Thursday, May 27, 2004
Phillies 7, Mets 4
The Matt Ginter performance pendulum swung back to excellent, but some shaky relief work and the awful defense you've come to expect from the New York Mets infield took a win out of his and the team's grasp. Ginter left after six innings having allowed zero runs on four hits and one walk while striking out one. He'd only thrown eighty-two pitches, but at the time he was pinch hit for, the Mets had a chance to add to their single run lead, which they did, although with no help from pinch hitter Eric Valent. Perhaps Ginter could have gone longer, but given that he was a reliever prior to this year and that the Mets wound up entering the seventh inning with a 3-0 lead, I didn't and don't think there was a whole lot of room to argue with the decision to remove Ginter at that time. In two out of his three starts he's given the Mets a tremendous outing and has already provided about as much value as I could have ever expected to get in exchange for Timo Perez, but asking much more of him than six shutout innings against one of the top offenses in the league is probably a stretch.
Of course, after he left, things did pretty much go to hell as Art Howe used four of his eight, count 'em, eight relievers in the top of the seventh inning. Ricky Bottalico started things off and the first batter reached when Kazuo Matsui booted a sharp grounder. After two runs had scored, one out had been recorded and John Franco had entered, the Mets had a chance to get out of the inning when, with runners on first and second, a sharp grounder was hit right at Mike Piazza. But his throw to second base sailed over Matsui's head and into left field, turning a possible double play into a game-tying error. Mike Stanton joined in on the seventh inning fun before David Weathers managed to get them out of it with the score at 6-3.
The Mets added one in the eighth on the last of three bases loaded walks they drew on the night but Braden Looper allowed another run in the ninth and the bottom of the Mets' lineup was unable to score any runs in the bottom of the ninth.
Getting a split out of this two-game series isn't the worst thing in the world for the Mets, but given how close they came to sweeping it, it was definitely a disappointment. The Mets get another day off tomorrow before heading to Florida, where hopefully things will turn out a little bit better. ¶ joe | 12:26 AM |
The Matt Ginter performance pendulum swung back to excellent, but some shaky relief work and the awful defense you've come to expect from the New York Mets infield took a win out of his and the team's grasp. Ginter left after six innings having allowed zero runs on four hits and one walk while striking out one. He'd only thrown eighty-two pitches, but at the time he was pinch hit for, the Mets had a chance to add to their single run lead, which they did, although with no help from pinch hitter Eric Valent. Perhaps Ginter could have gone longer, but given that he was a reliever prior to this year and that the Mets wound up entering the seventh inning with a 3-0 lead, I didn't and don't think there was a whole lot of room to argue with the decision to remove Ginter at that time. In two out of his three starts he's given the Mets a tremendous outing and has already provided about as much value as I could have ever expected to get in exchange for Timo Perez, but asking much more of him than six shutout innings against one of the top offenses in the league is probably a stretch.
Of course, after he left, things did pretty much go to hell as Art Howe used four of his eight, count 'em, eight relievers in the top of the seventh inning. Ricky Bottalico started things off and the first batter reached when Kazuo Matsui booted a sharp grounder. After two runs had scored, one out had been recorded and John Franco had entered, the Mets had a chance to get out of the inning when, with runners on first and second, a sharp grounder was hit right at Mike Piazza. But his throw to second base sailed over Matsui's head and into left field, turning a possible double play into a game-tying error. Mike Stanton joined in on the seventh inning fun before David Weathers managed to get them out of it with the score at 6-3.
The Mets added one in the eighth on the last of three bases loaded walks they drew on the night but Braden Looper allowed another run in the ninth and the bottom of the Mets' lineup was unable to score any runs in the bottom of the ninth.
Getting a split out of this two-game series isn't the worst thing in the world for the Mets, but given how close they came to sweeping it, it was definitely a disappointment. The Mets get another day off tomorrow before heading to Florida, where hopefully things will turn out a little bit better. ¶ joe | 12:26 AM |
