This time, Mets avoid the trap, continue to rake

Wednesday night's game against the Tigers was the classic trap game that the Mets, in recent years, always seemed to stumble into.

They get a win in the first game of the series, and face a less-than-impressive starter in game two, knowing that the opposition's ace awaits in game three.

The Mets won game one on Tuesday, then faced Phil Coke in game two, the ex-Yankee of the 1-7 record, with Cy Young candidate Justin Verlander (who was drafted by Detroit one spot ahead of the Mets, ugh) going in game three. The middle game was the winnable one, the one that would clinch the series win.

In the past, the Mets would find a way to botch this scenario, then inevitably get throttled by the ace in the final game and lose the series.

So it was great to see them hammer Coke the way they did, the offense continuing not only to hit but to hit with two outs, something they couldn't do at all in April. And pile on runs, which came in handy when the Tigers kept scratching and clawing to stay in it, until the relentless of the Mets offense — did I just type that? — became too much to overcome.

Angel Pagan had a huge night, as did Daniel Murphy, who had two, two-out, two-run singles. Of course Jose Reyes had another multi-hit game, what else did you expect? Guy is hitting EVERYTHING. Turner and Tejada also had two hits each, and Ronny Paulino, batting FOURTH, had four hits and four runs scored.

I hope Terry Collins had some time to take a ferry to Ontario for some casino action, because everything he does is coming up gold right now.

Jason Bay was 1-for-2 but drew four walks and made an incredible diving catch in left early in the game to keep the Mets comfortably in front. He also had two steals as the Mets continued to run at will on the bases, this time against the ineffective Victor Martinez.

What more can you say about how this team is playing now? They have scored a franchise-best 52 runs and amassed 69 hits in the last four games, with an RISP average of .484. Good Lord.

Enjoy the ride.

Signs of the apocalypse, or of better things to come?

You would think that hitting two grand slams in one game (in consecutive innings), when your team hadn't hit one in two years (while allowing 18 to the opposition) would exorcise plenty of demons.

Toss in the fact that one of the blasts was delivered by Jason Bay, who needed a hit like that more than anyone else on the roster, if not in the league, and Tuesday night's demolition of the Tigers could be viewed as a season-altering event.

We'd like to think so. After singling the Rangers to death, the Mets busted out the big lumber, hitting three bombs to give R.A. Dickey a month's worth of run support. The Mets chased starter Rick Porcello and then hammered Daniel Schlereth for the two grand salamis. That'll inflate the old ERA.

And what more can you say about Jose Reyes? How about this: Ty Cobb. Reyes has 98 career triples and 360 steals. The only other player in history to reach those numbers as fast as Reyes? Cobb. Wow.

I'll say it now. Pay the man. Sure, teams are valuing him on a career year that may never happen again, but understand that Reyes is entering the prime years of 28-32. That's five seasons. You're going to want Jose Reyes in his prime for five seasons. Yes, health is a rosk, but anyone can get hurt. He's healthy now, and has been healthy before (153-plus games a year from 2005-08).

And what's he worth to the team from a marketing standpoint? Many, many dollars. What is he worth to the soul of the franchise? To the fans? It's priceless.

Keep Jose.

Everything old is new again

Terry Collins, at age 62, qualifies for a senior discount at just about every restaurant and movie theater in this country. But when the National League East managers get together for their regular canasta game these days, he's the one they call "Kid."

Collins may indeed enjoy an early bird special now and then, but he's got nothing on his compatriots at the helm of the other teams in the Mets' division (well, three of them, anyway). The Phillies' Charlie Manuel is 67, new Marlins skipper Jack McKeon is 80, and running the show now for the Washington Nationals is former Mets manager Davey Johnson, who checks in at age 68.

(The Braves' Fredi Gonzalez is essentially the pool boy at age 47. His role at the canasta table is to keep Jack updated on the latest from Hialeah, and fetching Charlie Manuel's gin and tonics.)

