Mets vs. Cardinals

The Day After

Sunday Night Baseball's Mets-Cardinals matchup comes on the heels of a 20-inning contest. Without a doubt, my favorite thing about ballgames that go so ridiculously far into extra innings is that once a manager has used his entire bullpen, he has to get creative and put a position player on the mound in a desperate attempt to get outs.

Indeed, last night featured pitching performances from guys who aren't used to competing against major league hitters: Felipe Lopez, St. Louis' utility infielder, pitched a scoreless 18th; Joe Mather, the Cardinals outfielder, pitched two inning and was eventually sacked with the loss; and Fernando Nieve, the Mets setup man who sported an 8.44 ERA going into Saturday's game and whose poor effort in the series opener "earned" him the loss.

While it's nice the Mets were able to hang on for the win, the club's victory last night might end up hurting them in the medium/long term. Specifically, I'm afraid that the bullpen is being used too much. Last night the Mets offense wasted a fine performance by their one and only dependable pitcher, Johan Santana, who tossed seven scoreless frames, and in the process continued to tax a bullpen that has been used more than almost any other in the league.

Fun fact: through 11 games, the only NL team whose starting pitchers have thrown fewer innings than the Mets' starters is the Washington Nationals. Yikes.

It doesn't get any easier for the Mets anytime soon, as the team doesn't have a scheduled off-day until May 23. I'm not saying they should have forfeited or tried to lose last night, I'm just saying, maybe they should have let "Magic Man" Nieve stay in the ballgame until the Cards knocked him out of it, and keep the rest of the pen fresh for the weeks to come.

With that second-guessing of Jerry Manual out of the way, let's move on to tonight's presentation of Sunday Night Baseball on ESPN!

Pregame
Orel Hershiser points out that Adam Wainwright is the Cardinals' "Ace 1A" behind Chris Carpenter. To illustrate why Wainwright is an ace, Hershiser cites the tall righthander's innings pitchers total: "Out of a possible 18 innings pitched in his starts this season, Wainwright has pitched 15."

I get what Orel's saying, but that's a little deterministic, don't you think? I mean, would you say that Johan Santana pitched seven out of a possible nine innings last night? The starting pitcher doesn't have any control out of what happens once he leaves. Silly Orel.

First Inning
John Maine pitches to contact and the Cardinals make said contact, spraying fly balls all over the new Busch Stadium's outfield. Ryan Ludwick strokes a double to center, and after retiring Albert Pujols on another flyball to center field, Maine gives up a hit to Matt Holliday.

Fortunately, Holliday's knock is fielded by a charging Jeff Francouer, who fires a throw to home plate in time for Rod Barajas to tag out Ludwick, also charging.

Phew.

I think I'm okay with this pitch-to-contact approach form Maine, even though I'm terrified at the the thought of Pujols and Holliday making contact all day long.

Second Inning
Frank Catalanotto leads off the inning as the Mets' cleanup hitter, and Jeff Francouer follow with a walk. If these two facts aren't enough to signal the coming of the apocalypse, I'm not sure what are.

Through pluck, bloop, and error, the Mets pick up three runs, which is exactly one run more than they were able to scratch out in Saturday's 20-inning affair. You could certainly forgive both teams for failing to display their crispest ball, but the biggest boner of the inning was committed by Wainwright, who didn't even figure into last night's action, and whose attempt at nabbing Angel Pagan off first base ended up sailing into right field, allowing Gary Matthews, Jr. to scamper home to score the third Mets run of the inning.

In the bottom of the frame, John Maine struck out the first two Cardinals batters, including the "Black Sheep" Molina brother (as Bill Simmons has termed Yadier), who caught all twenty innings last night. If I owned Yadier in a fantasy league right now, I would find a way to roster another catcher for the upcoming week.

Once again, Maine gets himself into and out of a jam, striking out Wainwright after allowing Cardinal runners to reach first and third. Maine's been flirting with disaster so far tonight. He threw 28 pitches in this inning and is working hard to stay afloat. His luck can't last the whole game.

Third Inning

Thanks to ESPN, we get to relive the final at bat of the 2006 NLCS, a.k.a. Wainwright vs. Beltran. It's too bad Beltran is on the disabled list and thus not a participant in what has so far amounted to a mini-revenge session against Wainwright. At least his replacement in center field tonight, Angel Pagan (he of the second inning bloop), is doing his part to punish the Cards.

Alex Cora, David Wright, and Catalanotto go down in order (shocking, I know), and in the bottom half of the inning, Maine works the Cardinals hitters a little differently the second time through the order, playing hard to get and walking two batters in the process.

