first, putting men on first and third with two out for Ambres, who entered the game in place of Green (who moved to first base when AHern pinch-ran for Delgado) in rightfield and in Delgado’s spot in the order. Ambres took a ball off the outside corner before rapping the next pitch into left.

In the bottom of the tenth, Billy Wagner came on but walked Juan Pierre to open the inning. Wagner had him picked off first but Shawn Green dropped the ball on the exchange and Pierre slid safely into second with none out and Russell Martin up. Martin struck out, and the Mets decided to intentionally walk Jeff Kent — putting the winning run on first base and slugging youngster Matt Kemp to the plate (and Nomar on deck). Kemp struck out swinging, bringing up cagey veteran Garciaparra — who’d been hot the entire series and second in the NL with a .393 batting average with RISP. Nomar worked the count to 1-1 before Wags uncorked a wild pitch to advance the runners to second and third. The count went full before Wagner snuck a slider on the outside edge of the plate to catch Garciaparra looking and end the game.

Notes

Home plate umpire called at least four “automatic” strikes when Mets hitters showed bunt when taking a pitch — twice to El Duque, once to Ruben Gotay, and once to Paul LoDuca. The last time, to LoDuca, came in the top of the ninth on a 3-0 count with a runner on second. There’s no doubt it was ball four — it was inside and in the dirt — and LoDuca definitely drew the bat back. Eventually, the count went full and LoDuca bounced out to shortstop for the first out of the inning. The grounder did advance the runner, but it would have been nicer to have men on first and second, none out, than man on third and one out. Personally, I’ve always thought faking the bunt on 3-0 was bush league, and find it particularly annoying when MLBers do it. Batters would serve themselves much better by taking their normal stride and getting a good track on the baseball as it comes in — makes it much easier to blast the 3-1 delivery, which is often the same pitch.

Aaron Heilman pitched two innings of fine relief to hold the fort and keep the Mets in the game. He retired all six batters he faced, expending 19 pitches.

Nice to see the Mets manufacturing runs in this game, and making productive outs. Keep it going, boys, and good things will happen.

In contrast to the rest of the Mets batters, the majority of Shawn Green’s at-bats have been horrendous since the firing of Rick Down. (Yes, he got the big “hit” in the ninth but that was more luck than anything.) Through most of the season, Green took pitches early in counts, kept his hands back, and laid off garbage in the dirt (for the most part). Lately he’s been waving at everything thrown toward him, missing badly on off-speed pitches low and away. He must return to his early-season approach of keeping the hands back, deciding later on pitches, and focusing on opposite-field hitting.

Next Game

The Mets get a day off on Monday, and we get to go to sleep early two nights in a row. On Tuesday, the Mets host the ice-cold Pittsburgh Pirates, who were just shut out by Woody Williams and the Houston Astros. Game time Tuesday is 7:10 PM, with John Maine going against Ian Snell.

Dodgers 8 Mets 6

For a while there, it looked like the Mets might take three in a row in LA, but it wasn’t meant to be.

Before the series began, I figured this game would go to the Dodgers, because Brad Penny has been so dominating this year. However, since the Mets reached him for four runs, and originally had the lead, it was a bit of a disappointment when Jorge Sosa couldn’t pitch more effectively and scratch out a win.

The Mets jumped out to a two-run lead in the second inning, thanks to a sac fly by Ramon Castro and a two-out, run-scoring single by Lastings Milledge. Milledge is hitting about .035, but every time he gets a hit, he drives in a run. Gotta like that kind of production. The Mets tacked on two more in the third after Carlos Beltran sent a two-strike pitch into leftfield and David Wright followed by golfing a ball over the centerfield fence.

The lead vanished in the fourth inning, thanks to a five-run inning by the Dodgers, highlighted by a James Loney three-run blast to centerfield.

The Mets didn’t score again until the eighth, when Carlos Beltran jumped all over a high 2-1 fastball from lefty Joe Beimel and deposited it into the leftfield seats.

Notes

“Aloha Adam” was a stupid, nonsensical addition to the FOX broadcast. Why, exactly, would we care to celebrate the 25th anniversary of “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” ? Hey, I watched the movie myself, and enjoyed it immensely as a teenager, but … what’s it got to do with baseball? Yeah, I thought so.

