ROLLINS KEYS METS WIN

Mets 11, Phillies 5 (NYM: 5-2, PHI: 1-6; Mets 0.5 GB)


Jimmy Rollins is right - the Phillies are the team to beat in the National League East - and the Braves, Marlins, and now the Mets have taken them up on the offer. The Phillies are now tied with Washington as the "team to beat" up on.

It's big talk now that the game is over, but the Phillies led this game into the 8th. The Mets had cut it to 5-4 before rallying against Geoff Geary. Moises Alou led off the bottom of the eighth with a single, followed by a Shawn Green single. Jose Valentin's bunt attempt resulted in an out at third, and then pinch hitter Julio Franco walked.

It was then, with the bases loaded and one out, that Jose Reyes grounded to shortstop. Jimmy Rollins drifted to his right, and couldn't field the grounder, allowing a run to score, and the bases to stay loaded. It was 5-5, and then there was a wild pitch, and the Mets led, 6-5. Paul Lo Duca walked. Carlos Beltran hit a sacrifice fly, 7-5 Mets. Carlos Delgado walked. David Wright extended his hitting streak to 19 games with a long double to left, making it 9-5, Mets. (Wright's third double, en route to a record, on a 1-for-5 day.) Alou singled home the final two runs, and the Mets went on to the 11-5 win.

I didn't see any of this game, in fact, I just saw the highlights on ESPN. I tuned into ESPN GameCast for the first time this year after dismissal at school, when the Mets were down 5-3, so it was exciting to see the rally. I like to think the Mets broke the Phillies for the year, but I doubt it. I will say, however, that after one game, the Phillies still don't scare me.

John Maine wasn't great in this game. He pitched 4-and-2-thirds innings, giving up just 2 earned runs, but walked six, and gave up 5 hits. He threw 104 pitches in that short amount of time. I'd say he struggled. Ambiorix Burgos also struggled, giving up a homer to Ryan Howard, and three runs in an inning and a third. Joe Smith, Pedro Feliciano (who got the win), and Billy Wagner combined for three scoreless innings.

On the Phillies' side, Cole Hamels was good - striking out 7 in six innings, giving up 3 runs, only 2 of which were earned. He's a good young pitcher.

The Mets and Phillies have Tuesday off before resuming on Wednesday at Shea. Oliver Perez tries to replicate his first start against Adam Eaton.


naturalbl0g.blogspot.com JOHNNYMETS.BLOGSPOT.COM PLAYER OF THE GAME: Carlos Delgado was 3-for-3, with a walk, and 2 runs and 2 RBI. I wasn't watching the whole game, so I don't know for sure, but it seemed to me he was in the middle of all of the Mets' action. He scored the Mets' second run in the 4th inning, with a headfirst slide around the tag of Phillies catcher Carlos Ruiz. He hit a sacrifice fly to put the Mets ahead 3-2, and then had an RBI single to bring the Mets to within 5-4 in the 7th. And he scored after a walk in the 8th. Seems like a good day to me.

WEATHER-RELATED STUFF: Forgot to mention this Sunday - I know it was cold in Atlanta, but every wide shot I saw of the stands when the Mets were down there this past weekend showed empty seats. I'm pretty sure this was even the case at Friday's home opener. The Atlanta fans are horrid.

Also, the Cleveland-Seattle series never got off the ground because of snow. The Indians moved their homestand now to Milwaukee, where they'll play the Angels.

ASTROS: Brad Lidge's nightmare continues. He was officially taken out of the closer's role on Monday, replaced by Dan Wheeler (Former Met).

BEAT THE STREAK: After saying I was going to pick Ichiro, I actually forgot to log on and do it. Good thing they were snowed out. So I'm still at 0...I'm going with Andruw Jones to try to get me started against a Washington Nationals pitcher named Matt Chico.

WHAT A DAY!

I love Opening Day...even if it falls on the in-between day for the Mets, when they don't have a game. I love watching all of the different games....even if I am at school for most of them, and don't get to watch the afternoon games. I love looking at the scoreboard pages of the website, and seeing full boxscores of games that count.

One day does not a season make, but these were things that stood out to me on Opening Day:

-The Royals beat the Red Sox - pretty convincingly. A lot of people in the national media are pretty down on the Sox. And I've mentioned I think the Royals will surprise some people...maybe they're even better than I thought?

-Brad Lidge - slowly but surely, he's becoming less effective. He just blew a save for the Astros against the Pirates by giving up a homer to Xavier Nady with 2 out in the ninth.

-Dominant Pitching Performances - The headliner here is Felix Hernandez of Seattle - 8 innings of 3-hit, 12-strikeout ball. Ben Sheets went 9 innings for the Brewers, giving up just 2 hits and one run. And Gil Meche of the aforementioned Royals went 6-and-a-third, giving up just one run on six hits, and striking out 6.

-The Yankees Lineup - Sure, you can say they were just playing the Devil Rays, but they can hit. They took a lead, then fell behind, and then outscored Tampa the rest of the way. Scott Kazmir, incidentally, was touched up for 5 runs in 5 innings.

I'm just sitting here trying to think of other notables, and I'm realizing that I don't think anyone in baseball is opening a new stadium this year. That's worth noting these days.

