Delgado Finishes What Wagner Doesn't, 4-3

"It was a dark and stormy night..."

Pedro Martinez, pitching in a game punctuated by sweeping rains, frequent dashes onto the pitch by the Diamond Dry brigade, won his 6th game of the season against no losses with a typically dominating, 6 inning, 3 hit, 9 K outing, the sole flaw being the 1st inning homer surrendered to Freddy Sanchez

That doesn't mean Billy Wags didn't cock it all up a mere strike away from victory for Pedro and the Mets by blowing the save, his first blown save of the season, allowing a pair of walks and then a pair of singles in the 9th to tie a game that was heading for certain victory. Ok, let's not lose our heads - after all, even with this debaucherous outing, his ERA is still hovering at the 1.80 mark. For a change, David Wright couldn't be blamed for Wagner's flailing.

How do you think Pedro feels?



Of course the real pisser for The Army was that this game should have been over by 2:30 ayem, UK time allowing an early nap before heading off to work but noooo. Another sleepless evening forecast.

Through the first 8 innings the Mets had left 11 runners stranded and had their hits come along in a more timely fashion we might have been watching Jorge Julio mopping up instead of Wags slopping up but that's probably besides the point.

The extra innings allowed time for the Kaz Man to earn his first error of the season in the 10th inning when he bobbled Chris Duffy's grounder - Duffy, a .198 hitter this season, was so happy to see first base, he was picked off by Ramon Castro a few pitches later.

It also afforded us the chance to see former Met Roberto Hernandez waddle out of the bullpen for the Pirates and eventually face pinch hitter Julio Franco in a matchup of ageless wonders.

Most importantly, it allowed us Carlos Delgado's GAME WINNING HOMERUN in the bottom of the 12th inning, a sweet swinging blast over the left field wall that mercifully concludes my morning at 3:50 ayem, UK time, his 11th dinger of the season and giving the Mets their 18th win of the season. Delgado's 4th career walk-off homer.

Wonder if he'll write about this in the Carlos Delgado Diary...

*****

An interesting bit of law-of-averages managing from Willie noting that lefties were hitting .444 against Pirate starting pitcher Ian Snell and snipping Endy Chavez into the lineup in place of Xavier Nady. Chavez responded with 4 base hits, not to mention a fabulous, full-out diving catch in the 11th to wipe out a potential lead off double for Freddy Sanchez.

Law of Diminishing Bats

Perhaps nothing to be alarmed about - after all, what goes up must come down and after a sensational start, the Mets batting order is quickly going pear-shaped. Over the last 7 days going into tonight's game, Beltran was hitting .231, David Wright .130, Carlos Delgado .136, the Kaz Man .217 and Xavier Nady .250.

Perhaps more interesting to note as it would appear to be a career-long trend of sorts, Carlos Delgado has struck out more times (30) than he's had hits (29) going into tonight's game. In fact, Carlos has almost twice as many strikeouts than any other Met. Going through the years, this shouldn't be suprising. Since 1996, Delgado has struck out 139, 133, 139, 141, 104, 136, 126, 137, 115 and 121 times. At the current rate he might end up with as high as 150 Ks this season. Almost Jose Hernandez territory. Hernandez of course, had the game-tying RBI single in the top of the 9th off Wagner.

Fortunately for the Mets, supersubs like Endy Chavez, and Ramon Castro, who is hitting .393 this season, are filling in the gaps during this early swoon.

*****

Tomorrow Tom Glavine faces Paul Maholme (1-3 5.86), who was Pittsburgh's Minor League pitcher of the year in 2005. Anyone smell another fruitless night at the plate against a relative no-name pitcher?