Maine rights the ship once again

Johnny Maine = Stopper. I'm beyond impressed with the kid and everything he brings to the mound. After another stellar performance, working around two major errors by Damion Easley, Maine improved to 5-2 with a 2.82 ERA. Nice!

Looks like Omar listened to me and sent down both of the reasons for last night's debacle. I do hope they both clear waivers and accept a minor league assignment, but if they don't, so be it. The time had come and Omar showed us that he is not going to put money or loyalty ahead of what's best for the team. While I would have understood if he had decided to send down Joe Smith, it would have been the wrong decision.

Ryan Church! If he's not the team MVP, it's because Billy Wagner has yet to allow a run. But seriously, Church is just on fire this season. Meanwhile, it was great to see Church and Brian Schneider beat up on their former team, driving in 5 of the 6 Mets runs.

Not much else to say - it was nice beating the pitcher that totally shut down the Mets last time around and while Millz had 1 nice catch on a ball Delgado smoked to the track, he showed in every other facet of the game that he's not quite the player we all thought he'd be by now. His error late in the game yielded the final run and his at-bats against Maine and Dirty Sanchez were, um, not impressive.

Oh and by the way, Elijah Dukes terrifies me, so I'm not commenting on what the Nats should or shouldn't do in the dugout.

Figgy and Sosa compete for AAA spot

At least that's what it looked like out there tonight. Figgy looked like he wanted to make the decision a bit easier on Willie/Omar, as up until now, it has seemed like there was no clear victim as to who should be sent down for a) the 6th starter we need this week and b) Wise, who eventually needs to rejoin the team.

Figgy was brutal tonight. I'm not sure how else to put it. He let the leadoff man on in every inning but the first and gave back every single lead handed to him. He hit 2 batters, walked 4 and made the opposing pitcher look like Johan with the bat. To make matters worse, he tried to show up the Nats dugout after pitching out of a jam. It would be one thing if he had pitched well, but he'd just handed back the run the Mets had given him and in that situation, I'd rather see him go straight back to the dugout and talk to Rick about his command. Not mock Elijah Dukes while walking off the mound. (And by the way, Nellie, you should be scared of Dukes. Watch your back!)

Eventually, the Figgy ride was over and the Mets turned to their trusty long man, who did his best to prove why he, not Figgy, should be sent down to AAA. What a group of selfless pitchers the Mets have! Handed a 6-3 deficit, Sosa quickly yielded 4 more to put the game officially out of reach. Between the two of them, I'd like to say SEND 'EM BOTH DOWN. Honestly, the team needs some fresh arms and I'd love to see 2 of Vargas, Bostick and Tony Armas get the chances.

I'm beginning to think that one of the biggest differences between this team in 2006 and this team in 2007 to date is Darren Oliver. Honestly, the Mets were never completely out of a game not because their offense was so resilient but because the long man did his job and gave the offense the opportunity to be resilient. Too many times, the starting pitcher has had to leave a game early and instead of keeping the Mets in the game, the long man has failed to go more than an inning or two before putting the game out of reach.

But I'm sure you don't want to hear any more about this dreadful game, so I'll leave you with a few interesting tidbits from around the league:

- In their first game today, the Braves had 8 hits, 6 walks and reached on errors 4 times in the game. That's 18 base runners in the game. How many runs did they score? ZERO! That's tough to do...

- The Blue Jays played 18 innings of baseball TODAY and 31 straight innings overall without scoring a single run (ouch!) until they finally scored 3 in extra innings of their second game of the DH to win the second game. That meant that Cliff Lee pitched a 9 inning shutout and his team lost. That game also featured an unassisted triple play by Cleveland! What a game to lose...But the Jays must have been quite relieved to finally plate a run, just 2 innings shy of a franchise record.

- It looked as if the Mets were going to face Ian Kennedy with Santana on the mound on Friday. Man, if that matchup occurred and the Mets came out on the wrong side, I think half the city might have become suicidal. The media would have had a field day as well. Luckily, things seemed to have turned around and the Mets will now face Darryl Rasner instead. It also looks as though A-rod will be unavailable for a few more days. Matchups are still unclear for the rest of the week/weekend.

