Game Summary
The Mets (9-12) lost to the Florida Marlins (13-8) 4-3 who won the series and and got back to their winning ways. The Mets squandered another solid start, this time by Johan Santana who didn’t figure into the decision. The bullpen had another classic meltdown, this time by J.J. Putz who along with Sean Green have blown back to back saves.
Mets Pitching
Johan Santana deserved a win today, but instead he got another no-decision as the Mets bats and the revamped bullpen let him down. The Marlins got to Santana early when they scored two runs in the first inning, which included another homerun by Jorge Cantu that barely went over the leftfield wall. Santana went into shutdown mode after that and held the Marlins scoreless through the seventh inning. Overall, Santana allowed just the 2 runs on 5 hits and he struck out 7 batters. Tough, tough loss.
What should have been a hard fought win for Johan Santana ended in utter disappointment thanks to another bad job by the bullpen. Today’s goat was J.J. Putz who immediately got himself into trouble by walking the first two batters he faced. Then, after a sacrifice bunt moved the runners over, Cody Ross singled through the middle scoring both runners. Terrible job by Putz… simply awful…
Frankie Rodriguez pitched the ninth without incident and I must say I am surprised at how many non save situations he has pitched in already, Billy Wagner would have never tolerated such a thing.
Mets Hitting
Fernando Tatis was the hitting star of the day going 3-4 with 2 RBI’s and and homerun that had put the Mets in front for the first time in the game. He is making the most of his opportunities and much like last year, he continues to hit in the clutch. Tatis also stole his second base of the season.
Ramon Castro also had a couple of hits, but was pulled for a pinch hitter in the ninth. You can read my thoughts on that in the segment below. The Mets did have 16 baserunners so getting on base was not an issue.
However, you’re not going to have too many hitting highlights when you leave 14 runners stranded on base the way the Mets did today. It was just another pathetic effort by the offense which continues to struggle despite all the daily lineup changes.
Random Thoughts
As much as I have grown to like Omir Santos and dislike Ramon Castro, I thought pulling Castro in favor of Santos in the ninth inning with two outs was a terrible call by Jerry Manuel. Castro was having a good game, while Santos had to haul ass from the bullpen to face a pitcher who throwing 99 MPH fastballs. It was just a bad case of over-managing by Manuel.
I also thought that the decision not to let Jose Reyes steal second in the eight inning was another bad call by Manuel. Having Reyes at second would have changed the entire complexion of the Alex Cora at-bat and his liner up the middle may have broken through for a base hit.
David Wright has officially become a liability right now. He should have been rested today so that he could have had two days off to get it together before the Phillies series. Another two strikeouts, a double play, and his fourth error of the season was kind of tough to take.
The Mets wasted another fabulous start by Johan Santana who could very well be 5-0 right now.
Game Ball
A game ball each to Fernando Tatis and Johan Santana.
Up Next
A very shaken up Mets team now head to Philadelphia to play the defending World Champion Phillies for a critical three game series. Mike Pelfrey, Oliver Perez and John Maine will all start in the big weekend series. LGM
