Wasn't that just a fantastic game last night?
Johan Santana against Travis Wood in New York with the Mets in 2nd place behind Washington in the NL East and the Cubs sort of a related development.
But whatever, Reed Johnson led off with homer, scored 3 times and got 4 hits.
Jeff Baker hit a homer, Joe Mather hit a sac fly...
Darwin Barney walked and got a hit and scored.
Luis Valbuena (who at 5' 10" and 195 is very close to my size - in fact if you just flip his...put his chest where his stomach is we'd be twins), made a MONSTER diving stab of a Scott Hairston line drive and also knocked in a run.
Alfonso Soriano goes 2 for 4, knocks one in and is just 26 RBIs away from 1000 for his career.
Geovany Soto got two hits to raise his average to .175!
And Anthony Rizzo.
(I'm in the middle of doing something for Vine Line on him, which is why I didn't do something for him today.)
4 for 5 including a 3-run homer in the 5th off Santana that broke the Mets' back.
Rizzo is easily the most exciting thing to happen this year, taking over Jeff Samardzija's place imo.
Everything was so incredibly comfortable with the Cubs up 8-4 in the bottom of the 9th.
But then in came Marmol.
For like another 5 hours he threw.
He gave up 2 hits including a homer, 3 walks in a row, and 3 runs.
When David Wright came up as the tying run I was...well I was with some friends sitting at the bar of a nice Italian restaurant called Mia Figlia on Devon. Behind me was a roomful of respectable diners all enjoying their excellent meals and I thought man, if Carlos Marmol makes me hurl right now I'll ruin everyone's dinner.
He walks Wright, which was way better than a homer but that's exactly when Nausea said, "I freaking LOVE Carlos Marmol!"
Finally, by the grace of the Baseball Gods some Met hits an easy liner to Marmol who tosses to first for the DP that ends the game.
Young Travis Wood got his W, and we all went home happy.
One more thing, it's the 25th anniversary of the Andre Dawson beaning from Padre Eric Show.
Remember that one?
Make your blood boil just thinking about it.
Chris Jaffe has it up at The Hardball Times.
