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Recap: Ex-Nats Bite Their Old Club: Mets 6- Nationals 3

Former Nationals Ryan Church and Brian Schneider were the heroes as the Mets evened their series with Washington up, winning 5-3. Church went 2-4 and had 4 RBI, including his 8th homerun of the year. Schneider meanwhile added 3 hits of his own and scored 2 runs.

The game winning hit came from the bat of Church in the 6th inning, but in reality it was more of a defensive miscue. With the score tied at 2 and 2 outs, Church ripped a line drive to right that Austin Kearns misplayed. It went over his head, allowing Schneider and Fernando Tatis to score. Tatis got his first at bat as a Met earlier in the inning and singled to right.

John Maine was excellent again, going 6 innings and giving up just 2 runs. He has now allowed 2 runs or less in 7 straight starts, the longest stretch of that kind for a Mets pitcher since Masato Yoshii in 1999. With this start Maine has lowered his ERA to 2.81, and he has now won his last 4 starts.

Rizzi’s Rant:

On the first pitch of the game, Maine drilled Felipe Lopez in what seemed to be retaliation for last night’s “cheerleading” from the dugout. Lopez gave Maine a long look, but nothing more came of it. This is good, old school style baseball, and I love to see Maine stick up for his team like this. He has the talent to be a leader on this team, and now he is starting to act like a leader with his actions as well.

Billy Wagner pitched another fantastic 9th inning, giving up just one hit for his 8th save. He is pretty much automatic right now, but it is still a very good sign to see the Mets tack on insurance runs, and they did that tonight. In the bottom of the 8th with the score at 4-3, Jose Reyes broke an 0-4 night with an RBI single, and Church then added another run with a sacrifice fly. There will be a time this season that Wagner gets into a funk, so the Mets will need to give him more than a one-run cushion sometimes.

John Lannan looked a lot more human tonight than he did in his last start at Shea. He gave up 4 runs and 12 hits over 6 innings, and struck out just 2, compared to his 11 K’s last time in Queens.

Carlos Delgado had a very good night as well. He had a bunt single to the 3rd base side in the 2nd inning. The entire left side of the infield was open, and Delgado should be doing this more often. I was screaming at my television for Delgado to bunt, so maybe he heard me. Carlos also made several very nice defensive plays. He made a few fantastic scoops on low throws from David Wright, and also made an impressive back handed stop to save a hit.

There have been so many games this year that felt like 2007. This one felt a lot like 2006, and it was very refreshing. I know it is a last place team, but tonight the Mets just played very smoothly from start to finish (except for Damion Easley’s two errors). The bats need to step up tomorrow now and give Triple A call-up Claudio Vargas some breathing room.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 13th, 2008 at 7:54 pm and is filed under Damion Easley, Brian Schneider, john lannan, Rizzi's Rant, Fernando Tatis, Ryan Church, John Maine, Felipe Lopez, David Wright, Jose Reyes, Billy Wagner, Carlos Delgado. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.