Good Morning Mets Fans!

Encore! Encore!

Thanks to a sterling effort by Mets ace Johan Santana, the Mets kept pace with the Phillies and added a game to their wild card lead.

With only 10 games left in the season, every day is like an epic play being acted out before our very eyes. Yesterday, Johan Santana gave us a Tony award winning performance in the lead role.

Johan pitched seven strong innings and only allowed 1 earned run against a team that can hit. He pitched quickly, efficiently, and most certainly could have pitched deeper in the game had the situation called for it.

"We know every time he takes the ball he’s going to put us in good position to win a game," Jose Reyes said. "He’s one of the best pitchers in the game. It’s a real good feeling when he goes to the mound."

"I’m just like anybody," Manuel said. "When you have a pitcher like that you feel good the night before, obviously after the last game and you know you’ve got him. Once the game starts, it’s still baseball. Anything can happen. He seems to be a guy that rises to that occasion every time. It makes it exciting to say that he’s the guy that night, especially because the games are so big."

With a sparkling 2.65 ERA on the year, 2nd in the NL, Santana has had an impressive debut with the Mets. He is also second in the league in Innings Pitched, 6th in Ks, and 12th in Wins. With a better bullpen behind him he would most likely be the NL Cy Young front runner.

He has pitched his best ball in the latter part of the season, going 7-0 with a 2.26 ERA over his last 14 starts. He's an ace....a big-game ace.

His teammates helped him, and themselves out, with some excellent at-bats.

Brian Schneider hit a pair of homeruns, Daniel Murphy had two hits in the 2 hole, and Jose Reyes, Ryan Church, and Carlos Beltran all had RBIs.

Jose Reyes is really heating up--he has that look about him--the caged panther at the plate. Jose is batting an even .300 over his last 7 games with a .533 slugging percentage.

Jose knows the pressure is on him to succeed, to drive the train, to lead the charge and produce runs. "You hear people say, when Jose Reyes goes, the Mets go," Reyes said.

The hottest Met of all is Carlos Beltran. All he's done in September is hit .386 with an incredible 1.207 OPS. Beltran is hitting to all fields, driving the ball, legging out exra base hits, and playing some of the best center field of his life.

So while Reyes and Beltran are hot, other players look like they are coming around. Ryan Church is hitting a bit; the aforementioned Brian Schneider looks relaxed up there; Delgado continues to have excellent at bats and produce.

The one guy who desperately needs a change of scenery is David Wright. He has been Mr Hot and Cold the last few weeks, and right now he is cold as ice. I thought that Jerry Manuel might sit him one of these last two games, but they are just too important right now.

Now the Mets head to Atlanta for their final road games of the year....a 3 game set against the always pesky Braves. Then it's back home for 3 with the Marlins and 4 with the Cubs.

10 games. That's it. Win 9 of them and they are guaranteed a spot in the playoffs. Anything less, and it's going to take help from the Phillies and Brewers opponents.

Enjoy your coffee--Act II is tonight!

Scoreboard
Final	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	R	H	E
N.Y. Mets (85-67) «	1	2	2	1	1	0	0	0	0	7	11	0
Washington (58-95)	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	1	0	2	13	1

Players of the Game

New York B. Schneider AB 4 R 2 H 2 HR 2 RBI 2

New York J. Santana IP 7.0 H 8 ER 1 BB 2 K 8

Good Morning Mets Fans!

It was a tale of two games in one.

In the first game, Brewers starter Ben Sheets quickly mowed down the Mets lineup. The Mets had one real chance to do some damage, and it came early.

In the first inning the red-hot Jose Reyes led off the game with a double.

Jose Reyes continues to lead the NL in hits with 180. He is in the midst of an 11-game hitting streak, going 18 for 50 over that span with 6 games with double-digit hits.

Mistake 1 followed--Daniel Murphy tried to bunt Reyes over--a horrible play. There are no outs in the top of the 1st, Reyes gets to third on anything, Murphy is a lefty going against a righty, etc, etc. Murphy popped out.

