Author: Drew Costello
In a crazy day where the Mets reshaped their roster, they held on to beat the Cardinals 6 to 4. Tim Redding got the win giving the Mets 7 strong innings and only giving up 4 runs on 5 hits. Redding was victimized by the long ball giving up homers to Brendan Ryan and Ryan Ludwick.However, he gave the bullpen much needed rest, which was stressed by Jerry Manuel before the game.
Redding was clearly pitching to try to save his job. Maine and Perez both pitched before the game and reports have them coming back sometime next week. Either way, he gave them what they desperately needed.
The Mets scored their runs by the way of singles and doubles last night. Considering the entire lineup last night had a total of 16 homeruns going into the game, this is going to need to be the way that they win ball games. In the first inning, they scored twice on 3 straight basehits from Daniel Murphy, David Wright, and Fernando Tatis, followed by a sacrafice fly by Ryan Church and a base hit by Omir Santos. The other key to the game is that The Mets got production out of the bottom of the order. Omir Santos and Luis Castillo combined to go 7-7 on the night, while Daniel Murphy went 2-5 with a homerun.
Ron Darling made the point about the roster last night that they can either get down about all the injuries, or see it as an opportunity. I hadn't thought of the situation like this and began to hope that they will treat this as an opportunity. Meanwhile, players like Castillo, Murphy, and Church need to be productive on a nightly basis to give the Mets an opportunity to win.
The key sequence in the game came in the 8th inning with Albert Pujols up with a runner on and The Mets leading 5-4. Brian Stokes was called in from the bullpen and got Pujols to ground into a double play to end the inning.
I've never understood why Manuel hasn't used Stokes more this year. He was the only pitcher that I felt The Mets could rely on last year and hasn't had many appearances in big spots this year.
The Mets continue their series Tuesday night against The Cardinals at 7:10.
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