Mets 8, Giants 2

Well, my first trip to Shea Stadium since Darryl Strawberry was in right field didn't go quite as planned. In the first inning, we got to see Mike Piazza hit his record-breaking 352nd home run as a catcher, which was great. But by the sixth inning, the offensive juggernaut led by Neifi Perez and Scotch Plains, New Jersey's own Jeffrey Hammonds had tied the Mets at two. Jae Weong Seo had left after fourth and one-third adequate innings with a cracked fingernail and been replaced by the newly promoted Ricky Bottalico. And then the rain came. And not far behind the rain was its good buddy the lightning, and that's pretty much when we decided to make our exit. So we missed a veritable offensive explosion by the Mets in the eighth. But we also missed a rain delay of about an hour and twenty minutes, so it's hard to get too upset about that.

As for that eighth inning, Shane Spencer came up with two on and two out and hit his second home run of the season to put the Mets up by three. He now has as many home runs as cross=town counterpart Gary Sheffield, at about 1/20th the price. Mike Cameron followed with a two run blast of his own and Kazuo Matsui drove in the final run with a single.

The Mets have now won three in a row and are 12-15 on the season, but they've also scored 110 runs while allowing just 105, putting them above Pythagorean .500. Tonight, they go for the sweep in a good pitching matchup as league ERA leader Al Leiter (1-1, 1.65) takes on Jason Schmidt (2-2, 4.70).  ¶ joe | 1:51 PM |