Tom Seaver Fan Club

Things started out so good. Some good relief pitching and a big three run homer by Ramon Castro put the Mets a mere half game back of the Phillies. You know things are bad when your worst pitching outing is the one in which Pedro pitches.

Yesterday’s game started off innocently enough. The Mets gave Pedro Martinez a two run cushion on a Cliff Floyd RBI single and a Ramon Castro solo homer. Then in the fourth, Ryan Howard homered off of Pedro. No big deal, right? Two innings later, Chase Utley went yard to tie the game up. Then in the seventh, the Phillies tagged Pedro for two more homers, and the score was 5-2. The Phillies added three insurance runs (which they didn’t need) in the ninth off of Heath Bell. The Mets managed a grand total of six hits in the game.

This afternoon, things were even worse. Tom Glavine had a very nice game, but he would have had to have been perfect to walk away with a win. He went seven and gave up two runs on three hits with four walks and six strikeouts. This time the Mets only managed four hits, and the only run scored on Kaz Matsui’s ground out.

Ten hits in two days isn’t going to cut it. The only consolation is that a bunch of runs didn’t go to waste yesterday. The loss might have been even more annoying had we scored six for Pedro and still lost. Of course those three runs in the ninth might not have played out had the Mets had the lead.

So the Mets are 2 1/2 games back of the Phillies with the Astros and the Marlins in front of them. The Nationals (yes, they’re still hanging around) look like they’re going to lose, so they should drop a half game back of the Mets.

Another huge series is on deck this weekend. The Mets host the Marlins, who are a game ahead of the Mets and a game and a half back of the Phillies. Two out of three means we tie one of the teams ahead of us, and possibly more. A sweep would be huge.

Mike Cameron was placed on the 60 day disabled list, so as expected, his season is done. The bigger concern is Mike Piazza’s hand, which appears to be healing slower then expected. We need all of the offensive help we can get, so hopefully that situation changes soon. We’ll probably get another report from Will Carroll on the situation tomorrow.