Maine Alive

Maine Alive - John Maine is a terrible hitter. Before today's game, he had no hits in 11 at-bats this year. Well, you might think that that is just because it's early - he hasn't gotten into a groove yet. However, the facts remain that going into today's game his career average was a minuscule .074. His season high (last year) was .109. In his entire career, he has just two extra-base hits. Now, would you have guessed, going into the game, that he would bat in more runs than he would give up. Personally, I doubt it. The fact remains that he pitched extremely well, giving up a lone run in 8.1 innings, and doing all right with the bat, 1 for 4, with, get this, 2 RBIs.

Of course, it wasn't really necessary. Offensively, the Mets did quite alright without him. Ryan Church had 3 hits (including a home run) and Luis Castillo, Marlon Anderson and Raul Cassanova had two apiece. Everyone else in the starting lineup had 1 hit except Jose Reyes who walked twice and scored a run. All in all, quite satisfactory.

By the way, with a total of 13 runs scored in today's game, I think I made a slightly bad prediction on Monday. Wednesday afternoon should be a low-scoring game, with John Maine facing off against Brad Penny. I guess everyone has to get their share of mistakes.

The Mets are currently in third place, one game behind the division-leading Phillies and Marlins.