Mets 8, Angels 0

On Saturday, Jason Roach made his major league debut for the Mets as a starting pitcher and after a 13-3 loss, various journalists made jokes about him getting "smoked" and "lit up" and such. So once again the Mets came into the third game of a series with a chance to win two out of three.

Early on it looked like the offense would be the story of the game. Jose Reyes came to the plate in the second inning with the bases loaded and hit a grand slam for his first major league home run. This after the usually decent Tom Seaver was talking some nonsense about how Reyes should try to hit the ball on the ground to take advantage of his speed. True, it was just a home run down the line that barely made it over the fence, but to ask Reyes to stifle the power potential he clearly showed he has in the minor leagues is ridiculous. Bobby Valentine on Baseball Tonight basically said the exact opposite of what Seaver said. I assume he was watching the New York broadcast of the game and felt the need to correct Seaver's silliness. Reyes hit a pair of singles in the game as well, one a ground ball and one a line drive up the middle. He also drove in another run on a ground out, for a total of five RBI in the game, six on the season. And he got his first major league stolen base as well. All in all, a great day for the young shortstop.

But then, in the fourth inning, the announcers pointed out something that I had not noticed. Steve Trachsel had not given up a hit. He'd walked a few guys, so it didn't really register with me what was goign on. Sadly, he gave up a solid single with two outs in the sixth inning to end his shot at throwing the first Met no-hitter ever. Roger Cedeno tries to field the ball after it bounced and was coming straight toward him and it wound up inexplicably getting past him and rolling to the wall for a two base error. But Trachsel got the third out of the inning and went on to pitch the first complete game of the year for the Mets, a one-hit shutout. He'd had a couple of poor starts prior to this, but was really excellent today. In nine innings, he gave up one hit, four walks and struck out win on the way to his fifth win against four losses.

Jeromy Burnitz provided the rest of the Mets' offense, with a pair of home runs, driving in three. Vance Wilson also had three hits and scored a run. He is now hitting .307/.355/.500 in 114 at bats. Roberto Alomar and Jason Phillips each drew two walks and Phillips scored two runs.

Having held their own against perhaps the best division in baseball, the Mets head to Florida to take on the Marlins for four games before the big Subway Series this weekend. Tom Glavine (5-6, 4.82) returns from some elbow issues and some poor starts to try to get going back in the right direction against young Dontrelle Willis (5-1, 3.16).  ¶ joe | 10:31 PM |