San Francisco Giants starting pitcher Todd Wellemeyer walked 5 batters in 4 1/3 innings pitched. 3 of them scored. When New York Mets reliever Francisco Rodriguez walked John Bowker with 1 out in the 10th inning it was the 1st walk issued by any Met pitcher in 33 innings. That’s the walking part. The big stick belonged to the Mets catcher. Nope, not that one. Henry Blanco. Blanco hit a walk-off home run leading off the bottom of the 11th to give the Mets their 9th home victory in a row, this 1 by the score of 5-4.
Walking Tall and baseball bats, together since 1973
Wellemeyer was wild right from the start. He walked Angel Pagan leading off the bottom of the 1st inning who advanced to 2nd base on a wild pitch. Luis Castillo then walked putting runners on 1st and 2nd with no one out. Jose Reyes grounded into a fielder’s choice, Pagan moving to 3rd while Castillo was forced out at 2nd base. Jason Bay hit a sacrifice fly to the opposite field driving in Pagan for a 1-0 Mets lead.
Then the Mets Rocked the sequel
In the 2nd inning the Mets scored twice more. Ike Davis led off with a walk then Jeff Francoeur was hit by a pitch. 2 outs later Pagan tripled driving in both of them giving the Mets a 3-0 lead.
Helping Germans with Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon since 2003
In the 4th the Giants cut into the lead. Andres Torres led off with a single and Pablo Sandoval followed with a single of his own. 1 out later Aubrey Huff hit a sacrifice fly to plate Torres. Juan Uribe then hit an RBI single driving in Sandoval and the Mets lead had been cut to 1 at 3-2.
Where insurance and reality meet, boringly
The Mets added what proved to be a an important insurance run in the 5th. With 1 out Reyes walked then stole 2nd. Bay singled to drive Reyes home and Wellemeyer from the game. Giants reliever Brandon Medders walked David Wright but Bay botched a double steal causing Wright to get caught in and eventually thrown out in a rundown while Bay took 3rd. After an intentional walk to Davis, Francoeur popped out foul to end the threat with the Mets leading 4-2 after 5.
Hank Azaria performs the voice of Aubrey Huff
In the 8th Mets starter Johan Santana tired and the Giants came back in a huff. Pinch-hitter Nate Schierholtz led off with a single. Aaron Rowand singled moving Schierholtz up to 3rd base and 1 out later Sandoval hit a sacrifice fly making the score 4-3 Mets. Santana exited and Fernando Nieve came on in relief. He gave up a single to Eli Whiteside and was immediately replaced by reliever Pedro Feliciano. Huff singled to left driving in Rowand tying the score at 4. Neither team scored again in regulation and the game went into extra innings, where Blanco walked tall to the plate and swung his big stick sending a home run over the left field fence for the win.
19 comments
Mr North Jersey
5/8/2010-4:55pm at 4:55 pm (UTC -4)
WOW!!! I had forgotten that they made Walking Tall into a tv series.
Walk softly and carry a BIG STICK indeed.
BTW the teenage girl that played The sheriff’s daughter grew into this
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0563835/
GravediggerHebner
5/8/2010-6:10pm at 6:10 pm (UTC -4)
She had nowhere to go but up after playing a southern teenage girl named Dwana Pusser.
That “Starflight: The Plane That Couldn’t Land” thing she was in sounds interesting.
Mr North Jersey
5/8/2010-6:24pm at 6:24 pm (UTC -4)
phils lose!
stickguy
5/8/2010-7:18pm at 7:18 pm (UTC -4)
1 game out baby.
metsfan4decades
5/8/2010-5:03pm at 5:03 pm (UTC -4)
Very clever with the Walking Tall theme – LOL.
Our dynamic duo of catchers getting it done these past two days.
For those of us debating in the dugout with Johan being taken out:
Jerry saying that Sandoval was going to be Johan’s last batter one way or another.
Talking about a change Johan made with his delivery and how effective it was today.
Castillo has a bruised left heel. Jerry doesn’t know how it happened, so he says. On another note, Barajas should be available tomorrow.
