Mets lose on unassisted triple play
Only the Mets. Only this team could do what they did on Sunday.
After rallying from a six-run deficit, the Mets had the tying runs on with no outs in the ninth inning against Phillies closer Brad Lidge. Jeff Francoeur then lined into an unassisted triple play to give the Phillies a 9-7 win, making Pedro Martinez a winner against his old team.
Photo credit: AP Photo | Philadelphia Phillies' second baseman Eric Bruntlett , right, completes an unassisted triple play to end the game against the Mets.
The Mets trailed 9-6 in the ninth when Angel Pagan, who had homered twice, ripped a ball through Ryan Howard’s legs at first and down the line for a three-base error. Eric Bruntlett then booted Luis Castillo’s grounder and Pagan scored to make it 9-7.
Daniel Murphy reached on an infield single when Bruntlett smothered his grounder but couldn’t make a play.
Francoeur came up and, with Castillo and Murphy running, drilled a liner up the middle. But Bruntlett snared it at second base, stepped on the bag for the second out and tagged Murphy for the final out.
Martinez got his first taste of Citi Field not from the pitcher’s mound on Sunday, but the batter’s box, coming to bat at the end of a six-run first inning off Oliver Perez. That was bad enough.
Worse was Mets manager Jerry Manuel pulling Perez after the Mets’ lefthander threw three straight balls to Martinez. Nelson Figueroa got out of the inning and the Phillies went on to finish off the win for Martinez (2-0), who allowed four runs over six innings.
Perez (3-4) hadn’t been the Awful Ollie of old over his last eight starts, since returning from the disabled list. He’d gone at least five innings in all those starts and allowed one run in two of his last three outings.
All that progress went out the window in 47 pitches on Sunday. Perez allowed a leadoff double to Jimmy Rollins, then walked Shane Victorino. Jayson Werth fouled off eight straight pitches with a 1-and-2 count, then yanked the 12th pitch of the at-bat, a low fastball, down the line and into the second deck in left for a quick 3-0 Phillies lead.
Perez got the next two batters, but walked Pedro Feliz. Eric Bruntlett singled and Carlos Ruiz then launched a three-run homer to left for a 6-0 Mets deficit.
Pedro came up to bat to a mix of cheers and boos, but the boos were mostly in the air already for Perez and the Mets. That was bad; the three straight pitches to Martinez out of the strike zone were worse, and Manuel took the unusual step of lifting Perez in the middle of an at-bat. By the opposing pitcher, no less.
Martinez did not dominate but was good enough with the big lead.
Angel Pagan led off the bottom half of the first with a drive to center that landed beyond Victorino and wedged under the centerfield wall. Victorino tried to call for a ground-rule double, but the umpires weren’t buying, and
Pagan raced all the way around for an inside-the-park homer.
Jeff Francoeur tripled in another run to make it 6-2 after an inning, but the Phillies tacked on two more in the third, one on a bases-loaded single by Martinez, a career .099 hitter coming in.
Pagan homered the conventional way off Martinez in the third, his second career two-homer game. After Martinez departed, the Mets twice got within three runs, but never closer as the Mets dropped 10 games under .500 (57-67) for the first time since they finished the 2004 season 71-91.
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