Mets Hold Bizarro Day at Citi Field

Yesterday started badly and ended badly for Mets manager Jerry Manuel. The middle of his day wasn't that great either.

It started off with Pedro Martinez' pre-game news conference where he basically said he wanted to stay with the Mets, but Jerry Manuel nixed the idea, claiming the Mets already had enough pitchers on their staff. So there you have it Met fans... Pedro's pitching in a Philly uniform because of Jerry Manuel. And the Mets are looking at Bobby Parnell, Nelson Figueroa, Pat Misch, Sean Green and Elmer Dessens to give them innings. Way to go Jerry!

Then, the Mets ended the game yesterday in a most bizaare fashion when Jeff Francoeur hit into an unassisted triple play, the second time in major League history that ever happened. Why Jerry Manuel was sending the runners with no one out and Francoeur batting is anyone's guess. But it served as the official inauguration of Jeff Francoeur as a 2009 Met. Congratulations Jeff, you have arrived!

But that was just the end of day-bizarro. Consider all the following happened yesterday:

1) Oliver Perez couldn't make it past the first inning and was pulled in the middle of a 3-0 count against the opposing pitcher! I don't think I've ever seen that before. I've seen pitchers pulled during at-bats, but never against the pitcher... and never with a 3-0 count! (we know Met fans in attendance that actually left the game at that point). At $12 million dollars per year, Perez' performance was the worst I've seen since the $7.5 million Tom Glavine's debacle against the Marlins on the last day of the 2007 season when the Mets desperately needed a win to make the postseason. Talk about cash for clunkers! Way to go Omar!

One day removed from the Mets 1969 Championship team tribute, unfortunately Seaver, Koosman, and Ryan were not available to pitch.

2) Not only did Angel Pagan hit an inside the park homerun (the first ever at Citi Field), but he also hit a real homerun in the same game as well! When do you ever get to see something like that?

3) Just an inning before Manuel made him make history with the final at-bat, Jeff Francoeur made a Ron Swoboda like stab of a line drive which was originally ruled a non-catch. But when the umpires conferred on the call, they made the correct call by overturning the ruling. When do you ever see that? You see overturned calls, but mostly on home runs. You hardly ever see that happen on a meaningless play to the rightfielder. Oh, by the way, Francoeur was injured on the play...

4) A Met pitcher threw a no-hitter! Met farmhand Brandon Moore threw the first no-hitter in Brooklyn Cyclones history. Too bad he wasn't at Citi starting for the parent club instead.

So when was the last time you watched a game where there was an icon coming back to pitch against his former team for the first time, an inside the park homerun AND a regular homerun by the same player, an overturned outfield call, a pitcher who couldn't get past the first inning, and a game-ending unassisted triple play all in the same game? I'm pretty sure that's never happened before. What's next, reading that despite their incompetence, both Omar and Manuel will be back for next season?

Despite the Mets losing 9-7, Met fans will certainly remember this one. Much like you remember a bad dream... this is the part when I usually wake up in a pool of sweat.