You get the feeling that the Mets set a trend with the hiring of Collins. He'd been around a while, had success at other places, but hadn't managed a major league team in a number of years. Ditto McKeon and now Davey J., who of course had a loose hand on the rudder of the Mets' 1986 World Championship team.

Johnson's hiring was particularly reminiscent of Collins', in that he was already working for the Nationals organization as a consultant and knew the players and the system well. Those qualities have certainly seemed to have helped Collins, who has had to manage a number of former minor leaguers filling in for injured starters.

On Sunday, the Mets won another road series, this one against the defending AL champion Rangers. Like Saturday's win, the Mets piled up hits and scored a healthy number of runs without the benefit of the long ball. Jose Reyes continued to rake, getting four hits, including his 14th triple, and three runs. Daniel Murphy stayed hot with three hits, and he and Reyes both made outstanding plays in the field. Carlos Beltran had two RBI.

Dillon Gee overcame a shaky start and lasted six innings, allowing eight hits and two walks, and three runs to improve to 8-1 on the season. The bullpen of Beato, Byrdak and Izzy was perfect. Why they put in K-Rod in a non-save situation is puzzling since he's always terrible, and he made things too interesting before retiring the last three hitters.

Another game finished for K-Rod, who was quoted over the weekend saying he would set up for a contender. Someone should alert K-Rod (and the rest of the New York media, for that matter) that the Mets, even at .500, at 4 1/2 games out of the wild card lead, are, by definition, contenders.

You know Collins considers them contenders, and you know Davey will have the same attitude with the Nationals. McKeon has already benched Hanley Ramirez and mistaken Twitter as the name of a player's dog. Manuel? He's sitting in the catbird seat, his only worries whether Oswalt can stay healthy and what channel Matlock is on when he's on the road.

Gonzalez, meanwhile, barely looks up at the canasta game from his Nintendo DS, white earbuds blaring Arcade Fire as he wonders when these geezers are going to hit the hay so he can play Tour of Duty online without being asked to bring over a walker or light a cigar.

Taking one for the team, instead of taking one ... elsewhere

I had already shut the computer off. The tenth, the eleventh, the twelfth innings had gone by and I had thoughts of going to bed and not watching the rest of this game, filled as I was with the feeling that this was going to be a bad, bad, bad loss.

But I couldn't do it. So I decided instead to start the process of turning in while the game plodded onward. Brought the dog in. Locked the doors. Turned off a few lights. Then went into the office and shut down the computer, figuring any recap was going to be painful, and I could just as well grind that out in the morning.

The computer got turned back on.

No surprise that the Mets' first walk-off win was accomplished with Jose Reyes and "Super Ginger" Justin Turner Overdrive playing key roles. Reyes tripled and scored the go-ahead run in the bottom of the eighth before K-Rod blew his second straight save, and while Turner had only one hit, it was the run-scoring single that moved Reyes home.

Of course, Turner doesn't get up in that spot if Reyes doesn't get intentionally walked to load the bases. You can't blame Bob Melvin there. Reyes is the man, has been all season, and you're not going to let him beat you.

Turner, meanwhile, is second on the team in RBIs and while he didn't get a hit in the 13th inning, he got the run home in characteristically gritty fashion with the walk-off hit by pitch.

It was a much-needed win. R.A. Dickey was fantastic and should have gotten the win. The bullpen, aside from K-Rod, came up big, especially Beato, who needs to regain what he had earlier this season.

With the news that Ike Davis could well be lost for the season — are you kidding me?! Really?! — we're looking at an offense that is going to have to scrap and fight for runs, unless David Wright comes back at full strength and Jason Bay — who looked lost again tonight after a great game Tuesday — rediscovers his power stroke.

It's a huge opportunity for Daniel Murphy to reclaim the first base job, at least for a couple of months, or for Lucas Duda to prove to everyone that he is not a AAAA player. He was hitting bombs in Buffalo before he was called up, but hasn't done much with the big club, though he did get two hits in this game.

One of them has to step up. Only half the cavalry is coming over that hill.

The buzzards are circling. Again.

