The Mets defeated the Dodgers tonight by a score of 5-4 . Oliver Perez went 5 effective innings giving up 2 runs on 4 hits while walking 7. That is not a typo. Ollie walked SEVEN batters tonight and still somehow left with the lead and got the win.
Ollie looked a lot better than he did when he was so bad that he was placed on the disabled list. He had a good slider and was able to make pitches when he needed to. I will go as far to say that some of the walks were due to nerves and the others were Ollie being Ollie.
The other big story of the night was the Mets breaking their scoreless streak and their extra base streak. The Mets broke their scoreless streak in the second inning when Luis Castillo grounded an infield single to Rafael Furcal and barely beat it out for a hit. The streak ended at 23 innings and seemed to be a great burden off the Mets shoulders. In the fourth inning, the Mets erupted with 3 runs and pushed their lead out to 4-1.
Once that first run scored it looked as if the hitters were able to relax and put together good at bats and score some runs.
Bobby Parnell pitched 1 2/3 scoreless innings and was helped out by the defensive play of the year by Daniel Murphy. Mark Loretta hit a ball down off the first base bag and Murphy somehow was able to flip the ball behind his back to Parnell covering the bag for the out. This recap does not do the play justice and if you haven't seen it yet, do yourself a favor and watch Sportscenter.
Murphy certainly has cost the Mets a few games with shoddy defense, but this play ALMOST makes up for it.
Francisco Rodriguez made the game very interesting in the ninth, but was able to hold on for the save. Manny Ramirez led off the inning by taking a belt high fast ball and depositing it into the right field seats. K-Rod would then walk Casey Blake and after a strike out of Mark Loretta, gave up a base hit to Russell Martin bringing the tying run to plate. Andre Ethier ended the game grounding into a taylor made double play and breaking the Mets four game losing streak.
We were told that K-Rod could make things interesting, but always got the job done. His last two appearances have been great examples of that. All in all a much needed victory and another day off the calender for the Mets.
The Mets continue the series tomorrow night with Livan Hernandez taking on Randy Wolf at 7:10
Ollie looked OK last night - still too many walks - but he was able to get out of the jams. I think he will be OK as he pitches more and more. It was nice to get a victory finally last night after so many defeats.
Posted by: Clare | July 09, 2009 at 02:19 PM