Mets 3, Mariners 2

This has been a rough week for Mets pitching. First, Pedro Astacio and Scott Strickland both learned that they'll likely require season-ending surgery. Now, I won't particularly miss either of them, as Astacio's been terrible this year and I've never had much confidence in Strickland to get through an inning without giving up a home run, but it's never a good thing to lose two pitchers for the year. Then Steve Trachsel and Tom Glavine went out and pitched poorly in losing both games of yesterday's double header. And to top it all off, Glavine had to leave the game early with elbow trouble.

So you can understand why I was a little concerned when I turned on the game in the top of the first and found Jae Seo already in a bases loaded jam. But he got out of it. And then, in the second, he loaded the bases again. But he got out of it. And then, he went on to pitch seven innings against the best team in baseball, giving up just one run. But in the eighth innning, he got into a little trouble, giving up a pair of hits to lead off the inning. So, with men on second and third and zero outs, David Weathers entered from the bullpen. Weathers allowed one run to score, but got through the inning without giving up any hits, preserving the Mets' slim lead. Armando Benitez pitched a scoreless ninth for his seventeenth save of the season, giving up one hit but striking out former Met John Olerud for the last out. The final line on Seo was seven innings, eight hits, two runs, one of them earned, four walks, two of them intentional and four strikeouts. Another very good performance from Seo against one of the top teams in baseball, following up two good starts against the Braves. Seo is now 3-2 on the season with a 2.91 ERA and is clearly one of the most encouraging aspects of the team this year. If he keeps pitching like this, he'll find his way into the Rookie of the Year discussion at season's end.

As for the Mets' offense, they did just enough to get by against Ryan Franklin. Roger Cedeno went two for four and drove in the first run of the game with a ground out in the third. Cliff Floyd and Jason Phillips each went one for three and hit solo home runs, their eleventh and second of the season respectively. The Mets only had five hits and, unusually, not a single walk, but it was enough to get the job done thanks to Seo and they put an end to Seattle's nine game winning streak.

Tomorrow is a potentially good pitching matchup for the Mets, as the consistently adequate Al Leiter (6-2, 4.35) takes on Freddy Garcia (5-6, 5.50). Leiter is 3-0 with a 3.65 ERA at home while Garcia is 1.4 with 6.69 on the road.  ¶ joe | 10:27 PM |