It figures when the Mets need to rattle off some home wins — against an AL team that's sub-.500 — the team coming in happens to be red-hot.

The Angels took two of three, and after a much-needed day off, the Mets dropped the opener of their series against the A's Tuesday night. Dillon Gee was due for a stinker and boy, was it bad. He's shown a lot of guts thus far, and we'll see how he bounces back. I have every confidence he will.

On the plus side, Jason Bay looked tremendous, crushing a homer and adding a triple in a three-hit night. Keith Hernandez, a couple of games back, said that breaking out of slump often doesn't require hits as long as you're making solid contact. With Bay, it seems to be a confidence game, so if Tuesday night marked not only the first day of summer but the the beginning of a new season for him, that would be huge.

After a very good road trip, the Mets are now 1-3 on this homestand and need to get things going. The .500 mark is now three games away, and with the July trade deadline getting closers every day, the media buzzards are circling.

Every day there is a story about Reyes, really saying absolutely nothing new. He won't negotiate a new contract until after the season? No kidding. He's been saying that since November.

And then there are the stories like "Mets must trade Wright," or "Mets success could cost them in the long run."

Really, guys? Ian O'Connor is the new Wally Matthews, and that is not a compliment. And Adam Rubin, again, should be covering another team. Somwhere. Anywhere but Flushing.

Actually, it was pretty fathomable

"Unfathomable!"

Hold on now, Gary Cohen, we're Mets fans. We can fathom quite a bit, thank you very much.

The Mets' habit of taking two steps forward and one step back continued Thursday night at The Ted, and of course that house of horrors wasn't going to let this team head back to Flushing with a sweep now, was it? No way, Jose.

Great comeback after Dickey didn't have it. Big homer by Hairston. A wild pitch on a strikeout in the seventh and two errors by the Braves in the eighth gave the Mets a two-run lead into the ninth, but the Mets gave it right back.

Sure, it sucks when your closer blows a save, but you could almost forgive K-Rod since he'd been perfect since April 2. So we go to extras, and how close we came to getting to the 11th.

Dioner Hernandez, who homered off K-Rod in New York, doubled off D.J. Carrasco, who was perfect the night before. OK, fine. Had Lucas Duda just allowed that ground ball to be fielded by Ruben Tejada — you know, the team's best fielder — the 10th inning is over. But no, that opens up the door for the rare walk-off balk by Carrasco, prompting Cohen's exclamation.

Unfathomable? Improbable, for sure. But hey, six out of 10 on the road ain't nothin' to sneeze at. Sure, .500 is still a game away (again), but with the Angels and A's coming to town, that homestand should (fingers crossed) leave the Mets above water. Should.

Two hits by Jason Bay, and maybe he's starting to come around. Three more hits by Reyes, who has 101 in 66 games. Wow.

Mets are finishing what they started

One of the most ridiculous rules in baseball is the one that says a starting pitcher must go five innings in order to get credit for a win.

In Wednesday night's 4-0 win over the Braves, in which four pitchers combined on a two-hitter, Dillon Gee was denied his eighth win of the season because of — rain. Had the game not been delayed by rain, Gee would have certainly pitched in the fifth inning and beyond. But he didn't, and at that point the designation of the winning pitcher is at the discretion of the official scorer.

Bobby Parnell was given the win, and good for him, he threw two scoreless innings. But D.J. Carrasco also tossed two scoreless before Parnell and was perfect. Why not him?

Of course, neither man did as much as Gee, who:

• Started the game
• Pitched twice as many innings as anyone else
• Left the game on the winning side with the Mets ahead, 3-0
• Allowed just one hit over those four innings

But no, he doesn't get the win because he didn't go five. Insane.

Gee's effort followed on the heels of another great outing by Jonathon Niese, and now the Mets starters are becoming dominant. Every night, a quality start, giving the team a chance to win every game.

Finally, we're starting to see some credit given to pitching coach Dan Warthen, whose no-nonsense approach seems to be paying dividends. There's a reason they didn't toss him out when they replaced Jerry Manuel.