The only thing more annoying than “Aloha Adam” and the incessant camera shots of Hollywood stars was Barry Bonds at-bats invading the game. If I want to see Barroid hit, I’ll watch the Giants game on MLB or DirectTV — don’t spoil my enjoyment of the Mets. If FOX thinks it’s so important to see the poster boy for HGH hit a homerun, then broadcast the whole damn game and let us watch the Mets on SNY. I don’t care about Barry Bonds, and the “record” means nothing to anyone outside of San Francisco. In fact, it’s not even a record. Last time I checked the Guinness World Records book, the all-time homerun king is Sadaharu Oh — so what’s the big whoop-dee-doo about tying/passing Aaron’s 755? When he gets close to 868, lemme know.

Sosa’s inability to throw an offspeed pitch in the strike zone is the main reason I’ve been hesitant to look at him as an effective pitcher over the long term. Using the slider for swings and misses is fine, but purposely putting it in the strike zone is a dangerous strategy (I don’t care WHAT Leo Mazzone says). Sliders in the strike zone — other than at the very bottom corners of the strike zone — tend to be flat and fat. Add the fact that a slider is about 2-5 MPH slower than a fastball — which is not slow enough to throw off a hitter’s timing — and you can understand why homeruns are often hit on high sliders.

Shame, shame, shame on Willie Randolph for not making a stink, or moving from the dugout, when Juan Pierre was hit by a Scott Schoeneweis pitch in the sxith inning. Pierre DID NOT MOVE, and in fact, he might have moved slightly INTO the ball. The umpire wrongly awarded him first base, as the MLB rulebook clearly states that the batter must attempt to get out of the way.

Ruben Gotay threw away a tailor-made double play ball immediately after the HBP — allowing a run to score — so I guess he’s a bad fielder and should be replaced by Anderson Hernandez.

Shawn Green has a career .419 average against Brad Penny (in 31 at-bats). Did anyone get the reason Lastings Milledge started instead? If so I missed it.

Jonathan Broxton was described as a “drop and drive guy” by ho-hum broadcaster Matt Vasgersian, as his delivery was compared to Tom Seaver’s. Nothing could have been further from the truth. If anything, his motion is closer to “tall and fall” — a la Nolan Ryan. Drop and drive pitchers usually have a dirty right knee, as they push hard off the rubber with their back leg, then flex the back knee down to the ground as the front side collapses at the release point. (BTW, I guarantee Broxton has an arm injury within a year. He puts a lot of strain on his arm, first by throwing so many sliders and second by not allowing his arm to naturally and fully decelerate — he cuts off his follow-through almost immediately after releasing the ball. He would be well served by watching some old clips of Tom Seaver — but there’s no similarity between Tom Terrific and Broxton.) It galls me when “professional” broadcasters make asinine, incorrect statements to try to sound smart — please don’t ask me why I didn’t hit the mute button in the first inning.

Kind of funny that FOX made the far reach of tying together “Fast Times …” with the basestealers of the Mets and Dodgers — and that there was not one stolen base attempt in the game. Even funnier that Tim McCarver was forced to watch the movie the night before the broadcast, so he’d know who “Mr. Hand” was.

Next Game

The series finale starts at 4:10 PM EST. El Duque pitches for the Mets, and Mark Hendrickson is still listed as the Dodgers starter, despite having pitched two innings of relief in game one.

Mets 4 Dodgers 1

How the Mets were unable to score more than one run against Brett Tomko is beyond comprehension. But whatever.

The boys from Flushing managed one measly run off Brett Tomko, in the first inning — and it was unearned. After Jose Reyes grounded out back to Tomko to open the game, Marlon Anderson hit a fly ball in between Luis Gonzalez and Juan Pierre that Pierre called for, but allowed to drop when Gonzo was still charging toward his skinny bones. Two batters later, David Wright lined a base hit up the middle to score Anderson and take the early 1-0 lead.

The lead didn’t last long, as Nomar Garciaparra led off the bottom of the second with a homerun to tie the game. The score stayed that way until the eighth frame.

In the top of the eighth inning, Roberto Hernandez showed us precisely why the Mets didn’t re-sign him for their bullpen (after being released by the Indians). Jose Reyes led off with a double down the leftfield line, and was bunted to third by Marlon Anderson. However, Bert fielded the bunt and threw it up the rightfield line, allowing Reyes to score. The next batter, Carlos Beltran, hit a bomb into the right-center seats make the score 4-1 Mets.

Oliver Perez pitched into the eighth, but was removed after giving up a one-out single to Russell Martin. Joe Smith came on to face Jeff Kent, and got the ground ball, but Jose Reyes was playing too far to the left to get a glove on it, and it trickled into centerfield to put runners on first and second. Had Reyes been just one step more to his left, the grounder would have been an easy double play. Smith was removed and replaced by Pedro Feliciano to face the lefthanded hitting Luis Gonzalez. Feliciano induced a groundball back to the box, and started the double play — however, Gonzo was called safe at first (the stop-motion replay showed he was out by hair, but a tough call to the naked eye at full speed). No big deal, as Nomar followed with an easy fly ball to Carlos Beltran to end the inning.

