The Game

“I ain’t no superhero, I ain’t no Marvel Comic, but when it comes to game, I’m atomic” — Ice-T

The Mets beat down the Reds by the score of 10-4 yesterday, a Labor Day win that barely required them to break a sweat. As you can see from the box score, every member of the New York lineup joined the party, with each starter scoring and / or driving in a run. Except for this “P Martinez” joker, 0-for-2 with two K’s. Dump him.

Oh Pedro Martinez, I remember that guy. How was his first trip to the mound since off-season surgery? Everyone wants to know. His performance is already being scrutinized with the level of concentration and focus usually reserved to NSA spies parsing an Al-Qaeda intercept. “See that look on his face after he threw that change? Is that a grin or a grimace? Rewind that for me one more time.”

He was fantastic. He was touched up for three runs in his five innings, but only two were officially earned, and neither was really really earned all that well. For a guy coming out of a yearlong spring training, he was locating like a sharpshooter; nothing touched the meat of the plate. His fastball topped out at 89 or 90 while his shaky curve came in at 68; his other pitches came in everywhere in between as he mixed speeds more ably than Paul Oakenfold. Not bad for an old feeb pitching against the fourth-best offense in the league.

That offense touched him for two in the first, cheaply. Josh Hamilton hit a single that went all of forty feet; Alex Gonzalez followed with a long fly to left that could’ve been reeled in by Moises Alou if he weren’t taking the Lastings Milledge route in from outer space. Score it a double. Ken Griffey Jr. drove in one with a sacrifice fly; the second came home on a bouncer just past Jose Reyes, playing in for the play at the plate. Officially Pedro’s got an ERA of 18.00 at this point and a WHIP of 27 while the Reds have a 2-0 lead. The numbers weren’t reflecting the performance, to put it mildly.

The other run Pedro allowed was officially fluky. Adam Dunn walked with one out in the fourth. Scott Hatteberg followed with a clean single to center, and Carlos Beltran’s eyes widened with the sight of a dead man running for third. In his excitement Beltran neglected to actually glove the ball, letting Dunn scamper all the way home on the error; the throw came in to nobody in particular and Hatteberg hop scotched into second. Even Mike Pelfrey would give up three runs a game with this kind of defense.

The Mets made it academic by pasting Aaron Harang and a series of Cincy relievers, each with a surname more comical than the last. The Reds came into the game having won 22 of Harang’s 28 starts, a better record than any Met starter can boast. His fastball wasn’t half bad, but it wasn’t enough to stop the New York lineup, officially a juggernaut once again.

The highlights are too numerous to list. Alou ripped his usual first-pitch fastball homer leading off the second; David Wright launched his patented line-drive opposite-field job for two runs in the third; Carlos Delgado crushed a bomb in the ninth. Luis Castillo doubled his double total with the Mets by rapping a pair. And Reyes finally remembered how to hit one on the ground for a single; he didn’t even get picked off. Reward the kid with a day off sometime this century, why don’t ya.

The Haiku

Dancing and darting
Out of trouble, he smiles
We bow to Pedro

The Boxscore

The Credits

Recap by David Simons
Haiku by Howard Megdal