The win moved the Mets to .500 on the season, secured a series win against the Braves at the Ted (a rarity, as we all know) and gave the Mets a 6-3 record on this road trip, which ends Thursday. The Mets have won 9 of 13.

Oh, right, the David Lee Roth photo. Why is he there? Well, when I wrote the headline to this post I started thinking of the Van Halen song, "Finish What Ya Started," which of course was from the Van Hagar days. I like Sammy Hagar, but let's face it, Van Halen's best days were when Diamond Dave was on the mic, doing splits and karate kicks and just being one of the great front men in rock history.

So I put his photo in there, as a tribute. No other reason.

And again, something for no good reason: It's gettin' real in the Whole Foods parking lot:

What's so funny 'bout singles, doubles & triples?

Tags: Elvis Costello, Music, More Music Videos

More wisdom from the Book of Mex this weekend, as he recalled that the Cardinals teams he played on were pretty successful and they didn't have a lot of power. But they played in a big ballpark, and had a bunch of guys who could get hits, including doubles and triples, and there was nothing wrong with that.

So here we have the Mets, winners of six of their last eight and now a game removed from .500 (again), who in their recent run of success have slapped around opposing pitchers without getting the knockout punch. Their hit totals of the last four games: 12, 10, 13 and 11.

Other than the back-to-back homers by Scott Hairtson and Jose Reyes, which were icing on the cake of Sunday's 7-0 shutout, the Mets have gotten by with singles, doubles and triples, and lots of them. They have even showed an ability to get two-out hits, which at the beginning was as foreign to them as  humility is to LeBron James (we are all Nowitznesses).

The power drought is no surprise considering the lack of David Wright and Ike Davis, and the struggles of Jason Bay, but one of Terry Collins' strengths is not bemoaning what he doesn't have, and focusing on what he does have. And it turns out he has quite a bit.

Jose Reyes had three hits and has 33 multiple-hit games, tops in the majors. The guy is just awesome, no other way to put it.

Daniel Murphy is hitting better than .400 for the last three weeks, and Justin Turner continues to rake, getting a clutch, two-out double that kick-started a four-run eighth that put the game away.

I'll admit I wasn't crazy about pinch hitting for Chris Capuano in that inning. He was dominating the Pirates and his pitch count was low, and Willie Harris is far from a sure thing pinch hitting with two outs. But this decision went Collins' way, as Harris got a single, Reyes got a single, and then Turner doubled, followed by a two-run single by Beltran, and then the weird play where Jason Bay scored Murphy on a sac fly, but Angel Pagan was called out for not tagging second on the way back to first.

Capuano's start was just the lastest in a string of quality starts by Mets pitchers, and it's to the point now where — so unlike where things stood in April — I am confident with any Mets starter now.

Pelfrey may be the only one where you wonder what you're going to get, and he's been much better lately. Niese? Consistently good. Capuano? Solid. Dickey? He's had some troubles so far but you know he's got the ability to shut a team down. And Gee? He's been unreal. Just tremendous.

If you're a Mets fan, I don't know how you don't love this team. Young guys stepping up. A manager who holds everyone accountable and keeps everyone involved. An MVP-like year from Reyes. Great starting pitching, including a player who came from nowhere.

I've said it before, that for a team that had no expectations, there has been a ton of pressure placed on it, especially by the media. Which has put the team in the position of "searching for light in the darkness of insanity," to quote Mr. Costello.

They're finding that light. And if they can ever get Wright and Davis back (and Santana), it's going to get a whole lot brighter.

The Tao of Mex

If Keith Hernandez started his own religion, how many followers do you think he'd have? I'm guessing a lot, certainly more than those rapture guys. I mean, who are you going to put your faith in? An 80-year-old radio show host who'd already been wrong about the rapture (and was wrong again)? Or an All-Star first baseman who won a World Series in 1986 and shared the MVP in 1979 (when he should have won it outright)?

Exactly.

