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The Mets (87–70) defeated the Cubs (95–61) by the score of 6 to 2 in Shea Stadium tonight.
For a recap, boxscore, and stats, click here.
Johan Santana, Jose Reyes and David Wright 
are arguably the three biggest stars on the Mets, they are the three men who we expect to carry this ball club during times of struggle, and tonight they pushed their team to a much, much-needed win.
Santana pitched eight innings, struck out 10 of the 33 batters he faced, let up seven hits and just two runs, while throwing 125 pitches. He even got a hit in the fifth inning, on a broken-bat single that could have been an inning-ending double play, until the ball ricocheted off the end of the broken bat and slipped by the shortstop letting the inning continue.
The Mets are 10–3 in Johan Santana’s 13 starts in the second half of this season, during which he is 6–0 with 2.38 ERA.
Later in the inning, with Mets down two runs, and with two outs and the bases loaded, Wright shortened his swing, pulled the ball for a single and tied the game. I’m no professional statistician, but I call believe this is known as ‘clutch.’
Lastly, after Santana ran hard out of the box to beat out a potential double play, Reyes hit a bases-clearing triple to give the team a lead it would never relinquish. Reyes let out a series of claps, points and fist pumps as he pulled up in to third base.
By the way, the Phillies lost tonight – meaning the Mets are just one loss back of first place in the NL East with five games left in the season. Hey, Ya Gotta Believe.
Okay, exhale. This is a big win, there is no getting around it.
I look forward to a long night of sleep.
I think we have all earned it.
The Mets continue their four-game series against the Cubs tomorrow night, starting at 7 pm, with Oliver Perez (10–7, 4.10 ERA) taking on Carlos Zambrano (14–6, 3.77 ERA).
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He sounds like Mike Tyson when he is interviewed!
The mets are done the pirates stink and will hand the brewers the next 2 the mets are not going to win the next 2 games against the cubswake up The brewers are going to get the wildcard wake up people the mets are done I know I sound like a wet blanket but reality must set in .Plus in the weekend series against the cubs there will be no zambrano or harden due to rest for the playoffs great news for the breweres yip e!!!
We are stuck with omar for four more years of bad decisions great future for this team
Well thought out and intelligent!!
and with superior punctuation.
No offense, and I seriously mean no offense.. but
You have the IQ of a doorknob. Or a waffle maker. Or any other inanimate object.
What I’m trying to say is… your stupidity level is so intense, that it’s actually making people around you stupider.
Yip e!
Don’t insult waffle makers. Waffles are wonderful, and waffle makers are excellent gifts.
Whereas that post was just ridiculous…
Are you a Met fan? If so, are you sure? Be honest with yourself now.
I want a 16 game win streak!!!!! Hey, I can dream.
“Ya gotta believe” belongs to “Tug” McGraw and the 1973 Mets. That team was 44-57 on 7/31/1973 and came back to win the division with a 82-79 record. But the most important thing that is often overlooked is that the club went 19-8 in the month of September. They beat the Big Red Machine in the playoffs and took the great A’s team to a 7th game in the WS. If Rusty Staub doesn’t get injured in the playoffs I believe the Mets would have won it all.
Let the 2008 Mets write their own script.
…and come up with their own catchphrase. We should come up with some candidates, and Matt can run a poll.
I think “Ya Gotta Believe” is this organizations mantra. Although, last year it didn’t too much.
I’m sure someone brought this up at some point, but in the event of a 3-way tie between Mets-Phils-Brews, is the first tiebreaker for Eastern Division title and Mets get in by virtue of better head-to-head with Phils? Or is there a 3-way playoff?
I would think a 3-way playoff if it were for one playoff spot, but in this case, my guess would be that they settle division first.
In this event, it would get complicated but there obviously would be a chance for each of these teams to play. The Brewers are only capable of winning the wild card, so you’d imagine they only deserve one game to win it. The loser of the game would than play the Mets or Phillies.
