Game #107: Nationals 3, Mets 0

Jose Reyes turns a dobule play in the Mets 3-0 loss to the Nationals Saturday. (NYDailyNews.com)

One knuckler that spun too much and an emergency starter were enough to bury New York's 5-game winning streak.

Yunesky Maya picked up his first major league win and the Mets' offense only got going when it was too late, falling to the Nationals 3-0.

The Bad Stuff:

• R.A. Dickey made one mistake. With 2 on and 2 out in the bottom of the 1st, his 3-2 knuckleball to Washington rich boy Jayson Werth spun a little too much. Werth made him pay by launching it into the lawn over the fence in left center.
• That 3-0 advantage was more than enough for Yunesky Maya. Maya was only on the mound because Jason Marquis, the Nationals' scheduled starter, was traded to Arizona hours before game time. I'm sure if he had any other options, Davey Johnson would have gone with them instead of Maya, whose career ERA of 6.31 must have made Met mouths salivate in the pregame. Needless to say, that number will go down after tonight: Maya baffled the Mets' bats with 5 1/3 innings of scoreless, 5-hit work. The bullpen kept New York down for the rest of the game, and just like that the Mets' 5-game winning and 4-game 8-run+ streaks were over in a brisk two and a half hours.
• Jose Reyes' struggles finally caught up to the rest of the team: Reyes went 0-4 tonight and has gone just 4 for his last 26. His first real slump of the season is a bit of a cause for concern, but the thing is, most of the time he's still been getting good wood on the ball, just been hitting it to the wrong spots. That happened at least twice tonight. Hopefully he will work himself out of this soon.

The Good Stuff:

• Aside from that one bad pitch, Dickey pitched a pretty solid game: 6 innings, those 3 runs on 6 hits. DJ Carrasco and Manny Acosta combined for 2 scoreless innings once Dickey took his exit.
• David Wright continues to knock the cover off the ball, going 2-3 to bring his average up to a very respectable .280. Jason Bay also went 2-4, making it 7 for his last 12.

Final Analysis:
On paper, this was a game the Mets should have won easy, the offense as hot as it was and the so-called pitcher Washington managed to scrape together. But games are not played or won on paper, and Mets fans had to live with that unfortunate truth tonight at Nationals Park. At least Davey Johnson was on the winning end of this one.

...But let's make sure to take the series tomorrow with Jon Niese on the mound. That would make this loss more acceptable, because who can argue with a series win on the road?

MM