Game #99: Mets 7, Marlins 6

Author's note:
I have been vacationing in South Haven, MI for the past few days, and early yesterday morning, my hotel was struck by lightning, frying the wifi and preventing me from posting last night. To my regular readers, I would like to say two things. First, wow, I've got regular readers! Cool. Second, I don't plan on missing posts; only acts of God will prevent me from doing so. (Please don't take that as an invitation, Almighty One.)

MM

And now, back to our regularly scheduled program.


The Mets had the Wright stuff tonight. Wright on, Mets. Some other third annoyingly obvious David Wright pun.

David Wright came through in the clutch and the Mets overcame rally after rally, holding on to beat the Marlins 7-6.

The Good Stuff:

• Wright returned to the New York dugout after two months on the DL. He made his presence felt right out of the gate with an RBI double in the 1^st inning. After three pedestrian outs in between, David came through again in the 8^th with another RBI double that broke a 5-5 tie and gave the Mets a lead they would not relinquish this time.
• New York had the lead throughout, just in different intervals: 3-0, 4-3, 5-3, 7-5, and finally 7-6. They had to keep the foot on the gas to hold off those charging Fish (as weird as that phrase sounds), but they were able to do just that.
• Wright’s first double got the scoring going in the 1st, and two more came in on Daniel Murphy’s single and Angel Pagan’s sac fly.
• With the score 3-3 in the 4^th, Jose Reyes singled and Justin Turner reached on an error. Carlos Beltran followed with a single to right to score Reyes.
• At 4-4 in the 7^th, New York had the bases loaded with none out. They could only plate one on Ronny Paulino’s sac fly, but it was enough to give the Mets the lead.
• …Until Florida tied it in the bottom of the 7^th. But Turner scored on Wright’s second double, and David came in right after on Murph’s double.

• Bobby Parnell surrendered a run, but not the lead, narrowly escaping the 8^th. Jason Isringhausen then came in and shut the door with a 1-2-3 9^th, earning his 2^nd save.

The Bad Stuff:

• Still, there is the matter of all those leads we had to regain…that falls on pitching. Mike Pelfrey wasn’t stellar, allowing 4 runs in 6 innings (hurt heavily by 4 rare walks). Pedro Beato put the tying run on in the 7^th, and that run came in on Tim Byrdak’s watch. Parnell got out of that jam, but even he struggled to hold it in the 8^th.
• Parnell’s problems can be placed to a degree on David Wright, whose error to lead off the inning ensured that there would be trouble. His 2-5, 2 doubles, 2 RBIs day is great, we’ll take it any day, but he did leave 3 runners aboard with two out in those pedestrian at-bats in between. But all is forgiven with that double in the 8^th.

Final Analysis:
The Mets had been playing exciting baseball while David Wright was on the DL, so some fans might not have even noticed his absence. Some have even argued that New York was better off without him (myself included after his rough April and May). Well, I’ll admit it: I was dead wrong. David Wright’s presence is of high value, and even though he though he has his deficiencies (he strikes out an awful lot), the New York Mets are a better team with him patrolling the hot corner. Welcome back, David.

MM