The Game

What a difference a couple of days make. After losing three of four to the last place Nationals at home, followed by two days of newspaper articles and countless sports talk radio calls eulogizing them, the New York Mets swept a rain shortened two game series against the crosstown rival Yankees in the Bronx. Sunday night’s 11-2 victory was a total team effort lead by a solid performance by starter Oliver Perez.

Chien-Ming Wang, with his hard sinker, is exactly the type of pitcher that shuts the New York Met offense down. In his lone start against the Mets in 2007, Wang came within one out of a complete game as he dominated the Mets en route to an 8-2 Yankees win, striking out a career high ten in the process. It appeared as if he was going to continue giving the Mets fits on Sunday night as he set them down in order in each of the first three innings without breaking a sweat in the process. Meanwhile, Oliver Perez worked around walks in the first and second innings to keep the Yankees off the board as well. In the top of the fourth, Jose Reyes lead off and roped a sinker that Wang left up in the zone into the right field gap for a double. Reyes, though, was quickly erased after being caught too far off the bag on a comebacker hit by Marlon Anderson. While that could have taken the wind out of their sails, the Mets instead put together what has to be considered their signature offensive inning this season against a tough pitcher. With one out and Anderson on first, David Wright singled to left and Carlos Beltran worked out a walk to load the bases. Batting fifth, Ryan Church then roped a ground ball that was snagged on a diving play by thong wearing Jason Giambi whose throw to second base could not be handled cleanly by Derek Jeter. One run was in and the bases were still loaded with one out. Moises Alou followed with a check swing floater into shallow right field that gave the Mets a 3-0 lead against Wang and the Yanks. With runners on the corners and one out, Carlos Delgado took an outside offering from Wang and flicked it off of the foul pole right above the left field wall. While it was very tough to see if the ball was indeed fair while watching live, the third base umpire signaled fair and Carlos rounded the bases to seemingly give the Mets a 6-0 lead. However, after a quick meeting, the umpiring crew decided to incorrectly overturn the call. After some argument from the Met coaching staff (I guess they are watching!), Delgado’s at bat continued and he singled into right field to give the Mets a 4-0 lead heading into the bottom of the fourth inning.

On a few different occasions this year, Oliver Perez has been handed big leads and immediately flushed them down the toilet. It appeared he was well on his way to doing it again as he turned a 4-0 lead into a 4-2 lead before retiring a batter in the fourth as Derek Jeter lead off with a single and Hideki Matsui followed with a two run homer. Following a Jason Giambi foul out, Perez plunked the struggling Robinson Cano who would then steal second and advance to third on a wild pitch. But, Perez buckled down and got Melky Cabrera to pop up and put an end to the threat. The Yankee offense would only muster one more hit in the final five frames as they went meekly against Perez (7.2 innings, 3 hits, 2 runs, 2 walks, and 4 strikeouts), Joe Smith, and Scott Schoeneweis. The Met offense, on the other hand, kept piling on runs. Ryan Church stretched the lead to 5-2 with a lead off bomb to start the sixth inning and the floodgates opened up in the eighth as the Mets tacked on another six runs thanks to a Moises Alou sac fly (great aggressiveness by David Wright on the basepaths), RBI singles by Brian Schneider and Luis Castillo, and Jose Reyes providing the final exclamation point with a three run homer to make the score 11-2. In the end, Chien-Ming Wang was charged with seven earned runs over 7.2 innings. Ross Ohlendorf came on and didn’t provide much relief as he was charged with four earned runs in just one third of an inning.

The beauty of baseball is that it is a nightly soap opera stretched out over 162 games and six months. Inevitably, there will be ups and downs. For fans of the New York Mets, it didn’t feel like things could sink any further then they were on Thursday afternoon amidst a losing streak, rumors of clubhouse dissension, and speculation about their manager’s future. Perhaps the team needed to hit rock bottom before things could get better. If you look at the results of this weekend from afar, the casual fan would say that the Mets beat a shorthanded last place team in two straight games. But if you are a fan that watches this team a little closer, you could tell that the Mets played with more energy than they have in about a year or so. There were no base running mistakes or mental errors in the field. The Mets just played aggressive, crisp baseball for two days and came away with two wins in Yankee Stadium versus the Bronx Bombers’ two best pitchers. Now the question is whether the Mets can use this weekend as a springboard in a four game series against the division rival Braves which kicks off with a doubleheader on Tuesday at Turner Field.

The Haiku

Perez gaining steam
Mets combine offense, defense
Turning point? Or tease?

The Boxscore

The Win Probability Added Graph

The Credits

Recap by Chuck Buono
Haiku by Howard Megdal