We are about 10 days from the start of the season and we are starting to see pitchers go into the 6th inning, and having pitchers out of the pen, that are our actual pitchers from the pen in 2008. The story of the past 3 games have been the pitching. The Mets played Cleveland, Baltimore, and Washington, and in those three games, outscored their opponents a combined 18 – 3. Lets break down each of these games.
First off, we have Cleveland from Weds where the Mets won 3-1:
FMart 1-1, 2B, RBI
Easley 1-2, R, 2B, BB
Casanova 2-3, RBI
Pagan 0-3
Maine 5.2 IP, 5H, ER, BB, 7K, HR, 2.33 ERA
Heilman 1.0, 2H, 3K
Wagner 1.0, 3K
The rest of the box can be found here. First off, Schoenweis had a good outing too, and the Mets as a team recorded 15 strikeouts in this game. 6 of those K's came from Heilman and Wagner who both struck out the side, and for Wagner, a perfect perfect inning as the the ball never even made it in play. Maine was awesome, especially when the run came early in the game. Once again though, the problem with Maine continues to be the long ball, however, its easy to forget, and reasonable to forget, that in this outing where he really pitched well.
When it comes to hitting, paying attention to players like Casanova is becoming more important due the injuries to the Mets starting and backup catchers. (That being said, Schnieder had a good day in the minor league game going 2-4 with a double and a homer).
Thursday continued the pitching theme with a 7-0 romp of the Baltimore Orioles:
Santana 1-1, R, BB, 2B
Reyes 2-2, R, RBI, BB
Castillo 2-3
Beltran 1-3, RBI
Santana 6.0 IP, 5 H, BB, 7 K, 3.15 ERA
Heilman .2 IP, K
Sanchez 1.0, H
Wagner 1.0 K
Feliciano 1.0, K
The rest of the box can be found here.
The first thing that I noticed when looking at the box was the pitchers used. Santana pitched 6.0, then Feliciano came in for one batter, struck him out, then Heilman came in and finished the inning. Sanchez followed and passed the ball to Wagner who closed out the game. For Wagner and Heilman, it was back to back days of pitching. So it was a real game situation, except for Santana only throwing about 84 pitches. To see the team perform that well is a good feeling.
Another good feeling is watching Reyes get hits and Castillo doing the same. According to the Baltimore Sun, the pitcher who gave up the double to Santana knocked down a plastic chair in the dugout afterwards due to frustration.
Finally, our tour ends with today's game, where the Nationals got an early 2-0 lead and then the Mets scored 8 unanswered runs to finish the game 8-2:
Reyes 2-4, 2 RBI, 2B
Wright 3-4, 2R, 2 RBI, HR
Beltran 2-3
Pagan 2-2, R
Clark 0-2
Pedro 5.0 IP, 5 H, 2 ER, 4K
Wise 1.0, BB, 0.96 ERA
Schoeneweis 1.0, 1.00 ERA
You know its going to be a great day when Wright, Reyes and Beltran are all getting their hits in, its what you want to see out of the Mets. Chico of the Nats had the Mets stumped at first, but when he went out, the Mets were able to take over on the Nats bullpen (we played their likely bullpen pitchers). Chico has always puzzled the Mets a bit, something that I hope to highlight in a later entry.
Although Pedro gave up 2 runs, he still did well, and got the K's when he needed them. I am starting to like Schoewneweis now, which is startling.
