Sunday, August 12, 2007

Living and Dying by the Home Run

The Mets exploded on Sunday at first in the field and then at the plate. The Mets looked like the Bad News Bears in the field through the first 4 innings, but came together in the end to hammer out 10 runs against the Marlins on Tom Glavine Day at Shea.

The Mets hit 4 home runs including 2 by Moises Alou, 1 by Jose Reyes, and 1 for Carlos Delgado. I can't even remember the last time Reyes or Delgado homered. It's been that long. In the 8th Reyes made one of those plays that just makes you laugh. With Reyes on first and DeFelice on third with 2 outs and Milledge at the plate, Milledge hit a weak groundball to second that was out of the reach of Dan Uggla and trickled into right field. Reyes was running on the play and scored from first on a ball that barely went 50 feet.

I was relieved to see this offensive explosion, but concerned at the same time. The Mets of late are living and dying by the home run. Alou's 2 home runs accounted for 4 of the 10 runs. Yesterday, David Wright had to hit 2 home runs just to keep the Mets competitive. And the day before Beltran's 3 run blast were the only runs the Mets scored.

With Reyes and Castillo at the top of the order there's no reason that the Mets shouldn't be manufacturing runs when they're suppose to. I love seeing the long ball and I really think Alou is getting his swing back, but this type of power won't happen every night. The Mets are still struggling to situational hit which will be crucial as the NL East race gets tighter.

Day off tomorrow as the Mets travel to Pittsburgh. No excuse for the Mets not to go 4-2 on this road trip.

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