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Recap: Troy Glaus Walk-Off Beats Mets in 9th

The Mets squandered a 2-run lead in the 8th inning, and then in the 9th Troy Glaus broke the tie with a 2-out solo homerun off Carlos Muniz to win the game and earn at least a split of the four game series between the Mets and Cardinals.

Pedro Martinez started for the Mets and was ineffective for the 3rd consecutive start. He got rocked in the 1st inning for 4 runs, highlighted by the 1st of Glaus’ 2 homeruns, a 3-run bomb to dead center field. After that Pedro settled in, and ended up giving up 5 runs in 5 innings, with 1 walk and 4 strikeouts.

Because of Martinez’s dreadful 1st inning the Mets had to claw back to get into the game, and they did a good job. Carlos Beltran had an RBI hit in the 3rd to get the Amazins on the board, and Damion Easley followed with a huge 2-out single that scored 2 runs and cut the St. Louis lead to 4-3. Easley had a big day, going 3-4 with 3 RBI, and is making a case to become the starting 2b over Luis Castillo.

Pedro Martinez left the game down 5-4, but he did not get the loss, which would have put him at 2-3. Had that occurred, it would have been the 1st time since 1994 that Pedro had a losing record in any season at any point. Let that stat soak in for a minute…wow…

St. Louis was up 5-4 in the 7th when the Mets appeared to take control of the game for good. With 1 out and David Wright on 1st, Mark Mulder came in for just his 2nd relief appearance after 202 consecutive starts. Ryan Church singled to start Mulder’s night, and after a wild pitch the runners advanced to 2nd and 3rd. Then Carlos Delgado came through with a big RBI single that was scorched up the middle to tie the game. Delgado is starting to come out of his slump; he is 4 for his last 7 and has been hitting the ball consistently hard the last 2 nights.

The Mets took the lead on an Easley sac fly, and added another run when Fernando Tatis had a pinch hit blooper that was just out of the reach of a diving Ryan Ludwick. By the time the 7th inning stretch came it was 7-5 Mets, and it was all up to the bullpen to get the Amazins back to .500.

But they could not get it done. Aaron Heilman worked a 1-2-3 7th inning in his 3rd consecutive game, getting the heart of the Cardinals order out. He then started the 8th, but hit Ludwick on the 1st pitch of the inning. Heilman’s night was done, and in came Pedro Feliciano to save the day…or at least that was the plan. It did not work out though, as Feliciano’s 1st pitch to pinch hitter Chris Duncan was pulled deep into the right field stands for a game-tying 2-run homer. it seems like every night the Mets hit a batter and it comes back to haunt them, and once again it happened Wednesday night. By the way, the Mets lead all of baseball with 47 hit batters.

In the 9th inning Carlos Muniz was asked to get the heart of the order and force extra innings, and he came about 6 inches from doing so. Muniz got Albert Pujols to foul out leading off, and then Rick Ankiel flied out deep to center field, missing a walk-off homerun by less than 2 feet, as Beltran had his back against the wall when he caught it. But Ankiel’s teammate Troy Glaus picked him up. Glaus hit his 2nd homerun of the game on a 3-2 pitch, a walk off homerun to left that just got over the jumping glove of Endy Chavez. The Cardinals handed the Mets a crushing 8-7 loss, and once again New York failed to get back to .500.

Rizzi’s Rant:

Three weeks ago this loss would have hurt a lot more. It was another heart breaker, but now that my expectations have lowered I have come to expect these losses. I mean, the lead is still only 4.5 games for the Phillies so the season is far from over. If we get on a roll and somehow make the playoffs then great. But despite the standings I just don’t see it from this team, so I am not getting too crushed by these losses.

Still, a very tough one to swallow. David Wright led off the 8th inning with a triple, but no one picked him up and he was stranded on 3rd. At the time it didn’t seem too big of a deal, but boy oh boy would the Mets like to redo that inning.

As soon as Glaus put one in the stands I shut the TV off in dusgust and went to bed, angry that I stayed up through a rain delay until 12:45 to see this debacle. However, when I woke up and watched the highlights I saw for the first time I noticed just how close Endy came to robbing Glaus of a homerun…which made me think of the greatest catch I have ever seen, also against the Cardinals.

So Pedro has now given up 17 earned runs in his last 3 starts. I loved him when he was an Expo, and a Red Sox, and of course now with the Mets. He is the most dominant pitcher in his prime I have ever seen along with Greg Maddux, and he has entertained me for more than 15 years. But maybe, just maybe Pedro is done. My gut tells me he still has something left in his tank and will get into a groove at some point this year. But I can’t ever remember seeing Petey struggle like this, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t worried he had nothing left.

Another bad loss for the Mets in what has been a bad season. All we can do is keep moving forward and hope. Thank God the Giants won the Super Bowl…

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 3rd, 2008 at 6:37 am and is filed under Pedro Feliciano, Ryan Church, Damion Easley, Rizzi's Rant, Carlos Muniz, Fernando Tatis, Endy Chavez, Carlos Beltran, Carlos Delgado, 7 Train, David Wright, Troy Glaus, Pedro Martinez, Aaron Heilman, The Usual. 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.