He has an uncanny ability to see the future, like when he saw a catcher call for a changeup, said, "Are you kidding?" and then seconds later, David Wright blasted a homer to deep left.

Almost everything Keith says is gospel.  He speaks of the fundys in such a way that they should be carved into two stone tablets.

He's also a big fan of Strat-o-Matic, which I spent many hours playing as a child, my bedroom a monastic retreat, the quiet broken only by the rattle of dice on cardboard. (You know that question, if you could invite anyone over for dinner, living or dead, who would they be? I'd pass on dinner and invite Keith, Jerry Seinfeld and Len Dykstra over to play Strat-o-Matic. Four-team round robin tourney, using a combination of old-timers and modern players. That would be sweet.)

Hernandez sees all, knows all. So who better to comment on the travails of Jason Bay? Yet even in Keith's infinite wisdom, he cannot solve the puzzle of Bay.

He's quick to point out he's never been in a slump this long, so it's baffling even to him. He's said in the past that the only way out of a slump is to hit your way out, but he agrees that days off, at this point, is probably the best thing for Bay. Maybe they should go further and send him to Aruba for a few days to really clear his head. Anywhere but a ballpark.

You look at Bay, there's nothing physically wrong. He still plays defense, runs hard. He's reportedly killing it in batting practice. But the coaches aren't feeding him a steady diet of sliders and breaking balls. Bay's problem, to my untrained eye, is rooted in a combination of poor pitch recognition and plunging confidence. It's become a death spiral.


Jason Pridie filled in for Bay Thursday night and did well, at the plate and in the field. The Mets chased Yovani Gallardo and Jon Niese tossed another gem as the Mets' starters continue to post quality starts. That's four wins in their last five games and seven of 11, as the .500 mark is once again within grasping distance.

Maybe Bay needs a return to Pittsburgh to snap him out of his trance. Something's gotta give, and now Lucas Duda is up for Nick Evans.

Speaking of batting practice, Keith made a very interesting point (does he make anything but) about how players take batting practice these days with the coach close to the plate, maybe 50 feet away, as opposed to throwing back from the slope of the mound. He noted that Barry Bonds popularized that approach because it improved bat speed. Keith's feeling is that BP should be relaxed, and be about getting loose, and not be so results-driven.

Amen.

Dickey and Reyes are good. True that - DOUBLE TRUE!

It was a lazy Sunday in the Gasparino household. A late pancake breakfast. Kids playing outside, Mom grading papers, Dad spraying ant killer and throwing out trash. After lunch we took a drive to do some quick shopping. I'd planned on DVRing the Mets game and watching it after the kids were asleep, as usual.

We were on Jericho Turnpike headed for the Walt Whitman Mall at around 3 o'clock when my buddy Mike called. His company has tickets behind home plate and a client backed out at the last minute. Would I like to go?

Damn right I would!

By 7:30 I was at the rotunda, looking forward to seeing R.A. Dickey try and give the Mets the series win over the Braves. And what a game we saw (well, the first 8 innings, anyway).

Dickey was superb. Eight innings of four-hit ball, the only blemish a solo homer by Met Killer Brian McCann. Otherwise, we saw some pretty futile swings out there by the Bravos.

When you chase Tim Hudson in four innings, you know you're doing something right. Jose Reyes was the firestarter yet again, leading off the first with a single and scoring on Carlos Beltran's double, Beltran himself scoring on a sac fly. In the second, Hudson walked Reyes to face Justin Turner with two out and two on and Turner delivered the opposite-field hit, scoring Pridie. Reyes came home on a wild pitch that never came close to the backstop.

He's fast.

Reyes had an RBI double in the fourth, and at this point the "KEEP JOSE" chants were cropping up left and right. Ruben Tejada also made a terrific catch at second.

Of course, with sunshine comes rain. Beltran fouled a ball off his ankle and left the game. X-rays were negative but we'll see how that goes. Dickey gave way to Manny Acosta in the ninth and he promptly walked the leadoff man and then a double one out later. In came K-Rod (with a five-run lead) to face pinch hitter and slap hitter Deonis Hernandez, and of course he homered to left.

