Yankees 8 Mets 2

The Mets lost by six, but it felt like eleven. They were completely unable to get anything going against Chien-Ming Wang, and couldn’t stop the steamroller that is the Yankees. The entire game, from start to finish, was a complete downer for Mets fans.

Wang did his best Bugs Bunny impression: “one-two-three strikes you’re out … one-two-three strikes you’re out!” in an 8 2/3 inning, six-hit performance.

Before this game, of course, Wang was 90th in MLB in strikeouts per nine innings — with barely four per game. Against the Mets, he gets into double digits — setting his career high with ten strikeouts. Huh.

When the Mets weren’t whiffing, they were killing worms, hammering the ball into the ground — but that part was expected. It was all the swinging and missing that was disturbing — because it wasn’t just taking strikes, but a lot of swings and misses. After this game — the cherry on top of an offense that hits with the power of a melting sundae — I don’t know how Rick Down keeps his job. It may not be his fault, but someone’s head has to roll, a change has to be made, and they can’t fire the players (as much as we may wish they could).

The game could have been summed up by watching the last batter of the top of the sixth and the first batter of the bottom of the sixth. The former, Jose Reyes, hit a bullet down the first base line that found Miguel Cairo’s glove and became a double play. The latter, Robinson Cano, hit a slow bouncer off the end of the bat back to the pitcher — but the ball barely escaped the reach of Scott Schoeneweis to become an infield hit. That’s pretty much the way the entire game went — if the ball had one of two ways to bounce, it would bounce in the Yankees’ favor.

It didn’t matter what El Duque threw — fastball, curveball, slow curveball, sidearm, underhand, bowl — the Yankees hit it. He looked remarkably vulnerable.

Game Analysis Break

Let’s not talk about the game anymore, but move on to the comedy of the broadcast — namely the geniuses of ESPN. Following are four dumbest things heard (when I forgot to hit the mute button).

1. Joe Morgan telling us — six times — that Jose Reyes should have stolen on the first or second pitch, because by stealing on the third pitch, the Yankees were able to pitch out. Apparently, Joe hadn’t watched the first two games, during which the Yankees pitched out several times on the first or second pitches with Reyes on first.

2. While interviewing Willie Randolph, Joe Morgan asks for Willie’s opinion on Odalis Perez.

3. While extending his already painful diatribe on “the best shortstop in New York”, Morgan talks specifically about Jose Reyes while the camera pans on Ruben Gotay.

4. Joe Morgan telling us that Roger Clemens would have won his start on Friday if the Yankees had scored enough runs. (Brilliant … thank you oh Master of the Obvious.)

Appropriately, I will give a shout out to one of the most important movements on the internet — Fire Joe Morgan.

Notes

Nice to see El Duque knocking down Bobby Abreu in the fifth, partially to stop the Yankees from diving over the plate and partially in response to Paul LoDuca’s HBP in the first — the Mets pitchers need to do more of that. Not hit people necessarily, but take the inside part of the plate back, protect their hitters, and send the message that they won’t be pushed around. And yes, it was intentional. Why would he hit the batter in front of A-Rod? Three reasons. First, he knew he was going to be out of the game soon, and would have to get the knockdown in before he was taken out. Second, if he hits Jeter, the umpire could infer that it was intentional, because the batter before — Johnny Damon — had just hit a homerun. Third, he couldn’t hit A-Rod because Rodriguez hit a 900-foot bomb in his previous at-bat. So Abreu gets buzzed.

Peter BackGammons claimed that Omar Minaya is talking to the White Sox about Mark Buehrle, and to the Astros about Brad Lidge. Since Gammons’ only value is knowing what the GMs are talking about, it’s probably true. I certainly wouldn’t mind seeing either of those guys come our way — though I doubt either deal can happen without losing L Millz plus one of either Mike Pelfrey and Philip Humber.

I would really like to see Alex Rodriguez hit 74 homeruns this year, so that Barroid Bonds doesn’t have the record anymore. He may have a better chance of driving in 200 runs, though.

Aaron Heilman gave up a 320-foot homerun into the rightfield porch off the bat of Jorge Posada — the fifth homerun he’s given up this year. It’s really sad and painful to see Heilman pitching so poorly this year, after being so good for the last few years. He clearly needs a change of scenery.

