Pre Game Facts:

The New York Mets (45-43) will face the San Francisco Giants in a rubber game of a three game series.

Mike Pelfrey's only meeting this season with the Giants was decent, going 7 2/3 innings allowing 3 runs. Matt Cain struggled his last outing versus the worst hitting team in baseball, the San Diego Padres.

Many Mets fans remember the Matt Cain/David Wright incident when Cain threw a fastball up and in that hit Wright's head in 2009. Not many players in the line-up tonight were on the Mets in 09 however.

Sandy Alderson gave out good news today as he announced that Ike Davis ran on flat ground today without any problem. He is headed to New York to train after the all-star break.

He also said that he believe Johan Santana will be throwing to batters very soon.

Jose Reyes will not be able to play in the all-star game, and because of that, San Francisco Giant, Pablo Sandoval got the invite to join the NL team.

Former Met great, Mike Piazza coached the USA team in the Futures Game. He had a choice to wear any hat of a team he was apart of and chose the Mets.

Mets prospect Matt Harvey pitched in the Futures Game for team USA, pitching in the 9th inning with 2 outs, getting the save.

4 NL East Teams are .500 going into the all-star break.

Sources say that the Mets are shopping Francisco Rodriguez, preferably to the Texas Rangers because they want to land top 50 prospect Jurickson Profar who plays short stop.

Starting Pitchers:

Mets: Mike Pelfrey (5-7 4.64)

Giants: Matt Cain (7-5 3.22)

 

Line-ups:

Pagan CF, Turner 2B, Beltran RF, Murphy 3B, Bay LF, Duda 1B, Paulino C, Tejada SS, Pelfrey P

Torres CF, Fontenot 2B, Sandoval 1B, Schierholtz RF, Tejada 3B, Rowand LF, Crawford SS, Whiteside C, Cain P

Scoring Plays:

In the bottom of the 3rd inning, Pablo Sandoval doubled in Andres Torres to deep left center field making the score 1-0. After that, Nate Schierholtz hit a single up the middle scoring Sandoval to make the score 2-0.

In the bottom of the 7th inning, Miguel Tejada singled in Fontenot for the third run by the Giants. After that, Rowand hit a single to left field scoring Schierholtz to make the score 4-0.

In the top of the 8th inning, Nick Evans, pinch hitting for Lucas Duda drove a home run over the left field fence making the score 4-1.

In the 9th inning, Willie Harris doubled allowing Justin Turner to then double in him home to make the score 4-2.

Post Game Wrap Up:

Carlos Beltran struck out in the 9th inning being the tying run.

Mike Pelfrey (5-8 4.55) pitched 6 innings, allowing 2 earned runs on 8 hits and 2 walks, striking out 5 using 95 pitches.

Matt Cain (8-5 3.06) pitched 6 scoreless innings on 5 hits and 3 walks, striking out 4 on 118 pitches.

Starter Jon Niese pitched 1/3 of the 7th inning and he allowed a double and a single before D.J. Carrasco came in. Carrasco allowed 2 straight singles, and Niese added 2 ER to his stat sheet.

Nick Evans got his 2nd hit of the season, smacking his 1st home run.

The Mets seemed like they took the all-star week off before the game started. They also looked lost and didn't come through with their 2 out RBI hits as they were 1-11 with RISP.

They had 2 errors but were lucky not to get a third one.

Only good thing the Mets did today was that they got 6 extra base hits. But most of those extra base hit runners couldn't score.

Mets will now take the break, heading in with a 45-44 record, 1 game over .500. Not bad, but it should have been better as they lose the series to the Giants.

Hopefully Reyes/Wright/Davis/Santana get back and heel fast during this break, because it seems to me like this Mets team is fading.

Game Ball:

Justin Turner went 4-5 with a 2 doubles and 2 singles, the only player to get 2 or more hits on the Mets.

Bottom Line:

When you have 11 runners in scoring position and you only score one of them, you are going to lose.

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