The Game

Met fans are waking up today hoping what they saw last night was a cruel April Fools Day joke, but ’tis reality for the 2008 Mets. On Tuesday night in Miami, the Mets lost a 5-4 decision in ten innings to the Florida We Make Less Than A-Rods on a walkoff home run by the immortal Robert Andino. But, more importantly, a team that does not have much pitching depth lost Pedro Martinez… one of their co-aces… the Robin to Johan Santana’s Batman… just four innings into his first start.

Following the perfectly scripted opener on Monday, the air came out of the Met sails early on Tuesday night as they fell behind in the first inning. Pedro Martinez, who struggled with his control throughout his three and a third innings, hit Hanley Ramirez on the left elbow to lead off the game. Dan Uggla then deposited a home run into the left field stands to give the Marlins a 2-0 lead after just two batters. More of the same in the second inning as Petey gave up two more runs on a solo home run by 140 year old 40 year old Luis Gonzalez and an RBI triple by Hanley Ramirez.

Jose Reyes lined a single to center leading off the top of the third inning. With the Mets trailing by four runs, Willie Randolph decided to mysteriously play for one run and had Castillo bunt Reyes to second (even after he was ahead in the count). David Wright and Carlos Beltran followed with hard hit outs and J-Rey was stranded at second.

The Met bats woke up in the fourth as Angel Pagan and Brian Schneider contributed RBI singles. Jose Reyes then drove home Pagan with a sac fly to cut the Marlins lead to 4-3 heading to the bottom of the fourth. The good feelings generated from the 3-spot the Mets put up in the top of the fourth didn’t last too long as Pedro Martinez, after throwing a pitch that ended in a Matt Treanor groundout, immediately reached for his left hamstring. I haven’t checked my WebMD graphic as of yet, but I can’t imagine that feeling a hamstring pop is a good thing. Martinez was removed from the game, limped off the field, and was heading back to New York on Tuesday night for further evaluation as Met fans hold their collective breath.

Jorge Sosa came in to pitch an impressive two and two-thirds scoreless innings in relief of Picasso. Meanwhile the Mets tied the game at four on a fifth inning sac fly by Angel Pagan. The score remained tied until the bottom of the tenth when Robert Andino and his zero career home runs came to the plate to face new addition Matt Wise with two out and nobody on. Andino’s three career RBI heading into the at bat actually ranks him second on the team in that category. So, with first base open and two out, Wise delivered a 2-1 fastball that was crushed into the left field stands capping off a brutal night for the blue and orange and ending their perfect season just 160 games shy of Jon Stewart’s prediction of 162-0. The Amazins try to bounce back on Wednesday as Oliver Perez makes his season debut facing off against 9 year old Andrew Miller of the Marlins.

The Haiku

Oh no! Not Pedro!
Pop echoes back in New York
Matt’s changeup un-Wise

The Boxscore

The Win Probability Added Graph

The Credits

Recap by Chuck Buono
Haiku by Howard Megdal