What I’m thinking is we’d see a division one series game between the Phillies and Mets at Citizens Bank. Than the loser plays the Brewers at home on Tuesday.
no way mlb makes a team play 2 extra games then, if they make it, the playoffs. completely screws there rotation. i think in a three way tie since the division is between us and the phils we would get it by virtue of our better record against the phils this season and the phils and brews duke it out for the wildcard. keeps it down to one deciding game intstead of two.
Nope, that’s not how it works. In a 3 way tie, we would play the Phillies for the division, and the loser plays Milwaukee for the wild card. If the Brewers fall out of the wild card, then the Mets and Phillies don’t need to play a game and it will be determined by the head to head records.
DelGODo for MVP 08
Castillo for scapegoat 08
I was at the game tonight and i swear everyone was so pumped about cheering for everyone except castillo. it seemed just as natural to cheer for jose’s 200th hit as it was to boo castillo’s at bats
Well, I was there too, and people weren’t booing Castillo’s at bats so much as they were booing his strikeouts, groundouts, etc. I mean, at least they weren’t preemptively booing him.
But yeah, I think it’s safe to say Luis Castillo is not a fan favorite.
Comment by backinbusiness
2008-09-23 15:09:58
I am not actually this optimistic (read: insane), but the following is not wildly beyond the realm of comprehension:
Tonight: Mets win, Phillies lose, Mets 1.5GB
Tomorrow: Mets and Phillies do same thing, Mets 1.5GB
Thursday: Mets win; Phillies idle; Mets 1GB
Anything can happen in that 3 days series — anything.
And that’s completely without help from the Brewers.
Believe time. Gotta fake it til you make it.
–
STEP 1: CHECK.
I wouldn’t disagree with that, but that may not be such a bad thing. What I am hoping for is rain on Thursday so this team gets a day off - unless they suddenly get hot of course. The good thing about rain is it will allow us to skip over on Thursday and it’ll postpone that Cubs game until Monday. This will allow us to skip over Pedro. Or allow us to only have to choose one of Pedro, Brandon Knight, Nelson Figueroa and Jon Niese for Saturday. I’d prefer Knight.
We’re in command of the NL Wild Card so I don’t see an excuse why we can’t do it. The Mets have lost enough games in their last 10 - six to be exact to owe us 5 consecutive wins. We all know they’re capable of it. And we all know it won’t be easy for the Brewers with the Cubs in town this weekend.
My prediction is:
Wednesday: Mets win, Brewers lose, Phillies win
Mets down 2.0 in NL East, up 1.0 in Wild Card.
Thursday: Mets get rained out, Brewers win, Phillies idle
Mets remain down 1.5 in NL East, up 1.5 in wild card.
Friday: Mets win, Brewers lose, Phillies win
Mets down down 1.5 in NL East, up 2.5 in Wild Card.
Saturday: Mets lose, Brewers win, Phillies lose
Mets down 1.5 in NL East, up 1.5 in Wild Card.
Sunday: Mets win, Brewers lose, Phillies win.
Mets down 1.5 in NL East , clinch the NL Wild card with a lead of 1.5 and major league baseball will say the Mets will not have to play the 162nd game because it can’t impact the standings. If there is a game, enjoy the last day of Shea.
Overall Records in last 5 games:
Mets: 3-1
Phillies : 3-1
Brewers: 2-3
This rain could have alleviated us. I know there’s a lot of people who are thinking that if we threw Pelfrey on Monday which would push him to Saturday it’d cause Knight or Niese and Pedro to go back to back. This probably wouldn’t turn out to be true.
With that being said, they’ll be a tough choice of who to throw out on Saturday. If there’s rain, my guess is they’ll turn to Pedro even though it’s not a good choice. Johan can’t throw on 3 days rest off of 125 pitches and Ollie will have to pitch deep tomorrow so that’s not an option. I would maybe consider the option of Bobby Parnell though.
What I meant to say was down 1.5 in NL East on Wednesday and get up to 2.0 in the Wild Card lead by the end of tomorrow.
