Nothing ever comes easy for the Mets does it?

This was one of those games where you come out of it with your nerves frazzled, your voice gone, and a sudden need for a new remote control for the HD.

Johan Santana pitched brilliantly and tossed six scoreless innings before departing the game with a four-run lead. Santana was cruising along and his pitch count sat at 90, but Terry Collins saw fit to hand the game to our “revamped” and “vastly improved” bullpen… Big mistake.

Jon Rauch came in to pitch the eight inning and after a single and two walks he quickly loaded the bases and exits the game with the bases juiced and two outs. In comes lefty-specialist Tim Byrdak to get pinch hitter Todd Helton out. That was the plan, but Helton instead belts a colossal grand slam home run to tie the game at 4-4. It was enough to make you want to scream like a banshee.

It totally sucked for Santana who is now winless in his first five starts for the Mets this season despite a 2.25 ERA.

Somehow, the Mets fought back in the tenth after pinch hitter Mike Baxter comes through in the clutch again and gets on with a one-out single to left. Here comes Captain Kirk making his way to the plate… You know what happens next don’t you?  Nieuwenhuis lines a scorching double to left field to plate Baxter with the go ahead run to make the score 5-4 .

In comes our Six Million Dollar Man, Frank Francisco, and like he had for the fourth time in his last five appearances, the new Mets closer was an abysmal failure and quickly allowed the Rockies to come back and tie it at 5-5 on a Carlos Gonzalez home run.

On to the eleventh inning…

The red-hot David Wright gets things started again with a leadoff single to center field. Lucas Duda follows with another single to advance Wright to third. But, oh no, the slumping Ike Davis is up next…

Great Scott, it’s a seeing eye ground-ball that gets past the Rockies’ third baseman… Wright comes around to score the go-ahead run and the Mets grab the lead.. Again!

This time the Mets hang onto the lead and win it 6-5 in eleven innings. Whew…

I’ll tell ya… It’s not easy being a Mets fan… 😉