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Post Game: Astros 5 Mets 4

by Matthew Cerrone on July 25th, 2009 at 9:00 am

The Mets (44–51) lost to the Astros (50–46) by the score of 5–4 in Houston last night.

For a full recap and boxscore, click here.

The Least you Should Know:

  • Johan Santana allowed 12 hits, a career high, in 6.2 innings, losing for the third time in five starts.
  • “I was just not able to come through tonight,” Santana said, who allowed a home run to Mike Hampton.
  • Omir Santos hit a solo home run.
  • The Mets had 13 hits, but left 10 runners on base.
  • The Mets have scored fewer than five runs 15 times in the last 20 games.

Misc., Etc., and Other Observations:

  • Mets had plenty of chanced to score tonight, but no shot of an extra base hit with this lineup… and certainly no chance of a home run.  So, it’s seemingly impossible t o claw back in to a game like this.  I mean, if they had 27 innings to work with, maybe, but with just 27 outs, single after single – and so few walks – is not enough.
  • In the seventh, Francoeur rounded third, coming from second, on a ground ball through the infield to right-fielder Hunter Pence, who has a very good arm.  a) I have no idea why Razor Shines sent him, short of what I said above and figuring, ‘We need to take a shot,’ but b) Francoeur needed to do a better job of taking out the catcher at the play at the plate.  He could have dropped his shoulder, and just barreled over the catcher standing square up the line.  Instead, he sort of ran in to him, despite what Jerry Manuel said after the game, and did a kind-of push and shuffle while running wide.  Weak.  Take him out, man.  I hate this trend in baseball these days, especially on the Mets.
  • Santana looked to be lunging again.  The thing that concerns me most about him is a) the variance between his fastball and change-up is not what it used to be, and b) the variance between change-up to change-up is not what it used to be, and so he’s basically just throwing batting practice, and the Astros were aggressive and just hitting him all night.  This is what he was doing in June, as well.  It was gone for a while, but now it’s back.

The Mets play game two of three against the Astros tonight at 7:05 pm, with Jon Niese (0-0, 5.91 ERA) pitching against Russ Ortiz (3-4, 4.33 ERA).