- The Fish had their win streak snapped (finally) by, of all teams, the Reds! Corey Patterson was 4-5 and it appears that he stepped to the plate for all five ABs.

Good Ollie dominates for series win

Every year, Mother's Day involves rehashing some not-so-great Mets memories, including the one we've termed the "worst Mother's Day ever." (Thanks, Tommy).

Last year, Ollie tried to turn that trend around, much to my mother's delight. And this year, the Mets somehow managed to avoid playing the Brewers and Ollie made my mother's day for the second straight year. Thanks, Ollie!

Good Ollie was brilliant for the first 5 innings, until Bad Ollie tried to rear his ugly head in the 6th. Fortunately, this time around, GO beat out BO, and the lead was preserved. (I think I'm going to start calling him GOBO). He looked great out there today - let's hope this is a sign of things to come from him.

The Mets offense has been on fire the past few days! Another great game from Carlos Beltran, another back-to-back HR experience (this time it was Beltran-Church) and a triple by Luis Castillo were the highlights. Wright continues to look uncomfortable against RHP, but I think he's starting to come around. Even Reyes had 3 hits, although two of them were some of the luckiest hits I've seen.

The bullpen was great as well, as Schoeneweis, Smith and Feliciano all shut down the Reds. And a game ball to Smith in particular, who was actually able to retire Jeff Keppinger!

But the highlight of the game came in the 9th inning, when Dusty Baker proved that experience does not always equal wisdom. In an inning that saw Corey Patterson make an out without actually walking onto the field and David Ross enjoy consecutive at-bats for the team (and record 1 at-bat), you couldn't help but laugh. The Reds couldn't keep the batting order straight, but the even funnier part was that Dusty couldn't understand what the problem was and the umps couldn't figure out what the rule was, resulting in two LONG delays... for an explanation of the actual rule and how it all played out, head over to Faith and Fear - Jason sums it up well.

Good series from the Mets - keep on rollin'...

Mets back Johan with 2nd straight offensive explosion!

Well, where have those bats been? Whatever they've been feeding these guys the past few days, keep it up!

The Mets followed up their 12 run surge with another 12 run surge, handing Johan his first home win. With THE starting lineup out there at Shea for the first time this year, in Alou's home debut, the Mets bats came alive. They pounced on the Reds pitching all game long, with men on base in just about every inning.

Carlos Beltran, welcome to 2008! Glad to have you.

Carlos Delgado and Brian Schneider back-to-back from the 7th and 8th spots! Awesome.

David Wright hitting RHP? Keep it up.

The team looked great today on both offense and defense.

As for the pitching, Johan showed exactly what it means to be an ace today. He didn't seem to have it at all, and was hit around left and right. (Apparently his allergies were affecting his eyesight?). And yet, the guy pitched 6 and yielded only 3 runs! Houdini act to be sure, but we'll take it. Heilman attempted to model himself after Johan but picked the wrong game to do so and man did he hear the boos! But he gave up just one run and pitched his way out of a jam and what do you know- the. Mets tacked on more runs!

It was a great game, a pretty good crowd (aside from the Heilman fiasco) and an all around good day at Shea.

Oh yea, and the B Mets played at Shea today too! Unfortunately, they let a few starters play in that game too and it turned into the definition of a "mail it in" game. Bloops and groundballs abound and the few times an infielder actually made an effort to field a ball, he still managed not to record the out. Most of these mishaps came with Duaner and Billy on the mound, which turned a 2-1 game into a blowout. But its fair to say that even when the game was close, the B Mets had already determined to mail it in from the outset. You know, I'm cutting them some slack after an incredible offensive showing in a LONG first game.

Its damn hard to sweep a double header and even harder with a lineup containing only 1 player batting over .250 (David), a 5th (or 6th or 7th) starter, and an incredibly long game 1. They were tired and had the deck stacked against them.

Come out hitting tomorrow, take the series and I will pretend to forget I ever witnessed a game where the only highlight was a 1-2-3 inning by Aaron Heilman. Yea, that actually happened - rejoice!

So that's what it looks like...

when the team is clicking on all cylinders!

