IGT 06/14/06: NY Mets @ Philles - Game 2 - El Duque vs Myers

[TransMonk]

Fish beat the Braves...again.

6-5 in 10.

[Guest ScarletKnight41]

Thick Legged Heath Bell is coming in to pitch the 9th with a 6-run lead.

[Zvon]

A strike out wild pitch safe at first- wacky.
They changed that to a past ball.

And that Bell liner to left almost eats up Milledge.
whew.

[Guest ScarletKnight41]

Milledge atones for his prior lack of hustle with a NICE catch. 2 outs to go!

[Guest Rockin' Doc]

That's seven straight wins for the good guys! This is really getting to be fun.

[Zvon]

A double play ends it!
Mets win 9-3!

Mets are 8 1/2 games up on the Phils and 12 games up on the Braves!

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

Seven! Seven in a row!

Eight! Eight-and-one on the road trip!

Eight and a half! Eight and a half game lead!

[Guest ScarletKnight41]

And a double play ends the game.

The Mets win! The Mets WIN!!!!

[Guest Hillbilly]

[Zvon]

[Zvon]

Odd and surprising note (and Ive seen my share of Phils games cuz they are on local TV here, and I find this hard to believe):

Abreu gets no errors on the balls to the wall (maybe rightly so), but he gets an error on the throw he made to the plate on the Milledge single that miraculously almost got Chavez (a great throw that got away from the Phils catcher), and THAT was Abreus first error of the season.
Thats pretty wack.

[Frayed Knot]

Y'see, that's part of my problem with Abreu defensively. He cruises back to balls (or in ... or over) rather than getting to the spot where they're going to be, and, because of that, justmisses stuff he should - or at least could - be getting to. Instead, no error is charged so there's no record to show that he played a lousy defensive RF.

And the funny part about tonight is that the error on the throw really should have been on the catcher; he lost the ball on the swipe tag.

[Elster88]

When Milledge scored with the walkoff run on a short fly out to the outfield a couple weeks ago, I mentioned that he was looking over his shoulder the whole darn time. And if he had been tagged out that would've been the reason why.

Seriously does no one teach these punks to run? His play wasn't so much a matter of lack of hustle yesterday, it was just stupidity....watching the ball when you shouldn't be.

[Elster88]

Though, the idea that he should be sent down solely on the basis of that play is as silly as the idea that he should stay up because he hit well for the first two weeks he was here.

Examine the package as a whole. Right now I see a .255 hitter who is an above average to excellent outfielder.

[Elster88]

[Elster88]

The kid's already getting snippy?

]Asked if he thought he should have scored, Milledge replied, "I could have, should have, didn't, but we won the game, so it doesn't matter."

[Guest Edgy DC]

I was buried on the bench of a Babe Ruth team and miserable as heck. We got into the playoffs by winning the second half title with a lousy 6-4 record. (We were 2-8 the first half, so our playoff spot was surprising.) Come the playoff game against the first-half champs, I catch a break because only 10 or 11 players show up and the creepy screaming manager who buried me is on vacation in sunny Florida. So I get a start in (where else?) right field and, in the sixth inning of a tie game, I drive a triple to right center, shocking my teammates who were sure I was a scrub. On the next play Don (E. Donald) Gessner --- a good kid who shouldn't have been starting in the infield over me, but he was the commissioner's son or something --- tapped out to the infield, and I scored the go-ahead run.

In the bottom of the inning, with Scott Pastor on third a short fly is hit to me in right. The ball seems to be jumping all over, but I charge like a bull and I catch the sucker and prepare to throw. By the time I released the ball I was maybe 30 feet short of the infield arc, but my arm was awful and the ball probably came to a stop halway between the mound and the plate. No matter, because we got Pastor on an appeal play, so we won the game with my bat and my defense sort of.

But this isn't a story of how my jerk-ass manager came back from Florida and still proceeded to bench me as we got swept in the championship series. No. It could be, but it's not.

Here's the thing, my sudden offense impressed much of my team. But my friend Danny Welch, who knew I could hit, and knew I could catch (but not throw), rode me mercilessly for watching the ball and getting merely a triple instead of a homer.

"Was I watching it?"

"Edgy, you were fucking taking movies!"

"Oh, well, we won the..."

"If you say we won the game, I swear I'll kick your ass right here in front of everybody."

"C'mon, we..."

"I'm serious. I won't punch you. I'lll take this aluminum bat to your lollygagging skull. They bury you behind Elmo Donald Gessner all season and when you finally get to show what you can do you hit the ball and then whip out a sketchbook to draw how pretty it looked."

Two years later, we were driving past the field, and Welchy told me to pulleover. I asked him why, and he said he thought I might like to waste more time admiring the scene of my triumphant triple-that-should-have-been-a-homer.

Danny was my Cliff Floyd.

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

The physical resemblance is striking, too:

[Centerfield]

Great story.

Everything that needed to be said about Lastings has been said already.

That issue aside, this season is fun. I love how the Mets are winning by adhering to the old adage that says you try to take 2 out of 3 at home and play .888 ball on the road.

[Centerfield]

Google search for Elmo Donald Gessner came up empty...but I did find this guy who goes by his first name only:



I would be pretty pissed too if I were buried behind that guy.

[MFS62]

="Centerfield"]Google search for Elmo Donald Gessner came up empty...but I did find this guy who goes by his first name only: I would be pretty pissed too if I were buried behind that guy.

I'd bet he's a pretty good fielder. Looks like he has soft hands.

Later

[Guest Edgy DC]

E. Donald Gessner's name was actually name was actually Edward , but when you go running around a ballpark with an initial initial, you're lucky to walk away with the nickname "Elmo." I imagine G. Thomas Seaver's teammates did worse to him.