The Mets try to bounce back tonight after last night's loss with a win against the Cards last night. Here is a good trend and a disturbing trend so far. Good Trend: After the Mets drop the opener they win the second game of the series. Disturbing Trend: After winning the second game, they fail to win the rubber game. Anyway, tonight will feature John Maine against 2-0 Pineiro.
Tonigh'ts game is really important because we need to see something out positive out of John Maine. So for this season he is 0-1 over 2 games with a 10.0 IP, 8 ER, 4 BB, 9 K. Last season he lost his only game against the Cards where he went 4.0 IP, 3 ER, 3BB, K. However the year before he won his only start against the Cards where he went 7.0 Innings and allowed no runs, walked 2 and struck out 6. Here are the Cards numbers against Maine:
Pujols 4-9, 2HR
Duncan 1-6
Greene 2-6
Molina 2-6
The key for the Mets pitching is to not let the Cards rally, to frustrate them. Last night in three consecutive innings they allowed the Cards to load the bases and then allowed the cards to score 2 runs, 2 runs and then no runs. If they can keep them for scoring in those scoring situations, then they can frustrate this offense and lock them down.
The Mets will have to battle with Pineiro, who isn't pitching as well as his record of 2-0 suggests. He has 11.2 innings on the season, a 5.40 ERA, 4 BB and 5 K. Last year against the Mets he pitched two games with no decisons in either of them totaling 9.0 innings where he allowed 9 runs, 2 BB, and 6 K. The Mets can hit on him:
Delgado 5-17, 2 2B, HR
Beltran 3-13, 2B
Castillo 3-12
Reyes 6-9, 2 2B, 3B, HR
Wright 4-8, 2B
In the first four innigns the Mets did a good job getting runs in with 2 outs with RISP. The problem though was in those situations, they could have easily have done more, and that came back to haunt them. The Mets have to get runs in and then keep getting them in. The concept of a rally sometimes escapes this team. If they play the way we all kow they can, mabe they can do it. I really liked how they played more agressive last night, hopefully they can keep that up. Lets go Mets! Put one in the Win Column!
Unfortunately I don't see the Mets winning this game. If they can get the lead on the Cards then possible, but you are right, they need a new rally cap.