Mistake 2 followed--Jose Reyes gets thrown out trying to steal third. Again, Reyes scores on any hit David Wright can come up with there, so stealing third so early in the game doesn't really help the team as much as it can hurt--risk-reward--not worth the risk.

Mistake 3--DW Ks. Not really a mistake, but it shows how a promising inning quickly went south.

It was a pitching duel for 6 innings--Johan Santana allowed a first inning run, and then the two starters traded zeros for a while. The game had a "feel" to it, and for Mets fans it wasn't a good one as the Brewers seemed just a little bit sharper, both pitching and hitting.

Then two quirky things happened--in the 5th inning Ben Sheets left the game with tightness in his "left groin". I didn't realize I had two groins! Woohoo! I got two groins!

Then, in the 6th, Santana allowed his second run of the game on a balk with runners on second and third. I was watching, of course, when the balk occurred, and Brian Schneider was absolutely changing the signs or doing something with his fingers just as Johan went into his set. Santana stepped back, but it was too late--balk called. Strange play and the Mets were down 2-0 after 6 innings.

Overall Santana pitched a heck of a game--2 ER, 10 Ks and only 1 BB against a Brewer team that has the second best home record in the NL.

At this point the "first game" was over--Brewers 2, Mets 0. Fortunately, the first game didn't count.

In the "second game" the Mets took over.

They scored their first run in the 7th, but it was the 8th inning, with a Carlos Delgado blast, that put the Mets on top to stay.

What more can really be said about Carlos Delgado?

• Most home runs and RBIs in baseball since June 27th? Check.
• NL MVP candidate? Check.
• Leader of the team? Check.
• Playing a great first base? Check.
• More vocal and a great cheerleader for his club? Check.
• Still looks like the "Hats for Bats" guy from the movie Major League? Check.

Carlos did it again yesterday--with Eric Gagne on the mound, brutal late afternoon shadows, and his team in need of a hit, Delgado saw a fastball and, with one mighty flick of his wrists, deposited the ball into the rightfield stands and electrified all of Met Nation.

"Carlos has been amazing," New York manager Jerry Manuel said. "If he's swinging it well, he seems to come up at the right time and put a good swing on it. He's been outstanding."

"Probably the worst shadows that I've been involved with since I've been in professional baseball, but it goes the same way for both teams," Delgado said. "It was pretty tough, but whatever. We got it done."

"Good teams do this," Delgado added. "It's important. It shows that you can do it. Ideally, you want to be ahead but if you're not you've got to put together some good at-bats, get some baserunners and come up with a big hit. It says a lot about the character and the will we have with this ballclub."

The Mets added a run on a Carlos Beltran single and a Ryan Church double. The bullpen came on in relief of Santana and shut the door with 5 Ks in 3 scoreless innings.

Nelson Figueroa pitched the 7th for the win, Joe Smith and Pedro Feliciano looked terrific in striking out the side in the 8th, and Luis Ayala earned his 4th save as a Met with a flamethrowing 9th.

"They stepped up and attacked the hitters," Jerry Manuel said. "Threw strikes. I felt that going in, a lot of our right handers appear to match up well with this team. They're a very aggressive hitting club. We were able to get it done."

It wasn't all good news for the Mets though. David Wright continues to struggle a bit, Reyes was thrown out at third and picked off of first, and Carlos Beltran bruised his knee on a slide at home in which he collided with a woefully out of place Ed Rapuano, who got caught up watching something other than what he was supposed to be watching.

But let's not nitpick--this was a huge win, all in all a great day--the Phillies lost to the Nats, allowing the Mets to stretch their lead to two games, and Billy Wagner had a successful throwing session.

The next 5 games just may tell the real tale of this season. Just as yesterday's game was the tale of two games in one, the 2008 Mets are playing the tale of two seasons.

Only the second tale matters.

Enjoy your coffee!