The Mets donned their throwback jerseys and defeated the San Francisco Giants by a score of 3-0 tonight at Citi Field. The Mets combined some solid pitching and timely hitting to win their second straight game. It was a nice way to start their longest homestand of the year.
Bobby Parnell delivered an electrifying performance tonight as he held the Giants to just three hits, all singles, in six scoreless innings. Parnell threw 61 of his 86 pitches for strikes, and walked none while striking out seven batters. Wow. Now that’s more like it. At one point in the game, Parnell retired eleven straight batters including four strikeouts in a row. His fastball was smoking and frequently hit 96 mph even in his final inning of work. I’m keeping my fingers crossed and hoping that this was just the start of something big by the young righty. He’ll have at least seven more starts before the season ends, and it should give us a good read on him.
Angel Pagan got the Mets on the board, leading off the game with a homerun to give Parnell a small cushion to work with. The Mets got their second run thanks to a long double by Jeff Francoeur in the fourth inning to score Luis Castillo who led off the inning with a single. Castillo scored again in the sixth courtesy of a line drive double off the bat of David Wright that moved him to third, followed by a sac fly from Gary Sheffield.
Brian Stokes started the seventh inning and pitched perfectly, but walked the first batter on four pitches to start the eight and was replaced by Pedro Feliciano who wrapped it up with no problem. Frankie Rodriguez treated the fans to a rare 1-2-3 inning to pick up his 26th save of the season.
It was a well played game that may have given us a glimpse of the future of our rotation in Bobby Parnell.
The Mets got some good news on Carlos Beltran who shagged some flies before the game. The plan is for more of the same on Saturday and barring a setback, he may soon play in some rehab games.
A big Happy Birthday to longtime Mets icon Jay Horwitz!
The Mets will have their ace Johan Santana face the Giants’ Matt Cain in a marquis matchup that will be televised on FOX at 4:00 PM. Lets play spoiler!
Bobby Parnell looked so awesome! He outpitched Matt Cain who is like one of the best pitchers in the league. If he continues to improve as a starter, we may have just found our REAL number two pitcher! Go Mets!!!
Hate to break it to ya Karen…. but… Cain pitches tomorrow. Parnell outpitched Barry Zito…. Sorry :/ Love the excitement though!
As much as I am excited and even happy for Parnell, you have to consider the offense he was up against. The Giants managed to look even worse than the Mets really only having 1 good scoring chance (and it wasn’t even against Parnell!). And yet the Mets barely took advantage of the situation.
I will say this, Parnell did prove that if this team needs a 5th starter in a pinch or because of a double-header, no need to pull up a minor leaguer. So if anything the Mets are seeing who can do what this year and obvious Parnell can be a long man or a starter if needed. I just don’t think he can be in the rotation. But this was his second start, his next will be the Braves. If can handle them, then I think we can start thinking a bit more about this experiment…
Wow Jessep is all over the place. Parnell can develop into a good starter if given the opp and he continues to work on his off speed pitches. I liked the way he used his fastball 1st time thru the order and then started mixing in his off speed stuff. He managed to not throw as hard as he could in order to be more precise and to keep walks down. His strike to walk ratio was Johan-esque. If he can develop into an option for next year then Mets don’t have to be too concerned about Maine. I believe that Pelfrey will continue to improve this year and become a solid addition next year to rotation. Only worry that having to pay Ollie will cause Mets to pitch him even if you have a better option because of his contract.
I have that same concern about pitching Ollie because of the money. It sucks when wins take a back seat to justifying a bad contract.
Yes it was the putrid Giants but you cannot choose who you pitch against and he took advantage and worked on his assortment of pitches so that when he pitches against a fastball hitting team like Phillies he will have had time to develop further. You take the game you were given. If he had stunk up Citi then you would be complaining about how he can’t beat a bad hitting Giant team. Make up your mind my friend.
Joe, it must suck writing recaps when your team’s season is essentially over, And I can see that when you write a recap you look for things that will help next season. I’m going to wait until he makes those last seven starts that you mentioned before I get too excited. But this was a big step forward for Parnell.
We may have just found our legitimate number two starter.
And his grandma got his back.
Before we start to christen Bobby Parnell as our number 2 starter after 2 major league starts I should remind people to catch their collective breath, take a step back, exhale, and to remember to always learn from past mistakes If you’ve learned ANYTHING by watching baseball is that it’s a good idea to wait until a starter has gone one time around the league before making such a absurd statement.
Relax.
I want him to do good too and I’m happy about tonight…..but let’s not jump the gun, ok?
Like last years magic number count with a month left in the season, anointing Bobby Parnell as our number 2 starter after 2 major league starts reeks of the same recklessness only to be let down and then you respond withe bitterness and anger.
Patience. Let’s wait and see after he’s gone around the league once.
What’s your problem Bayonne? Can’t you see this guy is Cy Young reincarnated? We all can, why can’t you?!?