The lollygagging of the Mets returned here and there during the game, and was most glaring in the eighth. With two outs, Melky Cabrera hit a roller up the first-base line that Pedro Feliciano
was a little slow to pick up. Had he gone hard after the ball, he would have been able to pick up the ball and tag Cabrera easily. Instead, he picked up the ball late, couldn’t tag him, and no one was covering first — Delgado was taking pictures of the incident, frame-by-frame, with his new Motorola Pink RAZR V3c Phone, I think. (He also got a great shot of the third strike thrown to him from Mike Myers to end the game!) When I find his FlickR page I’ll pass it along.

Next Game

The Minnesota Twins invade Shea for a three-game series starting at 7:10 PM on Monday night. John Maine takes the mound against Carlos Silva.

Yankees 11 Mets 8

If only the Mets had relieved Tom Glavine in, say, the second inning, they may have had a chance to win.

Because by then it was apparent that Tommy was not going to get a corner on either end of the plate. In fact, he wasn’t going to get pitches that had a good 2-3 inches on either side of the plate — not with Bruce Froemming behind the plate. Unfortunately, Froemming’s advanced age, combined with too many foul tips to the noggin, has severely affected his peripheral vision, and he’s unable to see pitches as strikes unless they are within a three-inch zone smack dab in the middle of home plate, and at a height between the bottom and top of the batter’s belt buckle. That size strike zone makes life very difficult for a 40-year-old pitcher who can barely reach 85 MPH with his fastball, and doesn’t throw a breaking pitch.

Yankee youngster Tyler Clippard had the same shrunken zone — the actual size was similar to a matchbook — but the Mets hitters were not as cognizant of that fact as the Yankees. Only three Mets batters seemed to have a clue as to what was going on — Jose Reyes, Ruben Gotay, and Shawn Green — and they were the only three to draw walks (two each, in fact, though one of Green’s was intentional). The remainder of the lineup held to their typically aggressive approach, not realizing they could sit back and wait for the Yankee hurler to serve a fat one over the middle.

By contrast, the Yankee hitters kept their eyes closed until the on-deck batter informed them that the count was 2-0, and sat on meatball after meatball from various Mets pitchers.

OK, maybe that wasn’t exactly the way it went, but it sure seemed that way from where I was standing.

The Mets scored first — again — but lost the lead quickly. David Wright singled in Jose Reyes in the top of the first to start the scoring, and Ruben Gotay smashed a solo homer in the second to put the Mets up two-zip. But the Yankees came back in the bottom of the frame, scratching out two runs on a conglomeration of walks, cheap singles, sacrifices, and groundouts. In the third, the Mets went back on top when Jose Reyes enticed Clippard to balk him home from third base, but Glavine gave away the lead again in the bottom of the inning on a two-run homer by Alex Rodriguez. And so it went for the remainder of the game — the Mets would score one, the Yankees score two; the Mets score two, the Yankees score three. Do the math over the course of nine innings, and you can figure out who won.

It may have been a tough loss to swallow, but it was an exciting game to watch — in fact the back-and-forth scoring was more prolific and interesting than the recent basketball contests labeled on TV as the “NBA Championship”. Even in the ninth inning, with the Mets down by five and peerless closer Mariano Rivera on the mound, it remained a winnable game, as the Mets rallied to within three and left the bases loaded. Had Willie Randolph sent Julio Franco in to pinch-hit for Carlos Beltran in that final inning, this game might still be going.

Notes

Ruben Gotay went 2-for-3 with 2 walks, the homerun, and a single that was almost a double — he blistered the ball to the right-center wall but hit it so hard he couldn’t get to second, and wisely remained at first. He struck out looking in the ninth, when Froemming suddenly realized the plate was in fact 17 inches wide, rather than three. However, Froemming did not alert Gotay to this epiphany, and Ruben allowed strike three to graze the outside edge of the plate. Too bad, as had Gotay been perfect on the day, Willie Randolph likely would have rewarded him with a seat on the bench closer to the water cooler for Sunday night’s game — and possibly another start sometime in July. Instead, he’ll have to remain content with his current splintered seat, and likely will still have to warm up the pitchers in between innings.

