Mets baseball blog

Bloom off Livan rose

If things continue like this, it may be more relevant for the Mets to look over their shoulders than ahead to the Phillies. So, for the record, the Mets' lead over the last-place Nationals was sliced to 15 games Thursday night.

Livan Hernandez outdid last weekend's miserable performance in Philadelphia and the Mets lost to the Dodgers, 11-2, at Citi Field in Thursday night's rubber game.

The Mets (40-44) lost their fourth straight series, excluding a rainout makeup victory in Pittsburgh, and are 3-10 over that stretch. They also dropped a season-high 5-1/2games behind the Phillies, who beat Cincinnati. Continue

A typical Ollie outing ends in a win for Mets

It had been a total run of zeroes lately for the Mets. Zero runs. And zero wins.

But on the night Oliver Perez returned after a two-month stint on the disabled list, the Mets remedied their own inept play last night and survived Perez's shaky-but-successful start and K-Rod's shaky-but-successful finish to knock off the best-in-baseball Dodgers 5-4 at Citi Field. They also stopped their four-game losing streak and scored a run for the first time since Saturday afternoon.

 "We needed to win a game," manager Jerry Manuel said. Continue

Pelfrey rocked, bats silent in Mets loss

Manny Ramirez put on a show Tuesday night against the Mets at Citi Field and it was worth every cent of the price of admission. From the moment he stepped into the batter's box to a venomous chorus of boos in the first inning to the moment he walked off the field as fans cheered his ejection in the fifth, you couldn't take your eyes off him.

It was only the third contest since baseball's newest outlaw completed a 50-game suspension for use of a banned substance, and time away hasn't cooled the tear he's been on since the Red Sox dealt him to the Dodgers last July 31.

In an abbreviated appearance, he had two hits and three RBI to back Clayton Kershaw's six scoreless innings as Los Angeles beat the crumbling Mets, 8-0. The Dreadlocked One is hitting .340 with 24 RBI in 31 games. Continue

Bad News Mets have 4 all-stars

The Mets defied logic yesterday by landing four invitations -- most in the entire National League -- to the July 14 All-Star Game in St. Louis.

Despite sitting three games under .500 and four games back in the East, third baseman David Wright and center fielder Carlos Beltran were voted in as starters, while Johan Santana and closer Frankie Rodriguez were tabbed by NL manager Charlie Manuel of the Phillies. Continue

Mets swept by hated Phils

The Mets are officially half bad.

Joe Blanton and three relievers combined on a four-hitter as the Phillies swept the weekend series with a 2-0 win over the Mets and Johan Santana yesterday at Citizens Bank Park.

The Mets fell to 39-42 at the halfway point of the 162-game schedule. They also fell four games behind the first-place Phillies and remained tied for third with the Braves.

If they don't turn things around soon, and the Phillies maintain the mojo they seem to have rediscovered this weekend, winning the NL East might not be a realistic possibility much longer for the Mets. Continue

Bad news Mets rear ugly head again in loss to Phils

The injuries can no longer be used as an excuse.

No matter how many Four-A players the Mets have playing out of position these days, manager Jerry Manuel's depleted club has only itself to blame for losses like yesterday's dreary, 4-1 setback to the Phillies.

There is something fundamentally wrong with the Mets these days, and it's a lack of basic defensive fundamentals.

They looked like something out of "The Bad News Bears" once again, misplaying two foul pop-ups in the same inning en route to their seventh loss in nine games. Continue

Mets get blown out early in loss vs Philly

Want to get better in a hurry? Play the Mets.

That strategy certainly worked for the Phillies here last night as they handed manager Jerry Manuel's injury-ravaged club a 7-2 whipping at sold-out Citizens Bank Park.

Philadelphia was coming off a three-game sweep by the Braves in Atlanta and was playing its first game at home since a 1-8 homestand, but a dose of terrible pitching by Livan Hernandez and even worse defense by the Replace-Mets fixed the rival Phillies right up. Continue

Mets win wild one in extra innings

Fernando Tatis hobbled home with the decisive run. K-Rod demanded to make amends. And the Mets avoided further embarrassment Thursday. Barely.

Summoned to protect a two-run lead in the ninth in a rainout makeup against the Pirates on the eve of a series in Philadelphia, K-Rod served up a game-tying homer to Adam Laroche to suffer his third blown save in 24 chances. The Mets survived for a 9-8 win, though, as Ryan Church's two-out single in the 10th off Matt Capps scored Tatis when center fielder Andrew McCutchen air-mailed a throw to the plate after scooping the slick baseball on the wet turf. Continue

Pelfrey mans up, stops bleeding for a day

His team in a tailspin, and Brewers' ace Yovani Gallardo primed to complete a sweep at Miller Park, Jerry manuel's sense of timing seemed off in calling for a postgame meeting late Tuesday night. For a guy who is known to read the writings of MLK and Gandhi, this was not out of the Manager's Handbook.

"I don't know if anything really works," Manuel said. "Normally what people do is they don't wait until they face the No. 1 starter - they wait until their No. 1 starter is pitching and then have a meeting."

But after Johan Santana was rocked on Tuesday, that wasn't an option. Good thing Mike Pelfrey, technically the Mets' No. 2, picked the right spot for one of his best starts of the season. Pelfrey pitched 7 2/3 scoreless innings to outduel Gallardo, who had a career-high 12 strikeouts, and Ryan Church's RBI single in the sixth was the difference in the Mets' 1-0 win Wednesday. Continue

Mets on fast track to being irrelevant, lose 5 in a row

 What began as a baseball season for the Mets has now developed into a Twilight Zone episode about a team that does the inexplicable on a nightly basis. And last night, during a postgame meeting that kept the clubhouse door shuttered for 28 minutes, Jerry Manuel told his players that it had to stop.

A comical misplay by the rookie Fernando Martinez, along with a costly throwing error by Johan Santana, opened the door for the Brewers to score four runs in the fourth inning and hand the Mets their fifth straight loss, this time by a score of 6-3 at Miller Park.

"We just had a family talk," Manuel said. "Just keeping things in order. Lots of things."

When pressed further, the manager added: "I'll give you this - the whole key was that we have enough. We've got enough in here to do what we need to get it done. Let's get it done." Continue