Wright commits fielding error on infield pop-up.

After a rough Subway Series, the Mets traveled to Chicago to visit the great Wrigley Field to play the Cubs. Johan Santana started for the Mets and has been trying to regroup as he hasn’t pitched that spectacular since his no-hitter. He probably didn’t think he’d have a dueling war against the Cubs’ Travis Wood who only has one win this season and an ERA over four entering the game, but that was exactly what he had to do. Santana blinked first as after walking Geovany Soto with two outs, Joe Mather hit a two-run homerun over the ivory in left field to give the cubs a 2-0 lead. After getting his only one-two-three inning in the fifth, he had a nerve racking sixth. After back-to-back hits and then intentionally walking the bases loaded with two outs, he was able to get a ground out to end the side.

After throwing 102 pitches through six innings, he was pulled for a pinch hitter in the seventh. His line ends with two earned runs via that homer earlier, a total of five hits, three walks, while striking out six. He receives his fourth loss and now has an ERA of 3.00. It’s always terrible when Johan has a good start but no help from the offense. Throughout his six innings pitched, his offense only got him three hits and couldn’t score him a run. After Santana’s consecutive nine inning complete games, he hasn’t made it passed the sixth inning and has given up twelve runs in four starts.

Jon Rauch came into relief and was let down by his defense. David Wright started it off by committing a fielding error, then Rauch strikes out Reed Johnson, followed by a fielding error from Lucas Duda letting a run score and then a fielding error from Ronny Cedeno that allows another run to score. After Rauch walked Soriano, he was pulled to bring in Ramon Ramirez who makes his first appearance back from the disabled list. Ramirez allows two more runs to score that both get charged to Rauch before finally ending the tragic inning.

Justin Hampson made his Mets debut in the eighth inning tonight. He pitched a scoreless inning of relief, only allowing one hit, and striking out one.

The Mets offense was mostly absent. They only combined six hits between them and couldn’t score a run until two-outs in the ninth when Ike Davis hit a homerun into center field. Ike now hitting .191.

Despite his costly error and two strikeouts, Cedeno had two hits tonight. Like wise, Mike Nickeas had two hits, but struckout to end the game.

The other hit from the Mets was from David Wright who advanced his hit streak to 15 games. Wright is now hitting .358.

Notes

The Cubs have the worst record in baseball, and the Mets only got one run with six hits.

With Justin Hampson here now, the Mets finally have a second lefty in the bullpen to pair with Tim Byrdak.

Game Ball

Ike Davis saved us from a little more embarrassment.

Up Next

Dillon Gee (5-5, 4.27 ERA) opposes Randy Wells and the Cubs. First pitch set for 8:05 p.m.