June 25, 2009, St. Louis Cardinals-New York Mets game story for Metro (NY) Newspaper
Seeing Red
Mets smoke Cards, 11-0
MLB. A day that started with the Mets learning that they are soon to have two players return from injury ended with more personnel questions than answers.
At least for one night, though, the questions were not about if the Mets could compete.
The schizophrenic Mets enjoyed their biggest offensive output of the season in last night’s 11-0 laugher over the Cardinals. David Wright finished 4-for-4, including a double and scored three runs. Hitting cleanup for the first time in nearly a year, Ryan Church went 3-for-4 with two doubles off the left field wall—“a Citi Field double,” the right fielder noted dryly—drove in two and scored twice. Recent call-up Nick Evans blasted a two-run homer.
A night after Joel Pinerio induced 22 ground ball outs, the Mets hammered Brad Thompson (2-3) and four relievers for 16 hits. Still, Jerry Manuel needs to see more consistency from his offense before he leads a ticker tape parade down Roosevelt Avenue.
“You temper everything,” said Manuel. “We’re able to get this pitcher out tonight. The guy tomorrow (Chris Carpenter) is going to be similar to Pinerio. He’s going to being sinking; he’s a veteran pitcher who knows what he is doing out there. Tomorrow is going to be another big challenge. I’d love to see us continue to score runs and hit at this pace, but there’s too many good pitchers in this league for that to continue. So we’ll just do what we can and take it when it comes.”
Prior to last night’s game, John Maine and Oliver Perez threw bullpen sessions at Citi Field. Maine and Perez, both of whom pitched for the Port St. Lucie Mets in a double header Monday night, should return to the Mets prior to the All-Star break.
“I thought they threw well. Ollie looks like he’s really letting the ball go when it comes out of his hand. The part of the session with John Maine that I got to see was that he was basically working on off-speed stuff,” Manuel said in his pre-game press conference.
Maine and Perez are going to have one more minor league start each, either in Triple-A Buffalo or with the Single-A Brooklyn Cyclones. That leaves Manuel with some tough decisions going forward.
Last night’s starter Fernando Nieve (3-0, 1.31) and Tuesday's starter Tim Redding (1-2, 6.08) have filled in capably for the injured starters. They've done so well, Manuel hinted toward sending Maine and Perez to the bullpen upon their return.
Nieve’s performance against the Cardinals was an argument to keep him in the rotation. The first Mets pitcher since Jorge Sosa in 2007 to start 3-0, Nieve lasted six innings. Despite walking four, strike out five and only gave up three hits.
Afterward, Manuel admitted the obvious: Nieve is staying in the rotation.
“ think he has to keep pitching for us. Shutout innings, giving us an opportunity to win, it looks like his ball really gets on guys. He didn’t have his greatest command (but) he battled. We’re going to keep pitching him,” said Manuel. “You kind of wait (for the other shoe to drop) and if doesn’t happen, it’s great, that’s awesome. I hope he continues to pitch that well. He’ll continue to get the opportunity. It would be very difficult for us to say, ‘Well, he didn’t do this, he didn’t do that.’ Got to keep him in there.”
Three things we saw last night at Citi Field:
1 Battling back: After combining for just two hits in a shutout on Tuesday, the Mets belted 16 hits in a romp. Still,it’s pretty evident that Omar Minaya will have to make a deal to add a bat to the lineup. Prior to last night’s game, the Mets fielded a lineup that had 10 home runs this season. For comparison’s sake, Albert Pujols came into the game with 26 bombs.
2 Filling in: Nick Evans went 2-for-3 with a two-run homer and scored twice in his first start of the season stepping in because of injuries. He got some help from the regulars, as David Wright went 4-for-4, Fernando Tatis led the team with three RBIs and Ryan Church had a couple of RBI hits.
3 Effective enough: Don’t let the score fool you, Fernando Nieve was not dominant last night. Nieve struggled with his command and threw 108 pitches. He gave up three hits and four walks in six innings.
posted by Denis P. Gorman at 1:23 PM
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