Billy Wagner came on in the ninth to protect the lead, and knocked down the Dodgers 1-2-3 for his 21st save. He is so money it’s ridiculous.

Notes

Oliver Perez struck out 8, walked 3, and gave up 6 hits and one run in 7 1/3 innings. An outstanding performance.

Perez was taking his time with his full-windup delivery. If you watched closely, you would have noticed that he got his knee up to the balance point, and would hold it there for half a second before continuing with his stride. I’ve noticed this in about a half dozen other starts, and it seems to be an effective technique for him in gathering his weight before moving forward — which leads to a more consistent delivery and release point. Obviously, he can’t make that pause with runners on base, but from the windup it looks good and seems to help quite a bit.

Jose Valentin fouled a ball hard off the middle of his shin and fractured his tibia. Now, anyone who has followed this blog knows I’ve been pining for more playing time for Ruben Gotay, but not in a thousand years did I want it to happen this way. Valentin is a hard-playing, all-around ballplayer, and his presence on the field will be sorely missed. It seemed like Valentin was just starting to get back into the groove, after working so hard to come back from the knee injury, and now this. Tough break (pardon the pun) for a good guy.

Chip Ambres was granted his first Major League plate appearance since 2005, pinch-hitting for Feliciano in the top of the ninth. He struck out on a failed check swing.

Next Game

Jorge Sosa faces Brad Penny in a 3:55 PM EST start in Los Angeles on Saturday afternoon. We’re going to bank on the theory that Penny is at the start of another second-half slide. Unfortunately, the game will be carried on FOX — so you may want to mute the TV and tune your AM radio to 660.

Mets 13 Dodgers 9

Why can’t these games happen on the East Coast, during reasonable hours of the evening?

After a six-run first inning, it appeared that Tom Glavine would have an easy cruise toward his 299th career win.

However, by the bottom of the second, the score was 6-4, as Glavine struggled with his command — or rather, couldn’t get the batters to swing at his slop (see notes below). It was a good old-fashioned slugfest from there on.

Tommy had a hard time hitting spots, missing badly or leaving balls over the middle of the plate — and the new offensive-minded Dodgers took advantage. They scored two runs in the first, but it could have been more had Shawn Green not made a perfect throw to nail Jeff Kent trying to go from first to third on a two-run single by Luis Gonzalez. The Dodgers added another two in the second, via a two-run homer by Matt Kemp (thereby making up for the two-run error Kemp made in the first). By the end of the second inning, Glavine had already thrown over 50 pitches, and it appeared he’d be laboring throughout his time on the mound.

The Mets exploded for six runs in the first by hitting single after single after single against sinkerballer Derek Lowe (though, David Wright mixed in a two-run double). Wright, Ramon Castro, Shawn Green, and Ruben Gotay all drove in runs in the inning, with an extra run scoring on Green’s basehit when rightfielder Matt Kemp forgot to field the ball and let it skip behind him.

Lowe rebounded to pitch an uneventful second inning, but got into trouble again in third. After leadoff hitter Ramon Castro grounded out, Shawn Green doubled, Ruben Gotay singled, and then Lowe walked Glavine — who was attempting to bunt. With the bases loaded, Jose Reyes bounced out to first to score Green, and new arrival Marlon Anderson lined a single to center to score both Gotay and Glavine to make the score 9-4. Luckily for Lowe, perpetual rally killer Carlos Beltran was the next batter, and he, predictably, bounced out meekly to the right side to end the inning.

Glavine promptly gave up a leadoff homer to Jeff Kent on his first pitch of the third inning, then allowed a hard-hit single to Gonzalez, making one wonder if he really was interested in winning his 299th. Just as promptly, Rick Peterson got on the phone to get former Dodger Aaron Sele warming up. Glavine then gave up another hard-hit single, and the look on is face was one of a man who had soiled his pants. Glavine had no idea what to do next, and had to face the Dodgers’ two hottest hitters — James Loney and Matt Kemp. As you might guess, Loney singled — the fourth straight hit of the inning — to load the bases for Kemp. That was enough for Willie Randolph, who sent The Jacket back out to the mound to remove Tommy.

