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Nice Win

The Mets picked up a nice win last night over the Braves on Jackie Robinson Day, 4-0. Al Leiter pitched 5.1 scoreless innings, allowing three hits while walking three and striking out two. Leiter has yet to allow a run in two starts this season. What continues to trouble me is Leiter's horribly inefficient pitching.

Despite pitching effectively, Leiter had to be pulled in the sixth inning because he had already thrown 104 pitches. The Mets were fortunate that the bullpen pitched well yesterday, because they haven't on many other occasions this season. Orber Moreno and Braden Looper were both nasty last night, and could form a dominant 8th/9th combo similar to that of Anaheim (K-Rod and Troy Percival) and Houston last year (Octavio Dotel and Billy Wagner).

Mike Piazza has been struggling a bit at the plate since the Montreal series. He looked so dominant against the Braves in the opening week, but has been missing his pitches of late.

Kaz Matsui continues to get on base at an alarming rate, scoring two runs and drawing his 9th and 10th walks of the season, the latter being intentional. He is already garnering the type of respect, offensively, that Ichiro does in the American League, as opposing teams are fearful of pitching to him in big situations.

Ricky Gutierrez, despite playing a respectable second base, has been pretty hopeless at the plate. This lineup will be much more intimidating when Jose Reyes comes back, whenever that is. Batting him second behind Matsui will cause other teams fits, and allow Floyd (hopefully) and Piazza plenty of RBI opportunities.

One of the biggest plays of the game last night was Karim Garcia's two-out, pinch-hit RBI single off of lefty C. J. Nitkowski. If only for one at-bat, Garcia showed he can hang in there against a lefty, even while nursing a finger injury. Jeff Duncan, also a lefty, followed Garcia's hit with an RBI single the other way, giving the Mets some breathing room.