Charity Begins at Home in Milwaukee With Latest Met Loss

Don't let the Mets offensive explosion of 6 runs fool you in yesterday's 10-6 loss to the Brewers. Sure, they scored, but only because of a very charitable Milwaukee team, which on occasion looked very... well... Met-like in the field.

The Mets scored twice in the sixth when the Brewers' Casey McGehee dropped a very catchable pop fly a la Luis Castillo. It's bad when his teammates kidded him by saying he "Castillo-ed it". Finally! Immortality for Luis!

So that was 2 gift runs to make the score at the time 3-2. But the Mets relief staff would have nothing to do with a close game, so Brian Stokes flamed the fire by allowing a quick 4 runs, followed by equally bad outings from Patrick Misch and Bobby Parnell. (What's with Parnell these days anyway? He looked unhittable a month ago, now he can't get anyone out - Perhaps another possible diagnosis of Heilmanitus?)

So, Stoked to a 10-3 lead, the Brew Crew again felt charitable in the ninth inning, throwing nothing but fastballs down the middle so no Met could reach base on a walk. After the Mets scored 3 times in the inning and put runners on first and second with one out, the Brewers decided to get serious again and brought in their closer. It took Trevor Hoffman exactly one pitch to get out of the inning and send the Mets and previously unbeaten Fernando Nieves (3-1) to their fifth straight loss, with Braden Looper getting the win. Looper couldn't do anything when he was closing games for New York, but his record against the Mets since leaving the team is 4-1. That hurts!

6 runs - 13 hits - all charity. And finally, after McGehee dropped that ball, you know what he did? He hit a grand slam in the very same game. Now that's redemption you usually don't see in a Met uniform these days, right Mr. Castillo?