Johan Santana had it to win his 12th (LS/Bill Menzel)

New York - Winning three of four games from the Colorado Rockies perhaps was the remedy the New York Mets needed for an incentive to make the months of August and September a little more interesting.  The sense of accomplishment and getting over the chaos of the past few months definitely was apparent after the Mets dropped the night cap of their day-night doubleheader with the Rockies at Citi Field Thursday evening.

“It brings more smiles and more confidence when you come to the ballpark,” said Mets third baseman David Wright about the resurgence of the past week.  The Mets would lose the second game 4-2, which stopped their five –game winning streak, this after taking the day game, 7-0 behind pitcher Johan Santana (12-8) who struck out eight in seven innings.

Confidence brings good results accorging to David Wright (LS/Bill Menze

Wright would drive in two runs which helped Santana. And in the evening his double in the fourth inning, which led to a run, went in the record books as he moved past Keith Hernandez to 10th all-time on the Mets career hit list. Though a milestone, winning games for Wright and the Mets was more important as they picked up two games on the Rockies sin the NL wild card chase.

A Minaya sighting (LS/Bill Menze)

It has been that type of week for the Mets. Their embattled GM Omar Minaya on Monday, when announcing the dismissal of his assistant Tony Bernazard, verbally attacked a Mets beat writer. Before the start of the long say at Citi Field, Minaya finally offered a public apology to the media for his actions. 

Mets refuse to throw in the towels, but would include this batch in deadline trade (LS/Bill Menze)

No trade talk, or rumors were discussed, a day before the trading deadline which has always been a part of the Minaya watch. It was back to baseball the past dew days and the Mets certainly responded, especially with Santana who got the most run support from his offense in over a month.

“Every time you win a game it’s good,” commented Santana who had his start pushed back a day because of the rain out the night before. It was his first career start and win against the Rockies, team that had won seven of their last nine before coming to New York.

In the nightcap, Jon Niese would have wanted to be part of the fun (LS/Bill Menze)

And fun was the word for a change.  When he left the game, Santana and teammate Livan Hernandez (7-5), who gets the start Friday evening as the Mets open a four-game series with Arizona at home, smiled and that was a mood in the clubhouse. “At the same time I was having fun,” commented Santana. “It’s good to see that. It’s good to see that everybody feels comfortable.”

His fastball was sharp, so was the command.  “A well located fastball makes the difference and that’s what I was doing today,” he said.  Santana’s shutout was the second consecutive for the Mets, 27 scoreless innings, their longest since their 28 inning scoreless streak back in May of 2004.

Jorge De La Rosa, the Rockies starting pitcher from Monterrey Mexico set a franchise record winning his second consecutive start that snapped the Mets streak. He had the command and got out of trouble   The Mets only got six hits and Fernando Tatis made an outstanding catch in left and hit a solo home run, his sixth of the year and fourth of the month.

Jorge De La Rosa said No Mas to Mets winning streak (LS/Bill Menzel)

Mets manager Jerry Manuel said all week the remedy to the chaos was to win some ballgames.  In the wining streak there was timely hitting, excellent defense, and of course good starting pitching.  Now the test will come again, four games against the next to last Diamondbacks of the National League west. 

A test to see how resilient this team is, and are they able to bounce back from a loss and start another winning streak. They need to win ballgames and take series from teams if they are to make a run for the wild card and bypass six other teams

“There is still plenty of season left,” said Wright.  

e-mail Rich Mancuso:  This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

---

Add this page to your favorite Social Bookmarking websites