Pirates 7, Mets 6 (5-5, 3 GB)

Friday, April 16, 2004

This was a rough one. I generally give Art Howe the benefit of the doubt, but I don't know about tonight. I was at the game, and on the way home, the radio post-game show reported Howe said Tom Glavine's shoulder was starting to stiffen, and that's why Howe pinch-hit for him in the 7th inning. I hope that's the truth. Because if it's not...man, that was a tough one to swallow. The Mets led 2-0 after a 2-run single by Ricky Gutierrez in the second inning. Glavine was cruising, giving up just one hit in 7 innings. The Mets blew a couple of opportunities to get some insurance, including stranding Shane Spencer on third base after he hit a bases-empty triple. But even still, they should never have an inning as bad as the 8th inning at Shea.
Orber Mareno - 3 straight hits. Booed off the field.
Mike Stanton - Walk, infield hit. Game tied at 2.
David Weathers - Hit, bases loaded hit by pitch (are you kidding me??!)....in all, a 7-run eighth inning for the Pirates. 7-2 in the middle of the eighth. Someone's gotta put that fire out.
The encouraging sign here is that the Mets fought back. With 2 outs, the Mets closed to within a run when Eric Valent hit a pinch-hit 3-run homer to make it 7-6. Jose Mesa got them 1-2-3 in the 9th, though.
This team will battle every night, but if the bullpen keeps pitching like this, that's going to be a long, uphill battle every night. And you don't win many of those battles.

Notes: Man, was it chilly at Shea last night...The scoreboard lights make the out-of-town scores much easier to read...Credit my dad with an interesting point - should we be concerned about Kaz Matsui's range? There were a couple of balls hit his way that he either didn't make much of an effort to get to, or wasn't able to reach. It could have been the angle we were sitting at, but it seemed like he should have fielded a couple more grounders than he did...It looks like Mike Piazza's pressing a bit for that record-tying home run. He better get that out of the way soon so he can just worry about playing ball.