One-derful!

The Happy Recap: Mets 3, Padres 0 (2nd game); Padres 4, Mets 2 (1st game)

The Mets went from 2 hits to 1 hit on the same day as Jon Niese was masterful in pitching the 23rd one-hitter in Mets history. But even more amazing was his stat line - no walks, no hit-by-pitch, while allowing just a third inning double to Chris Denorfia (this generation's version of Jimmy Qualls) which broke up his perfect game bid. As a result, Niese has just pitched the 3rd best game in the history of the New York Mets (Bobby Jones' 1-hitter against San Francisco in the playoffs in 2000 is definitely #1, followed by Tom Seaver's "imperfect game" in 1969 coming in 2nd).

THE GOOD: Pelfrey, Santana, Niese - not a bad starting three, huh? Now if the team can only get Cliff Lee! But tonight it was all about Jon Niese, who pitched his gem in just his 18th major league game pitched, the fewest by any Met to throw a complete game one-hitter since Aaron Heilman in 2005. (which was also the last time Heilman allowed just 1 hit in any appearance afterwards). Niese retired the last 21 batters he faced and struck out 6. He also walked twice in the game and scored a run. In a nutshell, he was absolutely dominating. The pie-in-the-face treatment was well deserved.

Jose Reyes had a 3-for-4 game and is now 6-for-12 since taking MetsFanClub.com's hitting advice in a previous post. (can we finally admit that HoJo is a great guy, a great Met, but a horrible batting coach yet? The answer is Yes, we can.) Chris Carter and Rod Barajas each had hits in the game as well.

And let's not forget Ike Davis' big walk-off 11th inning home run which gave the Mets a victory over the Padres on Tuesday night, overshadowing another tremendous performance by Mike "The Sheriff" Pelfrey, who went 9 innings just giving up a run in a no-decision in that game. Ike also had a 2-for-4 night in Niese's game, driving in a run along with Jeff Francoeur, who seems to be putting it all together these days.

All in all, there's a lot of good going on with this team, as the Mets remain the best team in baseball at home and are currently sitting in third place with a 32-28 record, tied with Philadelphia, and just 2.5 games off the pace of the division leading Braves. Mets-Braves... remember that rivalry? In fact, there's so much going well for the Mets, it doesn't even matter they fell victim to another triple play!

THE BAD: Did we mention there was a first game?, where San Diego's Mat Latos outpitched Johan Santana who's 18 inning scoreless streak was snapped but got tremendous run support for a change. (2 runs!). The loss stopped the Mets home winning streak at nine and the entire Mets offense amassed just 2 hits total in that game. (who knew that would be 1 more than the Padres would get in the very next game?). Only Henry Blanco's 2-run dinger kept the Mets inept offense from being shutout, and although Niese took the pressure off the offense, someone's eventually going to figure out the Mets need better than an entire team with no .300 hitters. Angel Pagan (Carlos Beltran's replacement) is leading the team with a .287 - and that's pretty bad.

THE UGLY: We don't know what's worst: the talentless Lady Gaga giving the finger to the Citi Field crowd, or the Mets upcoming schedule of ridiculous inter-league play. The Mets next six games are against woeful Baltimore, then hideous Cleveland. Then they play another contrived excitement series against the Yankees, followed by the tiresome Tigers before finishing their inter-league stretch against the Twins.

Look... I know the Yankee series always sell out, but the rest of inter-league play is a complete "who cares". When is someone going to stand up and tell everyone the emperor has no clothes on? Inter-league play was a nice novelty, but it's clearly worn out its welcome and should be stopped at this point. It cheapens the World Series. It cheapens the All-Star game (like that needed cheapening!), It cheapens the integrity of the schedule. But most importantly, fans DON'T WANT IT! Let's stop the insanity folks.