Beltran in the Clutch, Mets Live to Fight Another Day

With two outs in the ninth, in the pounding wind and rain, Carlos Beltran smoked a low liner with just enough mustard to get past the glove of the diving Cub first baseman Micah Hoffpauir and trickle into rightfield, allowing Jose Reyes to trot home with the game winning run.  Hoffpauir got plenty of leather on the ball, but not enough.  And by the narrowest of margins, the Mets held their ground in the wild card race with three to play.  Beltran has quietly put together a superb season, but his average dips in two out RBI situations and late in games.  Tonight he bucked those trends and came through with a tremendous hit when the Mets needed it the most.

Now granted, this game was against a Cubs “B team” lineup that had no Derrek Lee, no Aramis Ramirez, no Geovanny Soto, no Carlos Marmol and no Kerry Wood.  Also, there definitely was something wrong with Cub starter Rich Harden, who’s fastball lacked its usual velocity.  In addition, the Mets clutch, come-from- behind performance was peppered by some pretty bad mistakes.  But the Mets had a lot of fight in them, and fans will take the win happily, without a doubt.

I’ll start with the good.  Ryan Church came through big time after I criticized him for looking timid and overmatched at the plate last night.  Don’t just take my word for it, plenty of the Mets media members were saying the time had come for Jerry Manuel to sit Church tonight.  Thank the lord he didn’t!  Church came through with a 3-for-3 night and some big plays.  Starting in the bottom of the fourth when Church had a huge 2-out, 2-RBI double to elevate the Mets to a 3-3 tie.  Then in the eighth Church had an even bigger play, scoring the tying run at 6-6.  Coming around from second on a Robinson Cancel single with two outs, Church was out by a mile.  Yet somehow Ryan managed to dance around the tag of Cub catcher Koyie Hill and dive back on his belly to touch the plate after he had passed it.  You can make the case that Church should have bowled Hill over and was afraid to due to his concussion woes, and you can also made the case that the inexperienced Hill just had to remain at the plate instead of lunging at Church and he would have had him.  But Church’s improvisation ended up working to perfection.

The negative also begins with Church.  He shouldn’t have been in that play-at-the plate situation, as earlier in the inning he missed the sign for a double steal, which, if he had read the sign, would have had him at third when Cancel was hitting.  But that wasn’t even the worst blown sign of the night.  I wanted to strangle Daniel Murphy when, with no outs and Jose Reyes on first in the ninth, he threw down some awkward bunt attempts when he wasn’t supposed to, and ended up bunting foul for strike three.  Manuel made the right call having Murphy swing away, but please, after he missed the first sign, can’t someone get his attention so he doesn’t repeat the mistake?  You can only blame the rookie Murphy so much, it becomes the responsibility of Manuel and the coaches to make sure the signs are crystal clear.  Thankfully, Beltran’s hit took Murhpy off the hook.

Pedro Martinez… the best I can say would be “not completely terrible”.  He did have 9 strikeouts.  He did settle down after the first three innings, in which he was victimized by Hoffpauir’s home run and RBI double.  He gave a classy “you’re number one” signal to the crowd on his departure, possibly his last appearance in a Met uniform.  Should the Mets get into the playoffs I would not have a lot of confidence seeing Pedro take the mound.

Manuel should be applauded for his instinct, starting Ramon “I’m-not-Pedro’s-brother” Martinez and Cancel, who both had big two out singles to set up Church’s home-plate-mambo in the eighth.  However, I’m not in love with his use of Damion Easley as a pinch hitter, who looked very bad striking out to end that eighth inning with the winning run ninety feet away.  I know on paper that using the veteran Easley is the right move in that situation, but he is coming back from an injury and is out of sync.  I’m not sure the right handed Nick Evans wouldn’t have been a better choice (against the lefty Neal Cotts).  But in all fairness, I’m saying that in hindsight after seeing Easley flail.

To swing back to the positive again, however, great performance from Met reliever Joe Smith.  Smith closed out the top of the ninth in a situation where the Mets had already used all their lefthanded relievers.  Smith got the third out, when there was a man on third, by going after the lefthanded pinch hitter Daryle Ward and inducing him to tap back weakly to the mound.

The Brewers won tonight on a 10th inning walkoff salami from Ryan Braun, keeping the wild card chase even and elevating the huge-ness of tonight’s Met win.  The good neews about the quality of the Cubs B-team is that the Brewers get to face them next.  How impressive was Micah Hoffpauir, who went 5-for-5 with two home runs.  He also made a great diving effort to almost snare Beltran’s game winning hit.  After I learned how to spell “Samardzija” last night, tonight I’ve learned to spell “Hoffpauir”.

The Mets welcome the Marlins to Shea next, the same team who knocked them out at the end of last year.  Thankfully Tom Glavine will not be taking the mound this time around, however.  Could we be headed to an eventual one-game playoff with the Brew Crew, extending the regular season history of Shea by one more game?  Stay tuned!

Like this post? Share it »

Last post (s) by Mark Reichman

• Second Closer Putz Mets On Top - December 11th, 2008
• There's a New Rod in Town...K!! - December 9th, 2008
• CLAW MARKS - Jags Embarrass Selves on MNF Stage - December 2nd, 2008
• CLAW MARKS - Jaguars-Texans: Will Anyone Be Watching?? - December 1st, 2008
• Do The Math...Jags Officially Irrelevant in '08 - November 17th, 2008