So, about a minute ago, Ryan Zimmerman hit a sacrifice fly to score Willie Harris (who else?) to win the game for the Nationals by a 2-1 margin.
Johan Santana was brilliant, but obviously the Mets got their first inning run on an Ike Davis single and went to sleep. And Jerry Manuel managed possibly the worst game in Major League history.
Santana threw 97 pitches in 7 innings, allowed 6 hits, 2 walks, and 1 run, and struck out 7, his most since the 20-inning game against the Cardinals, when he had 9.
He really looked sharp, and like the old Johan, for the first time all year. His fastball was at 90-91 mostly, once hitting 92, and dipping to 89 once or twice. His changeup was at 77-80 and was fooling hitters, again, for seemingly the first time all year. Santana also had a nice sharp slider.
As I said, the Mets took an early 1-0 lead, and Santana got through the 7 relatively easily, allowing an RBI single to Ian Desmond in the seventh but without much other trouble. He worked through a few jams nicely, getting some strikeouts in big spots, one in particular against Josh Willingham with two on and one out in the sixth.
“Jenius Jerry,” as I will now christen him, opted to sit Santana for the eighth (he wasn’t batting in the previous half inning, by the way) and he went to Elmer Dessens. Dessens worked his way into a jam, and then Pedro Feliciano picked him up to get out of it.
The Mets had some terrible at-bats in the seventh-Jeff Francoeur struck out, Angel Pagan grounded out on the first pitch, and although Bay singled, Alex Cora grounded out, again, to second, on the first pitch.
In the ninth, Pedro Feliciano got the first man out, and nobody else. He walked Willie Harris, allowed a bunt single to Nyjer Morgan, a base hit by Christian Guzman, and then was yanked for Ryota Igarashi, who allowed a 2-0 sac fly to right to score the winning run.
I’ll run down Jerry’s mistakes, starting at the very beginning of the game…
1. Not starting Angel Pagan when he was brought in to pinch-run, play defense, and hit lefty (which he wasn’t supposed to be able to do) midway through the game
2. Giving Jason Bay a day off with Reyes and Pagan out of the lineup
3. Bunting with Ruben Tejada in the first inning against Livan Hernandez
4. Removing Johan Santana from the game
5. Replacing Johan Santana with Elmer Dessens, when Adam Dunn was in the on-deck circle
6. Not replacing Dessens with Feliciano with Adam Dunn up (he hit a double), especially considering Feliciano was brought in later in the inning, but against a much less daunting lefty than Roger Bernadina
7. Pulling the 5-man infield trick that never works on the last play (I know there were no consequences, but come on, guy)
8. Making all these mistakes, which piled on to each other
9. Being the manager of the New York Mets
I had to squeeze 9 in there…but seriously, when the Mets lose a game, it shows how much your manager can hurt you. But your manager can never help you to the degree that he hurts you…which is why I believe that there are no “great” managers, but there are “terrible” ones. The ones who are called great are the ones who screw up the least, and even they (La Russa, Torre, Scioscia) have screwed up in big spots and are heavily criticized.
Just loving that Johan pitches like himself for the first time all year and the Mets and Jerry just do that thing they do.
The Mets have 8 walk-off losses this year, and are under .500 against the NL East.
Ugh. That’s all I have felt about the Mets this week. Ugh.
Niese will go tomorrow.
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