Going for the sweep tomorrow? Oliver vs. ‘The Freak’. I’m not even going to predict the outcome of that….
whataputz
5/8/2010-5:07pm at 5:07 pm (UTC -4)
Crazier things have happened, such as blanco hitting a walk-off. Now go Braves! (Vomits all over self)
metsfan4decades
5/8/2010-7:12pm at 7:12 pm (UTC -4)
LOL – Who ever thought we’d ever be rooting for the Braves?
And they got the job done, Phils lose!
Hazmet
5/8/2010-9:27pm at 9:27 pm (UTC -4)
In my mind I’m debating tomorrows matchup billing as either:
The Freak vs. The Freakier
or
The Freak vs. The Enigma
I like the 2nd one better. With Ironman 2 opening this weekend it’s got a Superhero matchup feel to it.
Great job by the team this weekend, now let’s be greedy.
dirtysanchez
5/8/2010-5:14pm at 5:14 pm (UTC -4)
wow…nice post game grave.
Blanco just saved jerrys job. Im sorry, when you have your ace on the mound and your in a situation with two outs, you have to let your ace earn his money. Im happy that Blanco manned up there but im sure they cannot continue to cover up how dumb this manager is.
GravediggerHebner
5/8/2010-6:20pm at 6:20 pm (UTC -4)
I respect the way you saw it but I didn’t see it that way at all.
I saw Johan tiring over 100 pitches, having given up two consecutive hits and then a liner for an out followed by a sac fly cutting the lead to 1 run, about to face a RH hitter who is well over .300 and already had a hit off Johan his last time up and had 3 hits in 4 at bats in the series as of that moment and who (small sample) had a .500 career average against the Mets, and I thought it was an excellent time to turn the game over to what has been a very good bullpen.
metsfan4decades
5/8/2010-7:15pm at 7:15 pm (UTC -4)
Have to say, I’m with Grave on this one. After two hits and a hard hit liner to Jose, you had to wonder if Johan was losing something. I wouldn’t have had heartache if Johan stayed in but the call to take him out was fine by me.
What I had a problem with was 3 BP arms to get one out, in a tie game. I would have left Nieve out there to get that last out.
Mr North Jersey
5/8/2010-5:46pm at 5:46 pm (UTC -4)
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/photos?gameId=300508121&photoId=619777#photo_619777
Is it me or does Blanco looks like he is getting ready for a rectal exam?
metsfan4decades
5/8/2010-7:15pm at 7:15 pm (UTC -4)
hahaha – great picture.
stickguy
5/8/2010-6:19pm at 6:19 pm (UTC -4)
I am with Dirty. Mets winning despite jerry right now. Eventually Jerrys incompatence will atch up to them though.
Simple question. Everyone seems to have plenty of WTF Jerry moments. But, can anyone think of a game or situation where Jerry did something, and you look back at it and say, Wow, what a clever move that relaly helped the mets win a game?
If you cna, et it takes a lot more thinking than coming up with a dozen “jerry must go” momnets!
SOrry, I just can’t stand having Jerry as the manager of this team.
Mr North Jersey
5/8/2010-6:28pm at 6:28 pm (UTC -4)
there is a lot of negatives about jerry too many to list for sure but like i said in the dugout 101 Pitches 3 balls hit hard coming off a game where after he walked the pitcher in Phillie we all saw what happened. I can’t find fault with jerry on takin santana out. Simply put Feliciano didn’t do his job and get the out he needed. Go figure?
9 times out of 10 Feliciano gets the job done. Today he didn’t but good to see they never got the go ahead run and the Mets won at home.
stickguy
5/8/2010-7:21pm at 7:21 pm (UTC -4)
actually, neive didn’t do his job, which in this case was ROOGYing. So, if Neive gets the out, feliciano never even comes in.
Mr North Jersey
5/8/2010-7:25pm at 7:25 pm (UTC -4)
well like when a player makes an error on an easy out you have to move on and get the next guy. Yes Nieve didn’t do his job but Nieve didn’t allow them to tie the game Feliciano did.
stickguy
5/8/2010-7:34pm at 7:34 pm (UTC -4)
and neive of course today did not get a chance to get the nest guy.
Mr North Jersey
5/8/2010-7:38pm at 7:38 pm (UTC -4)
It wasn’t his job to do it was Feliciano’s job and he didn’t come through.