Mets' productive offseason bears fruit (alternate reality edition)

The following things happened on Wednesday:

• Joel Pineiro pitched seven strong innings, allowing one run on five hits and no walks while striking out seven.
• In a game in which 21 runs were scored, Nelson Figueroa pitched 3 1/3 strong innings, giving up one run on two hits and a walk, to get the win.
• Felipe Lopez went 2 for 3.
• Orlando Hudson singled in a run off of John Lackey.

Lackey, by the way, allowed two runs in 6 2/3 to get the win. His ERA so far this year is 1.42. But I left Lackey out of the above list because, while I wanted him on the team, the decision to sign Jason Bay instead is at least defensible (though it would be nice to see Bay with more than one RBI, the same number that Ollie Perez has).

But Pineiro could have been a Met, Figueroa should still be in the organization, and if last night's game was going to end up in the hands of a middle infielder, I would have much rather seen Hudson or Lopez up there than Alex Cora.

Cora was batting - against a lefty - because Jerry Manuel for some reason used Fernando Tatis as a pinch-runner earlier in the inning, when it would have made much more sense to use Cora as the pinch-runner and Tatis as the pinch-hitter. Or, as reader Guinness points out, use a pitcher such as John Maine, who has pinch-ran before.

Yesterday afternoon, I wrote that it was too early to talk about replacing Jerry Manuel. Well, as Yogi Berra would say, it gets late early out there.

A.J. Burnett shuts down Met bats - again

A.J. Burnett - Met-killer? He's now pitched 14 shutout innings against the Mets. And he had a one-hitter last night. If it weren't for Alex Cora, we might be talking about the first-ever Subway Series no-hitter. And Squawker Jon would be in even more despair than he is now!

And while it's true that the Mets have a depleted team right now, the Yanks have also been missing several players - like Derek Jeter and Johnny Damon - due to whatever flu it is going around the Yankee clubhouse. Yet that hasn't held the Yankees down this week.

Tim Redding reminded me of Pedro Martinez last night in this way - once he got to 100 pitches, he completely fell apart. Four pitches - and four hits - in a row? It reminded me of when Redding pitched for the Yanks against the Red Sox!

So much for Citi Field not being a home-run haven. Nick Swisher and Jorge Posada didn't seem to have much of a problem getting the ball out of the park.

And yes, I am getting the broom ready for the sweep, even if Chien-Ming Wang is pitching. Sorry, Squawker Jon!

Maybe, if we're lucky, the cat who showed up at Citi Field on Opening Night (see picture above) will make another guest appearance tonight, when we're in the ballpark. It would make this weekend purr-fect.

What do you think? Leave us a comment!

Mets back on 'E' train in Subway Series

The first Subway Series game Squawker Lisa and I attended this year ended with the infamous error by Luis Castillo. Tonight, Luis was flawless in the field, but EVERY OTHER MET INFIELDER made an error in the SAME INNING and the game was over by the middle of the second. The Lisa jinx is back!

As annoying as the errors were, I can't get too upset over them for a couple of reasons. First of all, CC Sabathia was going to win tonight whatever the Mets did. I'm just glad he didn't pitch a no-hitter.

Also, the errors came from players who belonged in the lineup and were playing at their proper positions, which has not always been the case this year with the Mets. The five-error L.A. game culminating in Jeremy Reed forced to play first base and making a bad throw to end the game was a lot worse. Tonight, you had David Wright, doing something that is all too familiar - a nice pickup followed by a bad throw. But Wright leads the league in hitting, which more than makes up for a few bad throws.

Alex Cora's error was particularly costly since it could have been a double play, but Cora gets a pass from me because of what he has meant to the Mets this year. When Jose Reyes went down, Cora filled in ably until tearing ligaments in his thumb. He was supposed to be out for six weeks. Instead, with apparently no other qualified shortstops in the entire organization, Cora rushed back as soon as his 15-day DL stint was up and has had only one day off since returning three weeks ago.

The third error came from Nick Evans, just back in the bigs and suddenly playing before a sellout crowd. And after the first two errors, bad fielding could have been getting contagious.

What's less excusable is Mike Pelfrey giving up a solid run-scoring single to an American League pitcher.

My biggest gripe of the game came when Jerry Manuel pinch-hit Argenis Reyes in the fifth with two on and two outs. The way Sabathia was pitching, it was the biggest opportunity the Mets were likely to have, and Manuel was right to hit for Pelfrey. But he had to use his best available hitter, and that was Daniel Murphy.

Murphy has consistently gotten pinch hits this year against both righty and lefty pitchers. In fact, Murphy's overall numbers this year are BETTER against lefties, against whom he is hitting .276 and slugging .414. His numbers against righties are .249 and .367.

Argenis Reyes is a career .218 hitter. And he's much worse against lefties, with a career average of .167 as opposed to .241 against righties.

There is no way A. Reyes was going to get a hit off of Sabathia. Murphy would have at least had a chance. But Manuel seems to have a blind spot with Murphy. It took him a long time to try him at first base, when Murphy was actually a better fielder than Carlos Delgado. And Manuel does not seem to realize that on this roster, Murphy is one of his better hitters, certainly a lot better than Argenis Reyes.

Murphy pinch-hit in the eighth with two outs, none on, and the Mets down, 7-1. He flied out.

The Mets were down 7-1 because mop-up man Elmer Dessens gave up three runs in the top of the eighth, including two homers. Note to Dessens: This game was at Citi Field, not Yankee Stadium. Start getting those headlines ready about Elmer going to the glue factory.

The worst thing about Dessens' lousy performance is that he made Lisa's prediction of a homer by A-Rod come true. (Granted, Lisa predicted a homer every time A-Rod came up tonight.)

The Mets are still only half a game out of first. But it's no fun to lose two games in a row to the Yankees by a combined score of 24-1. I'll be back out at Citi Field on Sunday night with Lisa the jinx, hoping for a better result.