This was the most impressive game that we have seen the Mets play all season. I think that they really responded to Terry Collins’s rant last night, but this response may only last one game. The game was played in two parts. The first part of the game was the first 2.5 innings and the second part was the last 6.5 innings of the game. The first part of the game completely belonged to the Pirates. In the top of the first inning, the Pirates had some lucky hits, but ultimately killed Pelfrey. They had two steals before the Mets recorded an out and 3 steals in the game. There was a meeting on the mound in the first inning as well. The big blows in the inning were singles by Andrew McCutchen and Matt Diaz. The Pirates scored 3 runs in the inning. After a 1-2-3 bottom of the 1st, the Pirates were at it again. Andrew McCutchen hit another RBI single and then Neil Walker hit an absolute bomb to right-center. It went over the 415 sign, the deepest part of the park, and continued on to hit the Dunkin’ Donuts sign. It probably traveled close to 440 feet and it scored 2 runs. The Pirates were leading 6-0, and then tacked on one more run in the third. It was 7-0 Pirates. To make things worse, Paul Maholm who came into the game batting .050 went 2-3 in the game. This was very typical Mets and every single person at Shea thought the game was over. We were in for our second Mets blowout loss in 2 games.
Paul Maholm at bat. He is about to get a single.
Now on to the second part of the game. This part belonged to the Mets. In the bottom of the third inning and down 7-0, Carlos Beltran hit a ball off of the facing of the left field middle deck and cut the score to 7-3. It was the first ball that I had ever seen hit past the lower deck in left field at Citi Field. This was nice, but so what. Nobody thought that the Mets would come back and win. But the Mets were not done. After a couple of boring innings, the Mets put together a great two-out rally in the 6th inning. With the bases loaded and two outs, Ruben Tejada hit a single to right to cut the Pirate lead to 7-5. Then, a pinch hitting Daniel Murphy singled as well to make it a one run deficit. In typical Mets-Pirates fashion, Ruben Tejada scored to tie the game on a passed ball by Pirates catcher Dusty Brown (who?). This was on the first pitch be Pirates reliever Chris Resop. Both pitcher and catcher were kind of a joke. At this point, Mets fans had a lot of confidence in their team. In the 8th inning, more disasters struck for the Pirates. First off, Jose Veras, the Pirates reliever was awful to say the least. In the 7 batters he pitched to, he got 2 out, gave up 1 hit, and walked 4 of them. After Ronny Paulino led off the inning with a single, he was pinch run for by Willie Harris. After this, Chris Capuano pinch hit for Jason Isringhausen. I was shocked when I saw Cappuccino pinch hitting, but he was only there to lay down a bunt. In typical Mets fashion, he was unable to get the bunt down, though Willie Harris did force a Veras balk and got to second. When Capuano had two strikes on him, something I never saw happened. Terry Collins pinch hit Josh Thole for Capuano in the middle of the at bat. Thole walked and then Ruben Tejada hit a sacrifice fly and Willie scored from third. Later in the inning, Veras gave up a bases loaded walk to Beltran to make the score 9-7 Mets. But the game was not over because K-Rod always makes games interesting. He gave up a leadoff triple to Xavier Paul, but Pittsburgh only scored once in the inning to give the Mets an impressive 9-8 victory. One thing to note about the final score is that Raphi, half-jokingly, predicted this score in the first inning. The first correct score prediction of the year goes to Raphi in a very strange game.
Jose Reyes Warming Up
To talk about the pitching briefly, Paul Maholm was fine except for the 3 run homer to Beltran and the 6th inning. Other than that, he was very impressive, but those things really hurt him. Pelfrey was pretty disgusting in this game giving up 7 runs in 5 innings, but luckily the Mets bailed him out and he avoided the loss. For the first time in a long time, the Mets bullpen did not blow the game. They were actually quite good. Congrats Tim Byrdak, Bobby Parnell, and Izzy. This was a big win for the Mets because if they lost this game, they would have lost 3/4 at home to the lowly Pirates. Even though it is not enough, at least they got 2 wins. This was the Mets biggest comeback in a game since June 30, 2000 when they came back from down 8-1 to the Braves. After Terry Collins’s rant last night, I expected the Mets to win this game, but not in this crazy fashion. I expect Collins’s rant to last one game and the Mets will return to their bad ways tomorrow night when they host the Braves. Terry was very happy about the win, almost too happy. He might have taken it as more than it actually was. I’m sorry, but all you did was beat the Pirates at home.
Pelfery on the Mound
Now on to the jokes from the game.
