My distaste for Olly Perez just grew even greater. The team would have preferred to demote him to the minors so that he could still get regular starts and work out his problems with more playing time. Also, then we could have called up a AAA pitcher (Figueroa? Redding? Dillon Gee?) to use as a long reliever for us or even to take his starting slot should ken takahashi struggle. but Perez has the ultimate say in whether he can be sent down because he is a veteran of more than 5 years, and instead of taking one for the team and realizing that he deserves it due to his recent play, he has adamently refused to be sent down! so instead the Mets will have to use him out of the bullpen, which is tricky because you want to get him enough playing time to regain his command and confidence, but don't want to use an unreliable, wild, unfocused, disgruntled starter in important late inning situations! I have a feeling this has disaster written all over it and i wish Olly would just suck it up, go to the minors, and prove with his play that he deserves a second shot at the rotation.

Whatever happens tonight I just want to say that so far the Mets have been bad once again (2 for 10) with Runners In Scoring Position. As a result, we have a very tight game that is up for grabs with two innings remaining. Kudos to Livan Hernandez for a very good start.

ok let me explain what just happened...mets are up 4-1 in the 9th inning, and krod is cruising and gets the first 2 out in like 6 pitches. bottom of the 9th, 2 outs, nobody on, mets have a 3 run lead. the next guy fought off a lot of pitches, long at bat, and drew a walk. then he stole on fielders indifference. still nothing wrong, but then there was another walk. then a run scoring single. first and second, 2 outs, 4-2 game. GW runner at the plate. pretty nervous at this point but its still under control until the next batter hits an easy pop up to delgado...and he drops it. just bounced straight out of his mitt. a run scored, 4-3 now with runners on the corners, and chipper up to bat. last year i garuntee wed have blown that save, but krod got him to fly out to end the game. still, that was way too close, i was having flashbacks! I think my recurring nightmare of the mets blowing easy saves might happen again tonight. oh wait, thats not a nightmare, that's real life!

overall, not a bad game tonight, but not a great one either. Livan Hernandez gave us a very good start, pitching 6.1 innings of 1 run ball, and the one run was actually let up by parnell it was just an inherited runner thats all. he was effective, accurate, and a workhorse like usual. not trying to jinx our mets injury luck, but in his 15+ year career livan has not once been on the disabled list and has gotten 10 wins each of the past 11 consecutive seasons. his consistency will hopefully be a much needed aspect of reliability on an otherwise up and down team. bats were okay, but still left too many in scoring position. but a wins a win, no matter how ugly in the 9th inning, and so lets beat the phils with johan on the mound tommorow and pelfrey again on thursday to move to a winning record and a virtual tie for first place in the division. 2 more big games coming up.