Pat Misch?

Who says we need another pitcher behind Johan? We have Figueroa and Misch. Even Redding is pitching well lately. What is going on?

Congrats to Misch for getting his first big league win, after threatening Anthony's Young consecutive losing streak by going almost a third of the way towards it.

Congrats also goes to Josh Thole, who started at catcher for the Mets and got his first big league hit.

Congrats to David Wright, for ditching the space helmet. Make the damn things mandatory prior to a season and we can then laugh at everybody.

Angel Pagan went 3-for-5, but I'm still not sold. Carlos Beltran is on a rehab assignment. I sure hope he's not feeling any lingering pain- I got a bad feeling about this one.

The 40-man roster rule is September is a joke and needs to be abolished, tradition or not.

Giambino

I'm sorry, I had to post another picture of David Wright in the helmet.

Jason Giambi, of all people, breaks the game open last night. That's all I can make out after breezing through the DVR this morning, choosing not to watch the live action.

Did not watch much of this game last night due to Rangers season subscriber event. Donald Brashear is a big dude, and just a few months after cursing him out, you didn't want to do so given the opportunity. He's on our side now, after all.

The third game of the series is streaming via the Gameday audio at work. Almost forgot about this one like that Arizona game last month, but only remembered because I needed to post a game 2 recap. 5-0 Mets halfway through. Pat Misch!

Bobblehead Night

The Mets lost, but all anyone wants to talk about is David Wright's helmet. If you missed it, it looks a little something like this:

He will indeed be the butt of all jokes until this new gear is mandatory everywhere. Aside from the bobblehead, it was nice to see David back.

Mike Pelfrey was awful. Sean Green was his usual awful self in a short stint later in the game. Angel Pagan continues to prove he is not a starting player. Stop thinking about him for left field next season. He's a fourth or fifth outfielder at best, and always will be with his baseball instincts. There's a reason why there's a mental side of the game.

Can't Have It All

A six game winning streak. A four game sweep of a team in front of us in the Wild Card hunt. A gem by Jon Niese. All pretty much extinguished with a David Wright strikeout followed by yet another botched delayed steal of home in the first inning.

That was the chance for the Mets. It was a chance to jump out in front early and give the sagging Rockie confidence another Flushing blow. They've lost like 20 of their last 22 here. Put them down early and they stay down. If Pagan somehow scores, maybe the Mets squeak out another run and have a bigger lead than the 1-0 lead they held for a little over an inning later on.

As it is, you have to be happy to take three out of four. Now comes yet another four gamer, vs. Arizona. Winning these series is tough. Winning them back to back is tougher. I'd like to be confident coming off Livan's last start in Houston, but the prospects of Livan-Ollie-Pelfrey-Redding? in the next four makes me think we are not winning three of four again.

See what happens when you give Castillo a day off? 0-for-3.

I kid.

Sweet Sunburn

The streak is over. The Mets won a workday afternoon game with me in attendance.

All it took was one big inning, where there was hit after hit, the highlight coming from Angel Berroa (Angel Berroa!) knocking a double into right center field. With Johan being Johan, that's all the team needed.

The weekdays matinees have been memorable for all the wrong reasons in the last couple of seasons. Up 7-0, with Tim Redding pitching the 9th, and then Alex Cora dropping a toss from David Wright for a force out creating runners on 1st and 2nd with one out, of course I was thinking the worst. Blowing a 7-0 lead with be the cherry on top. A double play by the next batter put all those fears aside.

If you sit on the third base side, it does not take long for the shade to come over you and allow you to enjoy the rest of the game in comfortable fashion. Not quite as fortunate for the noon start time. No sunscreen today. Ouch. And to think I watched the first couple of innings in shaded standing room areas to kill some time to allow the sun to move some. Didn't wait long enough.

The Shake Shake line was just as bad at 11:35am as it is at 6:45pm.

Five in a row, with game 2 of the day-night double dip underway in just a little over two hours.

Scoreboard Watching

When you're hot, you're hot- all things go your way. I could've called Luis Castillo out from the Promenade Level. What was Razor Shines thinking when you are up 3-0 with no one out in the 8th inning? Sure enough, Francoeur struck out and Tatis popped up in the following at bats, so maybe Razor knew something we all didn't.

It didn't matter in the end. Sean Green did his best to prevent us from catching the 10:17 out of Woodside, but failed. You gotta love that 7 express with 61st as the next stop. If you can get from your seat in the Promenade at 10:00 and be on a train at 10:17 (in addition to having a little luck on your side), you know traffic flow leaving the park has greatly improved at Citi.

One thing that was not an improvement was the second scoreboard in right field. Gone were the lineups and pitch count. At least the pitch count could be found on one of the auxiliary scoreboards. If you didn't keep a scorecard, your only hope for knowing the lineup was memory or checking who's in the on-deck circle. Instead they made the second scoreboard in right a stretched out copy of the left. I know they are trying to satisfy the fans with obstructed views down in the left field reserved, but having two giant scoreboards almost side by side showing the exact same thing is a waste of resources.

Thankfully, the second board went out in the third inning. Zap. It was gone. Not sure if it was intentional, or a malfunction, but I'm glad it happened. I'm sure many others in the park would appreciate the return of the lineups. Don't you miss that giant Shea board now?

In order to please those who can't see Citivision is it too much to ask for that feed to be piped into all those TVs down there instead of the SNY broadcast? I'm sure they can make that happen. Leave the SNY broadcast on the TVs in all of the concessions, and have Citivision run on all the screens for the audience in the lower levels. Now everyone can watch the Kiss Cam. And we can have our lineups back.

Four in a row with Johan up next. Maybe there's some hope.

A Winning Streak

Oh, and there was a baseball game last night. After the soap opera that was the afternoon, it was good to just watch a game for a change. Good for the Mets that they did it in dramatic fashion.

Fernando Tatis came up with the bases loaded and one out in a tie game in the 8th, double play city. But the Rockies forgot that Tatis was also Mr. GrandSlam. He hit his eight career slam, and it was on an 0-2 pitch.

The bullpen was solid. Four shutout innings, two by Brian Stokes and one each by Pedro Feliciano (who faced righties, and got them out!) and K-Rod (who threw only 11 pitches!) shut the door.

The ball was flying out of the big ballpark today. We have not really had many of those nasty, humid days in the city. Maybe some power numbers creep back up as the dog days descend upon us and 2/3 of the next month is played at Citi.

In one second the Mets have three runs in a game, the next they have seven. I'm still amazed. Word of warning: my 1-5 record this season is in play tonight as the Mets go for four straight. And the dreaded weekday afternoon game, which the Mets are winless when I attend the last couple of seasons? That's scheduled for this Thursday.