Mike Pelfrey and the Mets fans battled rain and the Pirates. Pelfrey threw seven strong innings and drove in the go ahead run. Lucas Duda had two hits to overcome a historically bad start to his career. Angel Pagan made a great catch to close down a Pirates rally and also had three hits and two RBI. Add it up and the Mets swept the Pirates.
The Pirates took a 1-0 lead in the second. Pedro Alvarez doubled and John Bowker singled him home.
The Bucs took a bigger lead in the fourth. Garret Jones led off with a single. Alvarez walked. Bowker, who has been hitting the ball well the last couple of games, drilled one deep into the gap in right-center. Pagan made a feet first, sliding catch on the warning track and did a Lou Brock style pop up slide. Alvarez was running all the way and was easily doubled off as Pagan chucked the ball to the infield immediately after rising to his feet. Unbelievable play. I was listening in the car on XM while this happened and the Mets announcers lost their minds. It was #2 on SportCenters top plays. Ronny Cedeno followed with a triple that scored Jones. Chris Snyder was IBB and Morton whiffed to end the inning. So, if Bowker’s drive falls and Cedeno still triples, Bucs are up 4-0. As it was, the score was only 1-0.
Duda got Mets going with a one out two run double in the bottom of the fourth. It was his second career ML hit. And it tied the score at two each.
Wil Ledezma relieve Morton to start the sixth inning and he ran into trouble. Duda doubled and Pelfrey hit a two out double off Sean Gallagher who relieved Ledezma to put the Mets up 3-2. In the next inning off Chris Resop, Pagan reached on a fielder’s choice. He stole second and was balked to third. Ike Davis hit a sac fly to score him, putting the Mets up by a pair. Pagan capped the scoring with a two run double in the eighth.
Pelfrey allowed both Pirate runs in seven innings. He gave up six hits and four walks. He struck out four. Morton’s line of five innings, five hits and two runs got him a no decision. Ledezma picked up his third loss without a win this year.
The Good
Morton wasn’t horrible.
That’s it. Nothing else all that noticeable.
The Bad
Getting swept.
98 losses.
The Rest
Pelfrey now 3-1 against Pittsburgh and 2-0 in 2010. This was Morton’s first career start against the Mets.
Had Duda not appeared in this game and never appeared in another ML game, according to a search on baseball-reference.com,he would’ve had the second worst batting average among all non-pitchers who collected one career hit. Only pre-WWI era centerfielder Skeeter Shelton started had a worse career BA with exactly one hit. Shelton was 1-43 in his career. Duda started the night at 1-33.
Both Neil Walker and Jose Tabata were hitless and both of their batting averages fell below .300.
Pagan has three straight multi-hit games.
