Fernando to the Rescue!

Which one, you say? Well, Fernando Martinez was sent back to the minors batting over .300 and Fernando Tatis is sitting in the doghouse writing his memoir "Me and the Double Play". So that leaves Fernando Nieves as the hero of yesterday's game, going strong six innings to lead the team to a 5-3 victory over Tampa Bay.

Nieves second impressive outing is making Met fans breathe a sigh of relief regarding the Mets starting rotation. But he didn't do it yesterday without help. Brian Schneider of all people hit his first dinger of the year, a 3 run shot in the second that the Rays never really overcame.

David Wright contributed with an RBI Citi Field double (that ball he hit to rightfield lands in the upper deck at Yankee Stadium, trust us) and Daniel Murphy also had a big game with three hits. Ryan Church sealed the deal with an insurance run rbi in the bottom half of the eighth.

But you can't say enough about Fernando N. Think about it: he's had to pitch against the top two hitting clubs in all of baseball (Yankees and Rays) and has given up just three runs combined in both starts! Bobby Parnell almost did that in just 2/3 of an inning last night - and he even got credit for a hold!!! (Really, does anyone take the "hold" stat seriously? - Saves are bad enough, but this hold thing is ridiculous!)

Pedro Feliciano and Sean Green also recorded "holds" and KRod got back on the horse from the previous game's brutal outing and saved the game with a 1-2-3 ninth for his 18th save. We challenged him in our last blog post to stop playing with fire and he did it. Met fans across the country can thank MetsFanClub.com for that one.

With Philly's loss to Baltimore (I guess they're not as bad as I thought), the Mets are now just two games behind in the standings with Johan Santana going against the Ray's James Shields. Should be a good one, especially to see if Johan can bounce back from his last two subpar starts to say the least.