Game #60: Mets 2, Brewers 1

Mets starter Chris Capuano beat his former team, the Milwaukee Brewers, 2-1 on Tuesday. (NYDailyNews.com)

What more is there to say? The man is good.

Jose Reyes' 2-run triple in the 7th was all the offense the Mets needed, as the bullpen retired the final nine Brewers' batters to seal the deal on a 2-1 victory.

The Good Stuff:

• With one out and runners on first and third, Jose Reyes blasted the first pitch from Marco Estrada towards the right-center wall of Miller Park. It came two feet from clearing the fence, but careened at a strange angle, fooling center fielder Carlos Gomez. As you can imagine, Reyes' speed took care of it from there. When the dust settled, Jose was standing up at third base and the Mets had a 2-1 lead. Reyes finished the night 2-5, raising his batting average to .339.
• Reyes' clutch hitting got Chris Capuano off the hook for that one pitch in the 6th that Prince Fielder slammed over the center field fence. Instead of a hard-luck loss, Capuano was rewarded with a win in his return appearance in Milwaukee. Cap's final line was 6 innings, 1 run on 6 hits with 2 walks and 5 strikeouts.
• Yesterday's break gave the Mets' relief pitchers time to collect their thoughts. It paid off big time as bullpen went from Hot Potato to Lockdown. Pedro Beato, Jason Isringhausen, and Fransisco Rodriguez combined for three perfect innings of relief to make sure last week's string of collapses stayed last week's news. K-Rod struck out 2 of the 3 batters he faced to pick up his 17th save, all in a row.
• While the New York offense only managed 5 hits, Reyes and Ruben Tejada combined for 4. The other came from Angel Pagan, who also stole his seventh base of the year in the 8th.

The Bad Stuff:

• While the Mets won the game in the 7th, they almost lost it as well. Reyes was on third after his triple and tried to come home on Justin Turner's groundball. He tried to score standing up instead of hook-sliding to avoid the tag, and, well, you can guess what happened.
• This next one is just plain bad luck. Carlos Beltran came up next and hammered the 1-1 pitch deep to left-center. Beltran would have had himself a 2-run homer, except he was the victim of a highway robbery. The robber in question? Carlos Gomez, who flung his arm over the wall to snag the ball before it could clear the wall. Ouch. Tough luck, Carlos (our Carlos).

Final Analysis:
Great pitching + clutch hitting = Duh, winning! Simple recipe, but it tastes so damn sweet. The New York Mets are now on a three game winning streak and are only two games under .500, right where they were before Wilpongate. With two more games in Milwaukee and a 4-day weekend in Pittsburgh, the Amazin's could have their head above water by next week. It's hard to believe it, but even with all the injuries, all the scandal, these Mets are not going away just yet.

MM