We simply do not have enough games like today's 12-1 romping over the Dodgers. What a treat it was to watch the team bring in the key runs, bring in the not-so-key runs, catch the hard hit balls, catch the soft liners and dominate on the mound. They did everything right today. So many 2-out RBIs!

What a crazy play by Angel Pagan in the bottom of the 1st, when he somersaulted over the wall to catch a foul ball. He stayed in the game for a little while to help grab the Mets a few early runs and then left the game when his shoulder started to bother him. Angel just continues to impress.

Dodger fans are awesome! Did anyone hear the applause they gave Angel when they showed the replay on the big screen? See that - they cheer a guy when he stands up after an injury (imagine that)!

Johnny Maine! The Mets have finally become the last team to have a starter record an out in the 8th inning. It looked like Johnny would complete the game, but his pitch count got way high due to a few long ABs in the 9th and he left after 8 1/3. Still, Johnny was magnificent today - I sincerely hope he brings this game back to NY for his next start. He even had a 2-rbi single (ha).

Luis Castillo just looks so much more comfortable in the 2 hole. I know that's an unpopular view, but after looking totally lost in the 8 hole the past few games, Castillo looked red hot at the plate today. More importantly, Ryan Church is on fire no matter where he bats, so it's not about who is a better hitter. I don't really care so much about the lineup, but I guess I'm still not sold on Church in the 2 hole because it creates a dark hole at the bottom of the lineup.

I'm a huge optimist, but I'm very happy with a .500 west coast trip, all things considered. Sure, they could have (should have) won yesterday's game, but they could also have lost more games against the two hottest teams in baseball, a whole lot of ace pitchers and 2 unbelievable bullpens.

The Mets have a well-deserved off day tomorrow and then get to face the next hottest offense in baseball (7 HRs today!) on Friday at Shea.

Dodger bullpen bests Mets

Seeing the numbers the Dodgers bullpen has against the Mets, it's a wonder the Mets ever beat them, let alone swept them in the 2006 playoffs! I don't know about Monday - I mean, it just wasn't the Mets' night from the start as Ollie gave up a leadoff HR to Furcal to start his night. But Tuesday actually felt like a winnable game.

The Mets got to Kuroda and he was off-balance all night, but the Mets just couldn't get those extra runs in. Add to that the fact that Figueroa was shaky all night and it was trouble for the Mets. Great fielding by David Wright - without him the game would have been a blowout. And the bullpen was very impressive, keeping the Mets in the game.

I still hate Hong-Chih Kuo. I really really hate Hong-Chih Kuo. There's a reason he's so high up on my randomly-ordered Mets killer list.

Talk about outright ownership. The Mets only hit 2 fair balls off the guy in 3 1/3 innings! (both were lazy fly balls to Andruw).

Two things I never thought I'd hear during a baseball game:

"And Moises Alou steals home!"

"an inside-the-park home run for Blake Dewitt!"

Yea, I'll leave it at that for today. Let's hope the Mets can avoid the sweep by knocking around ace Brad Penny this afternoon. I wonder if Blake Dewitt has been getting pointers from Augie Ojeda...

Mets take series behind Johan

A nice series win for the Mets in the friendly confines of Chase Field could be just what the Mets need to jump start their offense. Or it could be an aberration. We'll see what lies ahead.

For now, I'll just continue to be impressed by the series win that I gave them little chance of achieving - against "the hottest team in baseball" and facing some of the top pitchers in the league. Thanks for proving me wrong, boys. Some definite positive signs coming out of the weekend series.

As a reward, they now get to face the next "hottest team in baseball," who had an 8 game winning streak snapped yesterday just in time for the Mets to roll in to town.

It should be an interesting series, as the Mets face 2 pitchers they've never seen before and ace Brad Penny, who the Mets enjoy facing almost as much as they enjoy playing at Chase Field.

Sure would be nice to take 2 of 3 and finish up a quality road trip, especially with the Phils and Braves on a bit of a roll, but let's take one game at a time. It's too early for scoreboard watching.

So, 10 days prior to the first Subway Series matchup of the year, Willie and Joe Torre face off for the first time in 2008. Seems strange, doesn't it?