Jose Reyes led off the game with his first ever lead off homer. Everytime he hits a homer, I worry about him trying too hard and not hitting enough ground balls.
Delgado added to the lead with a two run homer in the first. A welcome sight for him because it was his first homer since May 21st. He's starting to perk up a bit with the double on Saturday and one on Sunday and now the homer. I knew a slump of that magnitude could not last forever but the Mets really need him to anchor this lineup. He makes Beltran and Wright better hitters.
Soler took the early lead Reyes and Delgado gave him and ran with it. He pitched well, wasn't in trouble, had hitters chasing his curveball and pitched confidently, due to the lead. He's now had one good start, one bad start and one adequate start. The jury remains out on him.
Milledge got two more hits including an RBI single.
I think Willie did the right thing by leaving in Bradford for the 9th inning against three weak/inexperienced right handed hitters. Now he has Heilman, Sanchez and Wagner ready for tonight's game. There was no need to bring in Wagner as long as Bradford didn't get into trouble.
Pedro tonight, Glavine tomorrow (on three day's rest). Should be interesting.
Soler was throwing strikes last night. He was pitching like a veteran, setting up his fastball nicely by mixing it up with several different pitches. Also, I was monitoring the radar gun and he was throwing pretty hard. However, he did get a few breaks from the Ump but that is what happens when the ump sees you throwing mostly good stuff. When you throw junk like gonzalez, you don't get any calls. I am glad reyes made that back handed play to get the last out in the 7th with a man on because I really did not want to see solar implode. However, the next inning reyes gets call out on strikes looking and yells at the ump to the point where he was almost thrown out. This is a very stupid move on reyes part -- it was an iverson type complaint. While it is true that the call should not have been a strike- reyes gains nothing by antagnozing the ump. If he pisses off enough umps, he will never be the beneficiary of the close calls. Reyes should especially temper himself in a game that we are up by 3 runs and on in which our pitcher was the beneficiary of many close calls. This conduct is far more detrimental to the team then Milledge acting like a school boy. I am sure Floyd as a notorious hazer is making Milledge pay at every opportunity. I think the milledge thing should be dropped until the time that he does the same thing again.
ReplyDeleteOne more note on the shaky 8th -feliciano after getting into trouble, bradford was able to get us out of the inning but not before wright once again provides late inning dramatics by making Delgado jump up and grab the ball out of the sky on the throw from third. I think wright should field 100 balls to first in the morning before each night game. I do not want to see him end up like chuck knoublach or mackey "no throw" sasser