Game #80: Mets 16, Tigers 9

Jose Reyes celebrated after scoring the first of the Mets' 16 runs. (NYTimes.com)

Phil Simms commanded four scoring drives and Lawrence Taylor held Barry Sanders in check to give the Giants a low-scoring 16-9 win over the Lions.

...Sorry, the score triggered my football settings. Let's try that again.

The Mets pounded out a season-high 20 hits and chalked up double-digit runs for the 3rd time in 4 games on the way to a 16-9 trouncing of the high-powered Tigers.

The Good Stuff:

• Where to even begin? I guess it starts with the hottest man on the planet: like clockwork, Jose Reyes led off the game with a single, forced an error, stole third, and came home on a wild pitch. He finished "just" 2-6 for multi-hit #41. Later on in the inning, the bases were loaded for Scott Hairston, who cleared the bases with his first triple of the season, and all of a sudden it was 4-0.
• On a night when every single Met contributed, standing out the most were:
• Ronny Paulino (4-6, 2 doubles, 1 RBI, 4 runs in his first game in the cleanup slot)
• Jason Bay (1-2, 1 RBI, 4 walks, 3 runs, 2 stolen bases)
• Angel Pagan (4-6, 2 doubles, 4 RBIs, 3 runs, 1 stolen base)
• Daniel Murphy (2-5, 4 RBIs)
• With this latest offensive barrage, New York set a franchise record with 52 runs over the past 4 games, making two AL division leaders look like overmatched high school teams. But tonight's beatdown was the most impressive of the bunch. Why? Because the New York Mets scored their 16 runs without the benefit of even a single home run. Detroit hit five home runs tonight and still lost by seven runs. It got so bad they had to bring in a left fielder to pitch the final out. It doesn't get much more Amazin' than that.

The Bad Stuff:

• Still, there is the matter of those five home runs the Tigers hit. Chris Capuano picked up the win, but allowed the first three (two to Miguel Cabrera), leading to all 5 runs he gave up in 5+ innings of work.
• Pedro Beato came in to relieve Cappy in the 6th and promptly served up homer #4 to Jhonny "The Human Typo" Peralta.

Straight Outta the Twilight Zone

• But the circumstances that led to longball #5 are just too strange to believe. In the 7th, pitching coach Dan Warthen called for Bobby Parnell from the bullpen, but Terry Collins came out instead and called for a surprised Tim Byrdak to pitch not to a lefty, but to a righty. In fact, the next lefty was at least 5 hitters away. So what does Detroit skipper Jim Leyland do when he sees the southpaw Parnell warming up? He sends up Andy Dirks, a pinch hitter...who happens to be left handed. Before the fans at Comerica could finish scratching their heads, Dirks takes the second pitch from Byrdak and deposits it over the right field stands. At which point Collins removes Byrdak from the game. This one seems too strange to explain, so I'm just gonna move on.

Final Analysis:
There are no more words to describe what happened tonight. But I will say this: no matter how the season finishes up, Mets fans will remember these four games for a long, long time.

The victory gives the Mets their 6th series win in the past 8 (6-1-1) and puts them 2 games over .500 for the first time since they were 3-1. It also means that no matter the result tomorrow against Justin Verlander, the Amazin's will return home for the Subway Series a winning ballclub.

MM