Mets Bullpen Regroups To Holds Off Rays

METS 5

RAYS 3

After a dreadful week in which the Mets played listless baseball in Baltimore thanks in part to leaks in the ship that is the so-called revamped bullpen, the Mets found a way to plug some of those leaks against the AL Champion Tampa Bay Rays.

For the second straight week, Fernando Nieve surprised the world with another fabulous pitching performance. Nieve went six innings, gave up three hits and a run to earn his second straight victory. Nieve is 2-0 with a 1.84 ERA as a replacement for the injured John Maine. Nieve has shown no fear going up against two of the better lineups in baseball, the Yankees and Rays. If he keeps it up, expect Nieve to take over the spot inhabited by the awful combo of Oliver Perez and Tim Redding.

The Mets got on the board early in this one to support the right hander. Brian Schneider, of all people, blasted a three-run home run into the bullpen in right center field to give New York a 3-0 lead in the first inning.

In the third inning, the Mets continued to pound Rays starter Andy Sonnenstein. Alex Cora and Daniel Murphy led off the inning with back-to-back singles. Two batters later, David Wright doubled to right to drive in Cora to give the Mets a 4-0 lead.

But as has been the case with the Mets over the past couple of weeks, the bullpen almost blew it. Bobby Parnell got ripped apart by the Rays when Jason Bartlett singled to left to move Gabe Gross to second; Duaner Navarro's sacrifice fly moved Gross to third to make things really complicated for the young Parnell. Finally, B.J. Upton doubled into the left field corner to drive in Gross and Bartlett to cut the Mets lead to 4-3. Upton advanced to third because Fernando Tatis was extremely slow in moving into the left field corner to retrieve the ball.

Then the Mets did something they never do lately: tack runs on! Ryan Church's single to center was good enough to drive in Carlos Beltran who was initially attempting a steal of third base. The extra run was enough for Francisco Rodriguez. K-Rod bounced back from his horrible performance against the Orioles on Thursday, recording a 1,2,3 ninth against the Rays. Box Score.