Yankees WIN SERIES 2-1

            The Mets went from scoring all the runs in to world while playing in Texas and Detroit.  It was amazingly beautiful to watch a team that was so depressing coming into the 2011 season. Then after witnessing the April month of Mets baseball all feelings became more sour and angry and if you really cared…you just felt sad. Hate to use the old saying, but Met games this past April was like watching a train wreck.

            All of a sudden the starting pitching began getting through 6 innings on most nights, thanks to “the Rook” Dillon Gee, and Jose Reyes started putting on a show. The team was underway in making a break for the .500 mark. Not great, not where you want to be, but respectable in a season that started off on the wrong foot. Shit, I don’t even think the Mets had any feet going into this season. The team was cruising past opponents on all cylinders, scoring runs from Beltran’s bat and the youngsters like Turner and Tejada made a bit of noise. Pagan came off the DL with spunk and actually started hitting the ball away from the defensive players. Daniel Murphy raised his average from .60 points in a month while Jon Niese and R.A. Dickey also turned things around. Hopes were high and all was looking positive in Queens coming back home to face the Bronx Bombers.

            All this was true in New York…but quietly…on the other side of the river…the Yankees had their own dominate streak taking place…

            The Yankees came into the Subway Series with a 5 game winning streak, no big feat, but continued to make ground in the AL East over Boston and Tampa Bay. I thought the surging Mets offense would’ve smacked around Ivan Nova, but nothing happened on Friday night. Jon Niese gave up 3 runs in the first inning and it seemed to blow the wind right out of the Mets sails. Dying the crowd down and weakening the Home field advantage aspect of the series right away.  Ivan Nova gave up seven hits and walked two in 5 innings, but the Mets couldn’t pull the trigger. They couldn’t get it close and once you give the Yankees a lead, it’s always tough to come back.

            It might have took the Yankees six pitchers to finish off the final 4 innings of the game, but 3 hits, 1 walk and no runs later…the Bombers take game one of the series and put a hurting on growing ego in Queens.

            On Saturday, Bartolo Colon came off the DL and the Mets wished he wouldn’t have.  It proved to be a solid day with 6 innings, 6 K’s and 5 hits from the largely overweight and aging out-of-shape Yankee pitcher. Soon I will not be able to make fun when he’s part of the playoff rotation…

…Okay that’s jumping the gun, but the old man has done his job swimmingly with an overall 6-3 record and a 2.88 ERA. Curtis Granderson came back with his 22^nd HR of the season and Eduardo Nunez went 3 for 4 with a HR, trying to somehow make fans forget about their Captain. (Ain’t gonna happen).  Again the Mets bats were just not enough gaining plenty of hits and opportunities but never really putting a good threat on to make Joe Girardi shake in his cleats. To put more terrible on the fire 14 of the 18 Mets hits in the first two games…singles. That’s not how you produce runs and these games did nothing but help to prove that point. By the way, the four other hits…doubles…great. Game two was won 5-2 in 2 hours and thirty-two minutes. The victory improved the Yankees to a season-high 19 games over .500, and was their 7^th win in a row.

Last but not least was the Sunday afternoon, the finally of these two New York clubs battling it out in 2011. Couldn’t have ended any better if you ask me on an excitement level. Mets were pretty much dead at the plate again having 9 hits in 10 innings and only one extra base hit, which was another double.  It was a pitchers duel between Freddy Garcia and Dickey/Beato. The Mets took a 1-0 lead in the first that carried all the way into the 5^th. Then Pedro Beato dueled with the end of Freddy Garcia’s great day (7 inn, 1 ER and 6 hits). Another old man by the nickname of Izzy came in for the Mets and couldn’t deliver against Granderson and Cano who slapped a triple to take a 2-1 lead and a convincing road to a three-game sweep in Citi Field. If it happened, and did seem it would happen with the big time all MLB knowledge Mariano Rivera entering the following inning, it would have blown the past weekend for the Mets right out of their fans memories like it never happen. The Bronx Bombers were three outs away of dropping bombs all over Queens before the end of interleague play.

The Mets refused to die and go down with only 4 runs in the series. They ended up scoring one off Mo and then the unlikely hero named Jason Bay knocked in the game winner with a single up the middle. The fans that stayed went wild and the fact that it was Mets vs. Yankees the place was packed and elated. The Yankee bullpen can be beat and the Mets stole one going 2-4 against the mighty Yankees in 2011. The series was not as tight as the first on at Yankee stadium this year even though the scoring was low, but the heart of the Mets players and the dominant attitude the pinstripe wearing Yankees bring to every stadium they play in is just an amazing amazement to be apart of.