OF Ryan Church’s rbi single proved to be the winner as the New York Mets defeated the Pittsburgh Pirates 9-8 Thursday afternoon at PNC Park in Pennsylvania. On what was a supposed to be a scheduled off day for both clubs, the teams played an entertaining make up contest due to a rain out on June 3rd. NY came back from an early 5-0 deficit, led 8-5 and saw closer Francisco Rodriquez give up a shocking game tying homer in the 9th. However, Church drove in the winning run with single that plated 1B Fernando Tatis in the 10th, putting the Mets at an even .500(39-39) on the year and 2-0 in July after going 9-18 in June, their worst month since the 2003 season. “It was a roller coaster, especially the way the day started down 5-0, but it just shows you we are resilient,” Church said.
Hats off to the Mets who showed a lot of spunk and guts in this game. Down 5-0 without 3 star bats and playing their 17 game in as many days, a lot of pros would fold and quit, some of them played on the 2007 Mets!!! However, this group of vets and replacements battled back and got a much needed win going into the huge 3 game weekend series at the arch rival Philadelphia Phillies, the defending World Series Champions. “We could have just said, `Let’s pack up and head to Philly, it’s a short flight, let’s get this out of the way,’ ” said manager Jerry Manuel, who held a lengthy team meeting Tuesday in Milwaukee. “They chose to fight and I thought that was what was most impressive. We overcame a lot of things that were adversary.”
Mets starter, veteran RH Tim Redding(1-3,6.99), was awful and might be out of the rotation with LH Oliver Perez close to rejoining the staff in the next week or so. He gave up 5 runs and 6 hits over 2 and a third innings. Pirates C Robinson Diaz drove in runs with 2 hits, while 2 more scored via a bases loaded hit batsman and sacrifice fly. In the 3rd inning, it was 5-0 Pittsburgh and Mets skipper Jerry Manuel pulled Redding for lefty Pat Misch. In an underrated part of this contest, the NY long men kept the Pirates offense off the board and allowed the bats to come back with 3 and 2 thirds innings worth of scoreless ball.
The Mets comeback started gradually and rookie Daniel Murphy’s 2 run pinch hit single in the 4th scored Church and Tatis to make it 5-2. RF Gary Sheffield, Church and 1B Nick Evans all had rbi singles in the 5th to square the game at 5. OF Jeremy Reed then pinch hit and drove in Church with a sacrifice fly to amazingly make it 6-5 NY. What made the comeback even more impressive was it came against Pirates LH Paul Maholm, who was 3-1 with a 1.96 in 6 home starts. The Mets touched him for 6 runs and 11 hits in four and a third innings.
Fernando Tatis(3 hits, 4 runs) hit a two run shot in the 6th to make it 8-5 in the 6th but a solo shot by Garrett Jones in the 7th cut the lead down to 8-6. Mets closer Francisco Rodriquez took the mound in the 9th and had been 21 of 23 in save opportunities in 2009. After an infield single, Pirates 1B Adam Laroche homered to right center to shockinly tie the game at 8-8.
Pirates closer Matt Capps(1-4,4.88, 18 saves) retired the first 2 batters in the 10th but hit Tatis with a pitch. Tatis then stole 2nd and scored on Church’s single up the middle to put NY in the lead. Rodriquez , angry at blowing the save,then campaigned to pitch the 10th. “He said, `If we score, I need to go back out for myself,” Manuel said. “When one of your players is like that, of that stature and what he means to us, I knew if we came back and he didn’t go back out, he would carry that for a few days.” The key free agent signing of the 2009 offseason had an easy explanation,”I’m the kind of guy who (if he) makes a mess, cleans it up,” said Rodriguez, whose previous regular-season high was 42 pitches according to ESPN.com. “I felt really frustrated because I didn’t get the job done.”
Star of the Game: Church- His bat has to be huge with the names on the DL. Has had some big hits as off late.
Mets starting line-up:
1- 2B Luis Castillo
2- SS Alex Cora
3- 3B David Wright
4- RF Gary Sheffield
5- LF Fernando Tatis
6- CF Ryan Church
7- 1B Nick Evans
8- C Omir Santos
9- Pitcher
Game Notes: Thursday’s game was the first that the road team has won in the season series… The May 15th game vs the San Francisco Giants was the previous highest deficit overcome by the Mets. They were down 4-0 and rallied to win 8-6… Game was delayed 42 minutes due to rain…NY is now 12-19 in their last 31 games… Tatis was hit by 2 pitches… Mets made numerous position changes all game as Church started in CF and moved to RF with rookie Fernando Martinez taking over in Center. Evans moved to Left field with Tatis playing 1st… INF Argenis Reyes drew a pinch hit walk in the 7th and stole 2nd
Next Game:
Friday, start 3 game series at Philadelphia vs the World Champion Philles at Citizens Bank Park
7:05 pm
Mets RH Livan Hernadez(5-3,4.04) vs. Phillies RH Rodrigo Lopez(1st start since 2007, was 5-4 with 3.91 era in 13 Triple A starts. Career 65-65 with a 4.80 era in 7 seasons)