Two strikeouts later, we put it in the books, and closed out an eventful 10-game homestand at 5-5. A trip to Milwaukee, Pittsburgh and Atlanta follows.

Thanks again, Mike. Great seats, great company, and an always enjoyable Mets win. And it was helmet night, so the kids got a treat as well. A true win-win.

You know when it's real

So Dillon Gee is now 6-0 after shutting down the Braves on Saturday night. Any thoughts of this guy being a fluke or some flash in the pan are quickly evaporating, as they should, especially after he allowed just four hits and two walks in seven shutout innings.

And he's now 8-2 in 13 major league starts, with an ERA of 2.61.

He's the real deal.

Jose Reyes hit his 10th triple of the season, which came with the bases loaded and one out, on the heels of Jason Pridie's bases-loaded single that broke a scoreless tie. Fredi Gonzales lifted Jair Jurrjens after Pridie's pinch hit, and Reyes burned Scott Proctor and broke the game open.

Jose Reyes is the real deal.

In fact, it's getting to the point that if the Mets do trade Reyes this season — and we're finally starting to see stories about how the Mets may actually want to keep Reyes and Wright, or at least Reyes, which should be obvious to anyone with half a brain — the fans will burn Citi Field to the ground.

And I may be the one handing out torches.

Daniel Murphy had two hits and all of a sudden is batting .303, and Josh Thole had a nice night with two hits. Jason Bay was dropped to sixth in the order and I can't argue. The guy has got to get on track.

Rubber game Sunday night, painfully on ESPN. The good news is I will DVR the game and watch it with the volume practically off, so I can fast forward at will knowing I won't miss any commentary worth hearing. And that includes Bobby V. I loved the guy when he managed, but as a color guy, he's a great manager.

Do you believe in miracles? YES! But then again...

To be made a saint in the Catholic church, you have to have four miracles. That's the rules, you know. It's always been that. Four miracles, and you have to prove it. Well, this Mother Seton, now they could only prove three miracles. But the Pope, he just waived the fourth one. He just waived it! And do you know why? It's because she was American. It's all politics. We got some Italian people, they got forty, fifty, sixty miracles to their name. They can't get in just 'cause they say there's already too many Italian saints, and this woman comes along with three lousy miracles. I understand that two of them were card tricks.
— Father Guido Sarducci

I thought of this bit as I pondered whether to call the Mets' comeback win a miracle. It's really too strong a word for what happened Thursday. Sure, it was the Mets' biggest comeback since a 10-run eighth inning against Atlanta in 2000, but this was the Pirates, after all. And once Carlos Beltran smacked a three-run homer in the bottom of the third, it was a four-run game and there was definitely hope. This wasn't exactly a down-to-your-last-strike miracle. More like a really good card trick.

I give the team credit for not getting down. Maybe Terry Collins' rant the night before helped. Maybe it was the uplifting presence of Jose Reyes. More likely, it was a combination of perseverance — all four of the Mets' runs in the bottom of the sixth came with two outs — and gifts from the Pirates in the form of two wild pitches, an error and a bases-loaded walk.

Regardless, it was a key victory to get past the ugliness of the previous two games and head into the weekend series at home against Atlanta with a bit of momentum. The bullpen, this time, didn't blow the lead, thanks to fine work by Byrdak, Parnell and Izzy to set up K-Rod, who allowed one run in the ninth but held on.

Mike Pelfrey had tough luck in the first with three bloops and a bunt, but had only himself to blame in the second and third. I give Collins credit for making him stick in there and pitch through five, and Pelfrey retired the last seven batters he faced to keep the damage to a minimum, which ended up being pretty big.

Was this win a turning point? We'll find out against the Braves. Winning two of three would go a long way toward keeping the Mets' chances alive as we wait patiently for Wright to come back, then Davis in a couple more weeks. And then maybe Santana? Can the Mets hang in there that long?

Wouldn't that be miraculous?