Mets 4, Cubs 1

And just like that, the horrors of opening day are forgotten. Al Leiter pitched six very good innings for the win and David Weathers, Mike "the new guy" Stanton and Armando Benitez each pitched a scoreless inning to seal the victory. They got fine infield defense, with 3 double plays and, erm, adequate outfield defense, as Roger Cedeno didn't allow any runs to score due to his ineptness or anything. They still should've brought in Tsuyoshi Shinjo as a defensive replacement in the ninth. The announcers brought up the interesting point that Al Leiter led the league in ERA in night games last year. He had a 2.24 after the sun went down, as opposed to a ghastly 5.42 under the light of day. The previous year, the split was 2.75/3.70 in the opposite direction. I don't really know how to explain this. Al Leiter is a recently sired vampire? He just likes to sleep late in his old age? Hard to say, but it'll be interesting to see if this keeps up this year.

On the mound for the Cubs was Matt Clement, who had a breakout season last year, but seemed to have been taken back into custody tonight. The Mets got all the offense they needed on a two run homer from shiny new Cliff Floyd in the 1st inning, but Clement allowed another run to score in the inning after throwing three wild pitches, all sliders, to Jeromy Burnitz, allowing Ty Wigginton to come all the way around from first. Of course, Burnitz being Burnitz, he still managed to utilize his staggering lack of plate discipline to work a strikeout, but strike three was in the dirt and Veteran Eric Karros was in poor position at first, so Burnitz was safe after getting hit in the back with catcher Damian Miller's throw. Clement seemed determined to get his slider over, but it just wasn't happening and after giving up a solo home run to Roger Cedeno of all people in the second and apparently hurting his back in the third, he left the game up to the bullpen starting in the fourth.

Of course, the story of the game to people outside New York was Sammy Sosa's quest for his 500th home run. He took Leiter deep in the 6th with two men on with a fly ball that would have tied the game had it not landed in Floyd's glove on the warning track.

Other notes... Roberto Alomar looks good batting lefty, not so much from the other side. Timo Perez (aka The Guy Who Should Be Starting In Center) hit a pinch hit single in the sixth on a ball that looked to be about two inches off the ground. They showed statistics on the home plate umpire early in the game, showing that he called more strikeouts than the league average. I hope they keep this up. These stats could be very interesting.

Game two of the Mike Piazza suspension and the final game of this series is tomorrow afternoon with Steve Trachsel walking slowly to the mound for the Mets against yet another young Cubs pitching phenom, Mark Prior.  ¶ joe | 11:28 PM |