Aaron Sele came on with the bases drunk and got Kemp to hit a short fly that couldn’t score Gonzalez for the first out. Grady Little then sent Olmedo Saenz — his best pinch-hitter — in to hit, clearly understanding the importance of the moment. Saenz hit a fly ball to center to score Gonzalez, but Garciaparra was cut down trying to advance to third after Beltran hit cutoff man Carlos Delgado with a perfect strike, and Delgado relayed to Wright. So what could have been a big chance for the Dodgers, fizzled fast, though they cut the lead to 9-6.

The Mets tacked on their tenth run in the top of the fifth. After Green flied out, Gotay singled (again), and Aaron Sele walked — again, a Mets pitcher walked while attempting a sacrifice bunt (how happy about that were Grady Little and pitching coach Rick Honeycutt?). Jose Reyes followed with a single up the middle to score Gotay to make the score 10-6.

But the scoring still wasn’t done. Sele pitched fairly well in his relief stint, and seemed to have a scoreless fifth inning in the plans after inducing a ground ball double play from Loney. However, Wright threw away a routine grounder off the bat of Kemp, sending him to second. Pinch-hitter Wilson Betemit lashed a single to score Kemp to put the Dodgers back within three.

The Mets answered quickly, and soundly. With one out in the sixth, Carlos Delgado hit a solo ba-HOMB to dead centerfield, and Ramon Castro followed with a far-gone tater of his own over the leftfield stands. Shawn Green very nearly made it three in a row, but fell about ten feet short with his own long drive to right-center. By the end of the inning, it was 12-7, Mets.

Aaron Heilman kept the score there for one inning, but toward the end of the seventh, he was running out of gas and throwing from a very low release point, and gave up a double to Rafael Furcal on a 3-2 pitch to score Betemit from first (who had reached on an infield single). Heilman barely managed to retire Pierre to end the inning — it took a nice running catch by Beltran, who tracked the long fly into deep right-center.

However, Carlos Beltran got the run back with a laser shot into the leftfield stands (batting righty) to lead off the eighth against reliever Mark Hendrickson (who by the way is Sunday’s scheduled starter), making the score 13-8 (LoDuca missed the extra-point).

Guillermo Mota came on in the bottom of the eighth and was about to complete the first one-two-three inning for the Mets, until Gary Cohen announced the possibility and thereby jinxed it from happening. Mota gave up three consecutive singles, scoring another run — making it 13-9.

The Mets did not score in the top of the ninth, and Mota returned to pitch the bottom of the frame. He looked to have an easy first out, as Andre Ethier bounced the first pitch he saw to Delgado. However, Mota missed the bag covering first, and Ethier was safe. Furcal then lined a shot into left that looked to be a basehit, but Marlon Anderson made a great diving catch to get the first out. Pinch hitter Mike Lieberthal than dropped a Texas leaguer in front of Anderson, but Russell Martin flew out to right for the second out. With Billy Wagner warming in the bullpen, Jeff Kent skied to Anderson to end the game — at 1:50 AM EST (zzzzzzzzzzz).

Notes

The SNY team discussed a startling fact about Tom Glavine — he leads the league in the lowest percentage of strikes thrown (about 57%), and that is not an aberration. As Ron Darling pointed out, he is a guy who throws a strike early in the count, and then throws around the zone until the batter gets himself out. Now, I knew he’s always picked around the zone, but never realized he threw so few strikes. It’s amazing, and goes against all logic, that he’s been so successful for so many years by throwing balls instead of strikes.

Besides doing his usual damaging hitting, Ramon Castro also caught a nice game behind the plate, blocking several pitches in the dirt with ease. It’s amazing how sharp he can be on offense and defense despite playing only once a month. He must be playing in a rec league every afternoon before the Mets’ night games.

Heilman was working on three days’ rest, but still fatigued after about 30 pitches. His mechanics are an absolute mess, as he’s releasing the ball at an angle similar to Joe Smith. My guess is fatigue — the guy just isn’t built for relief, and no one in the Mets organization seems to realize the folly of keeping him in the bullpen.

Ruben Gotay went 3-for-4 before Willie finally figured out how that double-switch thing works, and replaced him with Jose Valentin when Mota came on in relief.

Is it me, or do Marlon Anderson and Orlando Hernandez look like brothers?

Bad news for the St. Louis Cardinals — Chris Carpenter is undergoing Tommy John surgery, ending this season as well as most of 2008.

Next Game

The Mets send Oliver Perez to the hill against Brett Tomko in a game that must be won. Since a 10 PM start isn’t aggravating enough for us Right Coasters, the game will start at 10:40 PM EST. Yawn.