The Game

Wow. In a game that for two and a half hours had fans of the orange and blue thinking that it just wasn’t their night, the New York Mets prevailed with a dramatic 5-4 victory over the Florida Marlins in Miami on Friday.

Eight and two thirds innings of frustration came down to Luis Castillo, of all people, as the Mets’ last hope. The previous frames had seen the New York offense score in the first inning on a Carlos Beltran sac fly but then do absolutely nothing else against Florida starter Chris Volstad. Meanwhile Ollie Perez, who has not had command of the strike zone of late, was wild again. He did, however, manage to keep his team in the game. Perez allowed a Josh Willingham homer in the second and a Jorge Cantu sac fly in the third to give Florida a 2-1 lead, but that was all. Ollie would go six innings, allowing just those two runs on three hits but walked more batters (five) than he struck out (four). So the innings progressed, as did the blood pressure of Met fans who watched as New York loaded the bases in the seventh (only to see David Wright strike out to end the inning) and put two on in the eighth (which ended on an Endy Chavez groundout to the pitcher) to no avail. The ninth didn’t start off well as Robinson Cancel and Jose Reyes were retired to start the inning. So, here we are again with Luis Castillo representing New York’s final hopes and prayers. If you were masochistic enough to keep the tv sets on, you saw something more rare than a lunar eclipse… a Luis Castillo single. David Wright followed with a single of his own. Then Florida’s closer in name only, Kevin Gregg, plunked Carlos Beltran to load the bases. On a side note, I was once told you could never trust a man with two first names (no offense Eric Simon) and I’m quite sure Marlins’ fans (all 25 of them) don’t trust Gregg at all. And, may I say, rightfully so because Carlos Beltran crushed Gregg’s next pitch into the right field stands for a clutch grand slam to put New York up 5-2. Over the course of eight pitches, the Mets went from down 2-1 with nobody on base, two outs, and an 0-2 count to Luis Castillo to Carlos Beltran’s grand slam which suddenly gave them a three run lead. Outstanding.

Not so outstanding, of course, is the Met bullpen. Luis Ayala came on to close it out for New York and he predictably had Met fans reaching for their favorite antacid. With two outs and a runner on base, Hanley Ramirez barely beat out a ground ball to shortstop for an infield hit that would have ended the game. Instead, it allowed Mike Jacobs to come up and he singled to center, scoring a run and cutting the lead to 5-3. The next at bat was probably the scariest of the Met season so far as Jorge Cantu came within inches of blasting a three run homer to give Florida a walk off win. Thankfully he hooked the ball foul, but you could tell Ayala was not fooling him as he was right on all of his pitches until he yanked a double down the left field line. Ramirez scored from third, but left fielder Daniel Murphy did a great job hustling over to cut the ball off and prevent the second run from scoring. So, now it’s 5-4 and Florida has the tying and winning runs in scoring position. The struggling Wes Helms stepped to the plate with a chance to play hero for the third place Marlins struggling to stay in the NL East race. Instead, Luis Ayala induced a harmless ground ball to shortstop which Jose Reyes fielded cleanly and threw to first to nail Helms by a few steps. Whew. The win, combined with the Phils coughing up another one in Wrigley Field, puts the Mets two games up in the NL East race over Philly. Let’s hope Mike Pelfrey isn’t traumatized Saturday in his first start after watching a kid fall out of the stands in Philly earlier this week (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBx_UBc3yYY). Big Pelf will be opposed by Ricky Nolasco of the Marlins.

The Haiku

Beltran slam helps Mets
cruise to win, easy now, oh,
please Lord, Oh no- Whew!

The Boxscore

The Win Probability Added Graph

The Credits

Recap by Chuck Buono
Haiku by Howard Megdal