Mets Game 49: Win Over Yankees
Mets 2 Yankees 1
Since the next two games are at Yankee Stadium, can Mets fans consider this a home series sweep?
Mets Game Notes
My apologies … in the last post I stated “Savor this one, Mets fans — it may be the highlight of the season.” With this most recent walkoff victory against future Hall of Famer Mariano Rivera, please rewind that quote and read it again. This could very well be the apex of the season.
Yet again, a Mets starter puts up a sparkling performance, only to walk away with a no-decision. But what does it matter? All that matters is that the team wins.
Ruben Tejada must be taking fielding lessons from Ike Davis, based on the Robinson Cano ground ball up the middle he watched go past him in the 8th. Tejada also made a throwing error and was picked off of second base in the ballgame. Taking his lumps, is what one might call that. Ticket to Vegas, someone else might say.
After Tejada was picked off of second base, a wild chicken ran on the field and chased after umpire Adrian Johnson. Or was that Terry Collins?
Journeyman backstop Chris Stewart is the Yankees catcher because he’s purportedly a defensive specialist. I understand that even defensive specialists make mistakes. However, for the second straight night, Stewart couldn’t handle a pitch thrown over the middle of the plate.
Matt Harvey pitched well, but didn’t collect any hits and struck out once. How can a Mets pitcher expect to earn victories if he’s not going to make an offensive contribution?
Six hits from the 2-3-4 combination of Daniel Murphy, David Wright, and Lucas Duda. One other hit from the Mets lineup.
What’s wrong with the Yankees? Why can’t a lineup packed with All-Stars such as Stewart, David Adams, Reid Brignac, Lyle Overbay, and Vernon Wells be limited to just one run? Is Matt Harvey THAT good? Is Scott Rice THAT dominating? I guess so.
Remember this game in late September — we’re going to look back on it and say, “THAT was the turning point of the season.”
Next Mets Game
We’ll call it Game One of the Yankee Stadium series; it begins at 7:05 p.m. on Wednesday night. Jeremy Hefner goes to the hill against David Phelps.
The winning streak (sic) shouldn’t change that the team needs a shakeup. Hint: basically everyone who did not get a hit in the 9th should be at risk except Buck, since the Yanks catcher underlines how even a light hitting decent catcher is an asset.
Ike Davis: Hershiser said that the way Davis’ hands come down and go back up takes too long and he cannot catch up to the high heat or adjust to the breaking ball away because he has no time to make adjustments as the ball is upon him by the time he hitches.
Tejada: Kruk killed him for not diving for the ball in the eighth and said that although he is young, he has been around a few years and that shouldn’t happen. On the pick off, they agreed that with two outs he will get a good jump anyway and has no reason to cheat so much. They also mentioned (after the defensive lapse in the eighth) how there has been talk of sending Tejada down. You can tell from their tone and the timing of their mention that they probably agree with it.
Valdespin: He is so disliked by his teammates because he thinks he is better than he is, like “he should be in the Hall of Fame” is how Kruk put it, if I remember correctly. Plus, they said that if Davis goes to the minors, the plan is to move Murphy to first and play Valdespin everyday at second. I had not heard that anywhere.
Nice win. I thought to myself ‘Why can’t they play like this more often and have at least a chance at winning some more games?’ Then I remembered: Murphy had been slumping from late April to mid-May and the pitching has been abysmal for most of the games. Another hot bat would be soooo nice.
“I wish we could play you in the World Series, but I don’t think that’s going to happen,” Wilpon told Rivera.
I hope he meant the Yankees. Yes, he’s being honest and we all figure that to be the case, but you are the OWNER, THE OWNER. Try to sound positive even to save face.
I want to be positive and enjoy the great win, but this really sucks to hear.
Also what is the point of having Davis in the majors if he’s batting eighth and adjusting his stance every week. For his own mental well being he should be in the minors.
I know that I’m being negative after a nice win but these are two issues that need to be and can be fixed immediately to make the team (and hopefully these two players) better.
Once again, Mets errors lead to a run and the official scorer rules it earned. Bizarre. I’d never seen that happen before, and now I’ve seen it happen twice to the same pitcher in a span of 3 starts. I know the rule is “reconstruct the inning without the error” but I’ve only ever seen that done conservatively in the past. Assuming a guy gets to second on a hard grounder and scores on a line drive single is, well, the opposite of conservative (though not as blatantly stupid as assuming that Rizzo tags and scores on a lineout to Ankiel in shallow center). If these guys are gonna start scoring by whatever they think was most likely, then the “can’t assume a double play” nonsense needs to go out the window, and errors need to be charged on sure DPs that get botched.
http://newyork.mets.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20130116&content_id=40989886&vkey=news_nym&c_id=nym