I still see mixed responses on here, but I understand them. Let’s take a step back here though. Yesterday, we were angry. We were upset. We just wanted to see a win and we got it. I am not saying we should let than anguish go until it’s justified. What I’m saying is that we still need to be intense. It’s only natural to be nervous. I am still not happy. I am happy with this win, but I know how quick the tides can turn. I can not allow one game to convince me that everything has changed. I will say the Phillies loss gave me a bit of confidence in the NL East though.
We can’t have the mentality every time the Mets lose a game, the world ends. And every time them win one game, the world is restored. This isn’t how things work. I know this is how it may seem when there are 5 games left, but if we go into these games clear headed and giving it out all I really do believe we can win like 3 or 4 of these remaining 5.
It’s nice that we’re hanging on, and I’m thrilled to see the team showing signs of life, but we’ve got a lot more work to do here.
There is one, and only one way to ensure we make it into the postseason, and that is to win. A lot. Forget what Philadelphia and Milwaukee do; we were fortunate that the Phils lost today, but we can’t count on that, nor can we count on the Brewers losing a lot. Both are worthy adversaries and both are as good as we are, possibly even better (actually, I’d say both teams are probably better in some areas, worse in others).
IIn any case, neither the Phils nor the Brewers are going to lay down and die. They both have a lot of fight left in them. We cannot count on them losing; we must win.
Tuesday’s win was huge and yes, it was uplifting. But it’s still the first game we’ve won in four games. A .250 record from here on out is not going to do it. I want to see Jerry and company pulling out all the stops here. We are way past “business as usual” now. We need to see some creativity. And a lot of wins.
It seems sill to say it, but a lot of people lose sight of the trees with all that forest around. We (and by “we” I actually mean the Mets players and managemen) have to remember that there is one and only one sure path to the playoffs: Winning. We should play like each game from here on out is the most important game of the year, because… well, because it is.
So… deep breaths, everyone. And let’s soldier on.
Sorry for the typos above. It’s late, and my keyboard is apparently in need of replacing …again. You get the idea, though.
zambrano has owned the mets….this is going to be a tough one…lets hope we see zambrano from his last start where he couldnt get out of the first couple of innings and not see the one one where he threw a no hitter…..
BELIEVE
wouldn’t quite call it owned…. 4-1 with a 2.92 ERA is very good..but he has walked 20 in 37 innings and given up 14 runs (12 er) ….with almost 1 HR per start…we can hit him
FIRE OMAR … good win last night …
Are you going to start every post for the next 4 years with “Fire Omar?” That ship has reportedly sailed, whether you like it or not. Can we let it go and concentrate on the positive?
I love how this team doesn’t have to count on one star every day. Lately it’s been Delgado or Beltran. Last night it was Reyes and Wright. What a luxury it is to have those four guys in the same lineup every day.
It is! Plus Murphy, plus Evans is looking promising, plus eventually we’ll hopefully see a return to form for Church, and Tatis will be back… Maybe not ’til next year on both of these but if we’ve got everyone healthy, we’ve got a formidable lineup. Even without everyone healthy, we STILL have a formidable lineup.
I was looking at the leader boards in various stats last night, and it’s really interesting to see how many Mets are represented in the top 10 in each category. Look at the NL RBI board in particular. Yes, Ryan Howard leads that category with 141, which is impressive, but search the top 50 for more Phillies players and you find Utley (#10 with 100) and Burrell (#28 with 85). That’s a total of 326 RBIs for the Phil’s top 3 run producers.
Now look at the Mets. They have slots #2 (Wright, 122), #4 (Delgado, 110) and #5 (Beltran, 109). Total? 341. As a team, our regulars produce more runs (though it’s close), but even more importantly, it’s better distributed.
You can find the same kinds of things in the Hits category, in the Runs category. I guess we don’t have that one breakout star (MVP, anyone?) like the Phils do, but offensively, we’ve got more depth by far.
It’s funny because if you would’ve asked most fans what the team’s strenght was, they’d say Starting Pitching. But the teams offense can’t be overlooked.
LOL. Doesn’t really trip off the tongue, though.
Won’t fit on a sign someone holds over their head on TV, either.
mr.gee21 just made my day