RUBBING IT IN?: Tuesday night before the Mets-Cardinals game, the Cardinals will hand out their championship rings. This, in front of the Mets, who had to sit through the banner-raising ceremony Sunday night. The Cardinals say it's not to rub it in - they just didn't want to overload Sunday night with ceremonies. I don't care, to be honest. I'd rather the Cardinals tick the Mets off, show them what they could have had...give them more fire in their bellies for this year. Orlando Hernandez pitches for the Mets against Kip Wells on Tuesday.

ESPN PICKS: Forgot to mention this on Sunday night, but I caught the end of 'Baseball Tonight' before the Mets-Cardinals game, and the crew made their picks. Peter Gammons picked the Mets over the Red Sox in 7 games in the World Series (with Pedro* going against the Sox), Tim Kurkjian took the Yankees over the Mets, and Karl Ravech took the Red Sox over the Mets. Just FYI.

A THOUGHT ON THE NUMBER 2 SPOT: So Paul Lo Duca showed that he's fine hitting second. I had mentioned that I'd love to see David Wright hitting there, to get some more at-bats in games. The difference between Lo Duca and Wright, though, is that Wright strikes out a lot. Lo Duca does not, so he's probably better suited for the 2 spot for now because he puts the ball in play, giving him a chance to move Jose Reyes around the bases, if not drive him in.

MEDIA GUIDE: I think I mentioned that my dad got a mini ticket plan, where he gets the home Tuesday and Friday games. Along with the purchase of those tickets, the Mets sent him a media guide...which was forwarded to me today. Fantastic. I'll never want for stats again (until 2008, I guess). I'll put it to good use.

BEAT THE STREAK: Chase Utley gave me a 2-gamer on this early season. I will go with Mike Piazza of the Oakland A's against Jarrod Washburn on Tuesday.

I never got around to the Mets season summary (perhaps that will come), but I had to put in my two cents about last night's NLCS Game 5 between the Cardinals and the Astros.

Due to my current teaching life, I no longer stay up to all hours of the night playing video games and watching whatever sporting event that is on TV (like the old days of Arena Football, on the crappy ESPN2). Therefore, I went to bed last night with the Cardinals still winning in the seventh inning, 2-1. That's when the Astros came back, on a Lance Berkman homer, I hear, to take a 4-2 lead.

They took that lead into the ninth, with their invincible closer on the hill, Brad Lidge. All we've heard about this post-season is how Lidge didn't blow a lead for the Astros all season until the final Friday of the regular season. He looked a little shaky on Sunday, but got one of the best-turned double plays of all-time to end the game with the tying run on third, so that had to make him feel only more invincible.

So Lidge strikes out the first two batters of the ninth, then goes to 3-2 on David Eckstein. Eckstein rolls a single into left field. Then Lidge walks Jim Edmonds. Then Albert Pujols launches a bomb to left field, the Cardinals take a 5-4 lead, and go on to win. Now the series shifts to Saint Louis Wednesday and Thursday (if necessary), and everyone thinks the Astros are dead and buried.

I hate to promote the guy, but Bill Simmons wrote a very good article about how the Astros and their fans must feel right now on ESPN.com. (I don't like Simmons because I'm jealous - there, I've said it, OK. I'm jealous at what he does for a living.) Simmons knows the pain, because he is a Red Sox fan, and his comparisons between this game and Game 6 of the 1986 World Series are dead-on.

I'm not so sure that the Astros will collapse, though. I still am not totally sold on the Cardinals - I don't know that they'll be able to close this out. But they really have a home field working for them - the Cardinals fans are going to be nuts about having at least one more, and possibly two more, home games this post-season, and the Astros are facing a very tough go the next one (or two) nights. I do feel, though, that they're capable of putting Monday night's game behind them and closing out the series on Wednesday. We'll see.

I worry, though, about Brad Lidge. His situation too closely resembles Donnie Moore, and we all know what happened to him. I don't think Lidge will do anything drastic personally, but I wonder how this will affect him professionally. He was so dominant this season (and even last year) - I wonder how he handles this type of adversity, on such a big stage. I don't know anything about him, so I don't know his makeup - but I want to root for him to come back and pitch well.

So I should talk about the way I found out about this, just so I can answer those "Where were you when....?" questions. I was sleeping. We talked about that already. But when I woke up, and turned on ESPNEWS, the bottom right corner didn't say "Astros advance to first ever World Series", so I figured the Cardinals won. I was more surprised when I saw the Indianapolis Colts' score. But I waited for the NL spot on the crawl, and saw the final score was 5-4. Still didn't think much of it, other than the fact that it didn't end 2-1. Then it says, "Pujols GW 3-run HR", and I'm doing the math, and thinking "Wow." Then they show the highlights, and the situation was just - and I'm going to use a word here that is so overused today that it has lost some meaning, but here it is applicable - UNBELIEVABLE. This is unbelievable, people. Other stuff that gets tagged "Unbelievable" is really quite believable. It needs to be used less.

Anyway, I love hearing stuff about the 1986 World Series and how the champagne was all ready to go and the podium for the trophy presentation was all set up for the Red Sox in Game 6, and then it had to be all torn down. I'd like to hear about the stuff that went on at Minute Maid Park on Monday night - at least they had another half-inning to get things done, since the Astros had to hit in the bottom half.

At the very least, this NLCS just went from insignificant to somewhat exciting. I'll try to write about it on Thursday.