The third inning

It's the third inning, and the Mets are already down, 2-0. David Wright's at the plate with a man on base. You may recall that in a similar situation the last night, Wright drew a bases loaded walk. Then Carlos Beltran and Ryan Church drew bases loaded walks to put the Mets ahead, 3-1. Unfortunately, Angel Pagan, perhaps gunning for a bases loaded walk of his own, then struck out looking on a 3-2 fastball to end the only real threat the hapless Mets had all night. They went on to lose the game, 6-3.

But that was yesterday and this is today. It's the third inning, and the Mets are down, 2-0. David Wright's at the plate with Endy Chavez on first base. After going 8-11 in Philly last weekend, Wright is 0 for his last 19 and desperately needs a base hit. What does he do? Bang! Base hit through the first base hole into right. The Mets have two runners on base for Carlos Beltran.

You may also remember that Beltran hasn't been hitting the ball too well lately; despite a couple of good games in Washington, his average on the year is still closer to .200 than .250. You're expecting bad things, hoping for good ones. But where did that get you last September, or when Aaron Heilman came on to face Felipe Lopez on Thursday...sorry, I'm getting off track. But you're still not expecting good things. Until...crack! Beltran hits a long drive to center field...

Is it going to go over the fence? Is Mark Kotsay going to catch it? Is this going to somehow turn into a painful double play? I don't know!

The ball falls in on the warning track behind Kotsay. Endy will score to tie the game, Wright's being waved around third. Kotsay gets the ball to the cutoff man, Braves backup shortstop Brent (Brant?) Lillibridge, but he's too small and skinny to possibly come up with a good relay throw so Wright's going to be safe at the plate and the Mets will take the lead, right?

Holy crap, Lillibridge fires a bullet to the plate. Wright slides feet-first, attempting to poke his toe around the glove of Braves catcher Brian McCann. What's the verdict, Blue? Wright's safe! With a fist pump!

Things are going good, real good. The Mets came through in the clutch, with singles and doubles instead of RBI walks and groundouts. The Mets tie the game at 2 in the bottom of the third inning.

But wait! It gets better! Ryan Church is up, and, and, wait for it, BAM! Church knocks a shot right over the first base bag, and it's headed for the right field corner. He doesn't have the best speed, and Francoeur's got a pretty good arm, but it's kicking around back there, and he's going for three...he's safe! Yay! Church comes through! Singles, doubles, triples, the Mets are ahead 3-1!

And then? Uh-oh, it's no fun Delgado, here to ruin everyone's fun. He hits a weak tapper to first base, but Mark Teixera can't throw home because Delgado's in the way, and Church was running on contact so he scores, and all of a sudden the score is 4-1 Mets! Sweet!

No fun Delgado, here to ruin everyone's fun and refuse to give curtain calls. Gosh!

The Mets get just one more chance to score the rest of the game, and don't capitalize. But the damage is done. The Braves get back a run against Heilman in the sixth, but Sanchez and Wagner shut the door and the Mets have a 4-3 victory, their second in the last five games!

****

Not to place too much stock in four runs, but that's exactly the kind of inning we needed. The Met offense had looked so pathetic, with the RBI groundouts and runs scored only on mistakes by our opponents, that I had genuinely forgotten, a little bit, what it felt like to watch the Mets put together a solid attack. And Sunday's win, with the three home runs - two of them by Delgado - who decided to be no fun anyway and not give a curtain call even though he had just hit two homers, got us a series win against the big bad Braves, our third (series win) in four tries against them and the Phillies. And so while I don't doubt this Mets team's ability to be inconsistent, the third inning on Saturday afternoon was refreshing, encouraging, and exactly what I needed to see. Maybe it's a building block...who knows.

Johan (3-2, 3.12) goes for the Mets tonight opposite Ian Snell (2-1, 4.21). If we win three in a row, that's called a winning streak. It has happened before!

(Image courtesy mets.com)