Carlos Gomez had three hits, an RBI, and a stolen base. He has a five-game hit streak and is now hitting .275 with 7 steals in the bigs. While everyone keeps saying how raw he is, the 21-year-old Gomez looks far more polished — all around — than Lastings Milledge did at age 22 last year. Though L Millz is reportedly returning to baseball activities in the next week or so, he may have a hard time finding his way back to the 25-man roster. It looks as though Gomez will continue to get starts while Moises Alou remains missing, and he’s starting to get the hang of this Major League pitching thing.

Jose Reyes had only one hit, but walked twice and stole two more bases, bringing his MLB-leading SB total to 37.

Paul LoDuca was 3-for-5 in the DH role, bringing his average back to .300. OK, so maybe he had a clue up there, too.

Derek Jeter went 4-for-5, and is now hitting almost .500 (10-for-21) against the Mets this year. Is he motivated by everyone saying Reyes is the best shortstop in New York?

The fact that the Mets came back against Rivera in the ninth shows that their spirit has returned, after a two-week hiatus. That slump thing is so over.

Next Game

Orlando Hernandez goes against Chien-Ming Wang in the rubber match at 8:05 PM. El Duque will need to pitch a gem, as Wang will likely keep the Mets bats in check.

Personally, I’m rooting for Reyes and Gomez to continue laying down bunts and running wild on the bases — as it’s doubtful Wang will give up many long fly balls and the Mets will need to scratch out runs where they can. If Willie starts Ricky Luh-dee instead of Gomez, I may have a coronary.

Mets 2 Yankees 0

Jose Reyes may have provided all the offense, but the hero of the game, hands-down, was Oliver Perez.

Ollie threw seven and one-third innings of shutout ball, allowing five hits and three walks and striking out six. He rose to the occasion, and established himself once again as the Mets’ stopper (and nearly fulfilled my prediction of a two-hit shutout).

A defining moment in the game came early. First inning, Derek Jeter on second base, two outs, Alex Rodriguez at the plate. Paul LoDuca looks over at the dugout to see if Willie wants to walk A-Rod with first base open. No way. Perez went right after Rodriguez, and struck him out with a running, 93-MPH fastball. This was signficant because Perez established that he was the top dog in the confrontation, and was not going to pitch around the red-hot slugger. Great pitchers — the Seavers, the Gibsons, the Clemens in his prime — do not shy away from the best hitters. Perez may not quite be at the skill level of the greats, but he does have the attitude, the moxie, and the confidence — and often, that is just as valuable as the skillset, if not more.

One of the key plays in the game came in the bottom of the fourth, with one out and Yankees on first and second. Oliver Perez was struggling with his command, having walked Hideki Matsui and Robinson Cano, and going to a full count before getting Josh Phelps to fly out. He needed a double play desperately, and got one, albeit not in the traditional manner. Miguel Cairo lifted a fly ball that nearly found the first row of the leftfield stands, but Carlos Gomez made a big-league catch at the top of the fence, then whirled and threw to second base on one hop to double off Matsui, who unbelievably had rounded third on the play. Luckily, Jeffrey Maier was not assigned by the Brewers to scout the game.

Pedro Feliciano and Joe Smith got the key outs in the eighth, and Billy Wagner threw a perfect ninth for his 15th save of the year.

Notes

Jose Reyes went 3-for-3 with a walk and a solo homer, and drove in both of the Mets’ runs. He also stole three bases, bringing his MLB-leading total to 35.

Carlos Delgado struck out four times, singlehandedly destroying my fantasy team stats. Keith Hernandez keeps pointing out that he’s swinging under the ball, but in reality he is LATE on his swings, which gives the appearance of being underneath. Delgado was late on two consecutive crap balls by sidewinder Mike Myers — one at 74 MPH, another under 70. Being behind a pitch under seventy is pretty telling; Delgado’s timing is way off.

Once again, Tommy Lasorda and Michael Milken appeared briefly in the broadcast booth to pitch the Prostate Cancer Foundation. Like most men my age, I’m concerned about prostate cancer, and glad that awareness is being spread and inroads toward treatment and prevention being made. But there is something unsettling about Michael Milken, the Junk Bond King, as the leader of the crusade. Yes, it’s great that he’s using his genius ability to raise money for the greater good, but if you are old enough to remember the investigation of Ivan Boesky, you may understand why the mere mention of Milken’s name can put a bad taste in your mouth.

Next Game

Tom Glavine faces Tyler Clippard at 1:05 PM. It would be nice to see Tommy school Tyler en route to his 296th career win — the kid could use the education.