- Today’s Mets promotion was a Dunkin’ Donuts gift card. It is worth $2 at any Dunkin’ Donuts if you buy something there. It was a pretty meager reward for sitting through Mets-Pirates. Raphi was so disgusted with it that he gave his card to me. I am doubtful that I will use either card. Here is a picture of the card:
The Mets Dunkin' Donuts Give Away Card
- We wanted to go to Mets-Pirates batting practice today, but Raphi was 40 minutes late so we missed it. Fortunately though, we did get to the game in time for a softball home run derby. Even though they used metal bats, these guys were really able to smack the ball. I was actually surprised at how good they were. They hit many home runs. There were kids in the outfield trying to catch the balls and they all failed. See pictures and video below:
Kids in the outfield during the softball home run derby.
The Home Run Derby
- People actually sat in the upper deck of left field today! I was very surprised because this should have been the least attended game of the season. It was a Mets-Pirates day game. But people were out at the ballgame today. There were also a lot of schools that came out to Shea. Each school wore a different colored shirt and they all sat in a huge group so they were easily spotted. See pictures of upper deck left field and schools at the ballpark below:
Upper Deck Left Field
Upper Deck Left Field. People actually sat under the scoreboard!
Yellow Shirt School. Worst possible seats ever.
Some More Schools
Purple School in the Pepsi Porch
- After the home run derby and before the game started, there was really nothing going on. The Mets groundscrew was randomly watering the infield and the Mets were playing the radio in the background. They were popular songs and very unlike the Mets. See pictures of the groundscrew below:
Great picture of groundscrew. This is my favorite of the day.
- After the home run derby we decided to not leave our very good seats and go to our bad seats. Even though we got moved a few times, we never had to leave the area and we had very nice seats in the 10th row behind first base for the entire game.
- The highlight of the game for us was the paper, napkins, and plastic bags that blew onto the field. They just made the game even more of a joke. It was a very windy day and because of this, the field was covered with these things throughout the game. And they always huddled together. Sometimes there was a huge clump of napkins in left field, sometimes the plastic bags surrounded Angel Pagan in center, or sometimes they attacked Pelfrey on the mound. They also sometimes chased baserunners around the basepaths. See pictures and video below (Raphi claims that he was crying from laughter during the filming of the video):
Paper and Plastic Everywhere
Groundscrew working to get the field free of paper and plastic in between the innings. Needless to say, they failed.
More Paper and Plastic
- Because of all the wind, one of the security guards lost his light blue Mets hat and it blew onto the field. It was on the field for a good 5 minutes during game action. I wish it interfered with one of the plays. See picture below:
The Security Guard's Hat on the Field
- In the 7th inning stretch, Raphi got a shirt. I maybe should have gotten one also, but I had already caught 3 this year (I gave the first one I caught to Raphi). I already have 3 Mets shirts and I don’t know if I can stand any more of them. The shirts are wrapped with one of those long balloons that clowns use (we call it Petro’s armband) and after the last pitch of the game, I “fired away” the balloon. This expression comes from Peggle when you have such a big lead that you can just fire away and you will still win. Speaking of Peggle, I had a great shot on the train ride home from last night’s game. See a video of it below. Also see how Raphi used his caught shirt:
Raphi's Mets t-shirt catch. He decided to use this shirt to protect his legs from getting sunburned. Typical usage of a Mets prize.
- Here are a few more pictures from the game:
Jose Reyes Warming Up
Nick Evans Being Nick
Pelfrey Preparing for his Terrible Start
Matt Diaz, a Right Field Fan Favorite
Dusty Brown, Pirates Catcher. He had 4 at bats on the season coming into today and he has a great name.
Paul Maholm. He came into the game batting .050 and he still got 2 hits.
- After the game ended, we went behind the Mets dugout to try to get something from one of the players. I was sort of expecting something because they won, but I got nothing. I was kind of disappointed, but that is because I am very spoiled. In the 10 or so games that we have went to, we have caught 4 throw away Pepsi Max Shirts, got two Chevrolet Mets black shirts, 4 free tickets (to Mets-Phillies and Mets-Pirates), got 3 balls, and Angel Pagan’s hat. That is an impressive list, if I do say so myself.
If the Mets lost this game, Terry Collins would have been so angry with them, but I guess the pressure will be off them for one more day. I can’t see them beating the Braves tomorrow night, though. Here at KHH, we have some exciting events coming up. On Saturday, we will likely attend Red Bulls-Columbus Crew, possibly with Sam. Then, on Sunday night, it is possible (but unlikely) that we will go to Mets-Braves. If we do not go to this game, our last chance to see the Mets will be the day before I leave to go to camp on Friday, June 17 when they play the Angels. Next Tuesday, we will be back at Citi for Greece Ecuador. I am really looking forward to this and it should be great.
Soccer at Citi!
Kim Had Humps 