today as he walked 4 and had two wild pitches but he did K 8 D Backs but he really showed his Ace

colors in the 6th. He got two quick outs then fell behind 3-1 to Chris Snyder who then doubled to CF.

That set up an intentional walk to Chris Burke with Dan Haren on deck. Now Willie forced Bob Melvin

to make a decision, let Haren bat with  runners on 1st and 2nd 2 out in a 2-1 game or pinch hit

and hope to tie or take the lead and let his fine bullpen take over? Melvin opted to pull a very pissed

off Haren and sent up the hammy-strung Orlando Hudson. After getting ahead 0-1 on Hudson,

Santana showing fatigue, walks him on four straight pitches. Now Randolph has a decision with

Joe Smith warming in the pen, a tired Ace or a reliever who has been good? Rick Peterson comes out

to talk to Santana and the decision is made, it’s Johan’s game Go get em. Santana bares down and

gets ahead 0-2 on Chris Young and then gets an anxious Young to fly to Ryan Church in RF to get

out the jam.

Willie Randolph made a non-move that paid off in the 7th. Grampa Moises led off the 7th and made an

out and in the bottom of the 7th Willie left Alou in even though the Mets were up 2-1 and taking him out

for defense would seem to be the call and that would come back later to help the Mets in this game as

Alou hit a hard grounder over the head of Augie Ojeda to advance Carlos Beltran in the 9th but let’s stay

in the 7th inning and the performance of Joe Smith.

Smith came on to start the 7th and looked down right filthy. He got Ojeda and Eric Byrnes to strike out

but fell apart a bit on Justin Upton as he lost command of his slider and ended up walking Upton in what

could have been the turning point of the game as after that Mark Reynolds muscled an inside pitch which

shattered his bat with a single to tie the game at 2. Smith did recover and struck out Chris Snyder to end

the inning.

Pedro Feliciano and Jorge Sosa play lefty/righty in the 8th (no Heilman!) and that brings us to the 9th.

Carlos Beltran finally makes a contribution and leads off the inning with a single. Alou as I mentioned gets a

base hit (Willie is a genius) and now it’s 1st and 2nd no outs for Carlos Delgado. Oh yeah Endy now in for

Gramps. Delgado hit a hard grounder to Conner Jackson at first who is thinking 3-6-3 DP all the way but as

Ron Darling pointed out he threw off his back leg (I thought only 11 year olds do this?) and throws the ball into

LF allowing Beltran to score and it’s now 3-2 Mets and Billy Wags tears off his warm up jacket.

Now here is where Bob Melvin is lucky he’s in Phoenix and not NYC as he would be taken to task to no

end over this move. Brian Schneider (welcome back, a little shaky behind the plate today) bunts Endy and Delgado

over and leaves 2nd and 3rd for Gimp Castillo. Castilo is in a bad slump but even still he is a banjo guy so what

does Melvin do? He walks Gimp intentionally with full knowledge that Smokey Bugress….errrrrrr Marlon Anderson

THE top pinch hitter in the game is ready to hit for Sosa. I understand with 1 out and first base open you now

have the DP set up but Castillo has not been hitting and he has sore wheels I’d much rather take him on than a

professional hitter like Anderson. Anderson as all pinch hitters do, attacks the first pitch from Jose Cruz for

base hit that scores Endy and moves Delgado to third. Reyes comes up to finish it off with a sac fly and the Mets

have a 5-2 lead that Billy Wags saves and has Willie Randolph looking like John McGraw.