Seriously though, you’re right, let’s keep our perspective here. What we have on our hands is a flamethrower who is starting to develop more of his arsenal. I was at the game tonight, and he looked awesome. Poised and made his pitches. Let’s hope he continues to develop into the pitcher we all hope can become.
Amen to keeping it all in perspective but going around the league? How many years is that gonna take Bayonne? Considering limited starts for starters and you never face every team every year and sometimes it takes a few years to pitch against every team. IMO
Well let’s apply a little common sense here, which I think most people will do. Obviously I don’t mean to wait years…c’mon now….my general point is it’s probably going to take facing one or more teams twice during a season and facing teams in big games, even if you only face them once, the types of lineups, word getting around the league about his stuff, things like that.
So I’ll watch him for the rest of the year first then evaluate him.
I agree. The Mets (and us) should have enough information after the season to make a solid preliminary evaluation. Unlike years ago, when everything was so secretive, scouting reports are so much easier to obtain on new pitchers and advance scouts share information all the time. As I wrote in the recap, we should have a good read on Parnell after a 9 start body of work. Plus it’s important to note that his secondary pitches will only get better as he improves his muscle memory. He only used two of his five pitches as a reliever, but as his feel, release points, and arm angle comes back to him, those pitches will be even more effective. Now, that said, lets remember that his projection in the minors was as a middle of the rotation starter, so lets temper those expectations. His curve looked great last night and he was fooling batters with his changeup, so I’m excited to see how good he can be once he perfects those pitches which can only come by throwing them more often. If he can get another 2-3 mph of variation on that change, it could be a huge out pitch for him.
Ollie needs to give back the money. It’s that simple. And that
brilliant. In so doing, he could win the hearts of the fans as the first athlete to subscribe to an authentic philosophy; “pay me only when i perform like a true major league starter.” A clause in this verbal contract will require him to pay Los Mets a million dollars for every batter walked. If this doesn’t cure him –the club gets a complete return on its investment in 6 or 7 starts.
This is a complete win-win. Talk amongst yourselves.
He should give back half of the money to help the team get some free agents this off season.
There’s only one problem with that – - Ollie think he’s doing great. Remember his statement that walks are part of baseball.
Dogman it’s been done before.
Lyman Bostock, a former Twin/Angel once was so embarrassed about his start after signing a huge contract (at the time) he refused to take the money because he felt he didn’t deserve it. When Angel’s owner Buzzie Bavasi refused Bostock’s offer, Bostock donated the money to charity. Later on his bat would heat up and help the Angels down the pennant stretch.
Read about it here:
http://articles.latimes.com/2008/apr/22/sports/sp-crowe22
If more athletes did that today then maybe there wouldn’t be an economic crisis, lol.
I’m almost certain of this, but I believe that Mark McGwire did the same thing in his 3rd or 4th season with the A’s.
Actually it was a little different. McGwire didn’t feel he deserved a raise after a bad season and went to arbitration with the same figure he made the year prior.
http://www.nytimes.com/1992/05/15/sports/baseball-after-a-change-of-seasons-mcgwire-s-fortunes-have-turned-golden.html
In a pretty brutal season, this was pretty encouraging. But then again So were some on Niese starts last year, Some have been Pelfreys starts, John Maine, And Oliver Perez….catch the drift?
A young starting pitcher that can throw a 96mph through hitters is something to definitely get excited about, but teams havent really seen much of him because he has been a reliever this season.
I am def looking forward to seeing him down the stretch this season. If he was to reach his potential and develop into an electric stud, and Niese was to develop too into the pitcher the mets hoped he would the mets might be in for a surprise of a young rotation and we would never have to see the likes of Livan hernandez or tim redding in our rotation.
Amen!
A great outing for Parnell, although against the light hitting Jints. At least he made progress, having excellent control and using an assortment of pitches not just his fastball. At the least we have now seen a young Mets player who appears to be developing! Does Warthen get any credit in leading him, or was this all on his own? Hopefully, there will be some follow through on this with a repeat in the near future. Consistency is going to be the key. It would be great if a half dozen successful outings follow and we actually wind up with a solid pitcher in the rotation. You have to give the Mets credit for something that may actually be working. Nice departure from all the failures this year.
Parnell was awesome! Wow. What a difference a start makes. 1st win, 1st shutout. Sure the Giants are not that scary of a lineup, but they are not bad either.
They are a ML team at least and we beat them decisively in a near totally professional effort. The lone exception I saw was the bungled double play with Murphy being awkward getting back to cover 1st with Feliciano keeping the return throw from going into the dugout. Other than that it was a great game.
Joe D, I noticed that you haven’t done lineups and game previews anymore and I would be more than happy to help out with those. I can do other stuff too. Let me know.
Hi Kevin,
I actually made the decision to cut out the lineup posts and a few other features we had so that we can focus on more opinionated blogs that would engage our readers and encourage comments.
We do still have game previews which focus more on matchups, trends, etc, but our guy is currently away but will be back next week I believe.
Feel free to email me, about the injury update and I can give you some details on that or another possible role. GetMetsMerized@aol.com