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Back In The "W" Column

Congratulations to Tyler Yates on picking up his first big league win along with his first big league base hit. He should have won his first game against Montreal a couple of weeks ago, but it's good that he got it out of the way.

Yates' final line looked like this:

5.2 IP, 5H, 1ER, 3BB, 1K

Even with his disastrous start last week against the Braves (in the rain), Yates' ERA for the season (and his career) is a respectable 3.86. Despite a strong outing, Yates was pulled with two outs in the sixth for, *gulp* John Franco. By some act of God, Franco retired Brian Schneider on a groundout with runners on first and second.

Yates breathed a sigh of relief, and then watched his relief turn to irrevocable despair as Mike Stanton trotted in to start the seventh. Much to his (and everyone else's) surprise, the hefty Stanton pitched two effective innings, striking out two (in fairness, one was Tony Batista), and scattering two hits. With this outing, Stanton lowered his ERA almost three-and-a-half points, from 11.57 to 8.10, leaving him well shy of Grant Roberts' team-leading 17.36

Despite his best efforts, Braden Looper was unable to give this game back to the Expos, retiring Tony Batista on a groundout with the bases loaded.

Ty Wigginton hit his second homerun of the season and drove in another run with a sac fly, but continues to struggle mightily at the plate. His complete inability to take a pitch in critical situations is staggering. With the Mets leading 4-1 in the bottom of the fifth, the Mets loaded the bases on a Todd Zeile phantom HBP, a Mike Piazza walk, and an Eric Valent single. Wiggie comes up with one out, knowing (well, I knew anyway) he could sit on a fastball in his zone.

So what does he do? He swings wildly at the first pitch as it scrapes the ground in front of him. On the second pitch he mercifully grounds into a 6-4-3 double play to end the inning -- mercifully because I no longer had to watch his wretched grasp for the subtleties of the game.

Also of interest is that, even though the Mets won, they allowed ten hits to an Expos team that came into the game with a 2-10 record and sporting a .200 team batting average.

Karim Garcia looked good at the plate again, hitting his second homerun of 2004 and hitting the ball hard throughout the game. Mike Cameron continues to miss the ball with his bat at an alarming rate (now 17 strikeouts in 13 games). He has walked eight times and has an OBP of almost .370, and has been superb defensively, so it's not all bad.