Many of Maine's pitchers are in the dirt; maybe he just doesn't have a feel for his full repertoire this early in the season, maybe he's just over-throwing. Whatever the cause, I continue to be worried about him. Rasmus just misses crushing Maine's first offering, and lines a ball hard to left for the third out of the inning. Manuel really needs Maine to give him at least five innings tonight to give the bullpen a rest (six seems out of the question at this point), and I just hope Maine can survive the test.

Fourth Inning
Wainwright seems to be settling into a nice rhythm, mixing in his good curveball and effortlessly delivering fastballs that dart into the strike zone with authority. In other words, he's pitching with a special level of confidence that comes from facing the Mets.

Adding possible injury to insult, Rod Barajas, the third batter in the inning, is hit by a pitch on his wrist but in an attempt to avoid getting struck turns around for an awkward swinging third strike, and starts toward first base with apparent tears in his eyes, apparently choosing to ignore the home plate umpire's "strike three" signal.

Before the start of the bottom of the fourth, ESPN broadcasters Jon Miller and Joe Morgan grill Mets manager Jerry Manuel about who will be available out of the Mets bullpen tonight. Manuel indicates that only a few of the regular arms (Igarashi, Feliciano, and Takahashi) might be called into battle tonight, "unless we have a chance to win." There ya go, Jerry! Nice confidence!

Meanwhile, John Maine's struggles continue. After issuing a walk to the pitcher (Wainwright), Maine receives a visiting from Mets pitching coach Dan Warthen, while Manuel gets the bullpen ready for the coming implosion. Somehow, Maine pitches out of trouble once again, but something tells me this isn't ending well.

Fifth Inning
Leading off the inning, Pagan gets his second hit of the game and is bunted to second by Maine. Wainwright issues a walk to the apparently fearsome Alex Cora and, facing David Wright with two men aboard, two strikes, and two out, pulls the string on an awesome curve that has Wright bending away in fear, the same pitch (as Jon Miller adroitly notes) that ended the Mets postseason run in 2006. Ugh.

Maine falls behind 3-0 on number two hitter Ryan Ludwick to start the inning before firing off two strikes and getting Ludwick to foul off a couple of offerings. Meanwhile, the ESPN announcers replay Maine's mound conversation with Warthen from last inning, with Maine imploring, "I am throwing my fastball!"

Okay, but his fastball is topping out at 87 MPH right now and he's throwing it way high to Ludwick, which means he's out of gas. After inevitably walking Ludwick, Maine gets Pujols to fly out on the first pitch but then gives up a single up the middle to cleanup hitter Matt Holliday.

This is the first Cardinal groundball of the game that I can remember, which is only appropriate because Maine reverts to his flyball-inducing ways in the next at bat by surrendering a game-tying homerun on a fastball thrown right down the pipe to Colby Rasmus, who had hit Maine hard in the previous at bat.

Maine mercifully retires the next two batters on flyballs to the outfield, but the damage has been done. Great. We got our five innings out of him. Blech.

Eighth Inning
(We skip ahead here, as I had to take an extended break from this game for dinner and a movie with the lady. We pick it up after two relatively uneventful innings, the score still 3-3).

Wainwright fans Jose Reyes and quickly retires Alex Cora (shocker, I know) before getting ahead of David Wright 0-2. Wright doesn't bite on a few superb curveballs by Wainwright but ultimately goes down swinging to end the inning.

Matt Stoner (?) faces the weak side of the Cards' lineup to start off the bottom of the eighth, his third inning of the ballgame. Stoner shuts down shortstop Brendan Ryan but Wainwright, batting for himself in the bottom of the 8th inning (!) strokes a double down the left field line with one out, and Manuel summons the veteran Pedro Feliciano to try to stymie the home offense.

Feliciano battles pinch hitter Felipe Lopez and finally strikes him out on eight pitches for the second out of the inning. Pedro has been with the big league club since 2002, longer than any current Met. In terms of longevity, he is the Albert Pujols of the Mets. No, he's never won an MVP or appeared in an All Star Game, but Feliciano has been a steady, reliable member of the Mets' relief corps for nearly a decade, and while he's a long way from having his uniform number retired by the team, I trust him more than any Mets reliever at this point.

Naturally, Manuel yanks Feliciano. Pedro's replacement, Ryota Igarashi, promptly serves up a first-pitch fastball to Ryan Ludwick, who plates the winning run on a deep fly to left center field. Cardinals win. Ugh.