- Jose Reyes' leadoff HR was the 15th of his career, and the first time he has lead off the game with a HR since September 19, 2008 against Jo-Jo Reyes of the Braves. That gives Jose 3 extra base hits in his last 5 games, a little bit more like the Jose we used to know and love. Could this be a sign that he's starting to come back to life?
- Despite the win tonight, Takahashi continues to be a conundrum. He's just not getting guys to swing at anything outside the zone, and batters are just waiting for him to throw his fastball over the plate and getting good swings on him; this isn't helped by him seeming to start off every hitter with a straight fastball. His stuff just isn't good enough for him to be a successful starter at the major league level long term. He did come through with 7 solid innings tonight, but, it was against an all-time bad team in the O's. Good teams are going to realize his very predictable patterns and eat him alive.
- Ruben Tejada has really started to grow into a solid defensive second baseman. He's really adept at turning the double play now. He also made an INCREDIBLE play going to his right on an Adam Jones grounder up the middle to start the bottom of the 7th. I feel very strongly that right now Tejada needs to be playing every day. His bat will come along, and he's already a vastly superior defender to Cora and Castillo.
- The crowd in Baltimore tonight had to be 75% Met fans. Asked someone at the game how many Met fans there were and he replied "All of them." Only thing I can compare it to would be the turnout of Yankee fans for games in Tampa pre-2008. Crazy.
- In a shocking turn of events, Jason Bay was hitless again today, and is now 1 for his last 25. To be fair, he did hit two balls very well, only to have Orioles Gold Glove CF Adam Jones track them down. Guess money can't buy luck... not even $66M.
- Francoeur's homer leading off the 8th was his first of the year against a lefty. Fairly surprising as Frenchy has hit a whopping .352 against lefties since the start of the 2009 season.
- Mets starters are not 12-3 with a 2.41 ERA in their last 23 starts. The Mets have gone 15-8 in those games. Those numbers are even more impressive when you consider that three of those starts were two Takahashi stinkers, and the Nieve disaster in Milwaukee.
Outside of the world of the Mets, it was great to see the US escape with a draw against a vastly more talented England side. Detractors will point to Dempsey's equalizer being no more than a goalie mistake, but on the flip side, the Americans were just as unlucky when Altidore's chance in the second half caromed off the inside of the post and somehow didn't find a way home. The draw puts the American side in a position to control their own destiny; winning the group would likely keep them from matching up with the Germans in the round of 16.
In today's other matches, Argentina was steady in their 1-0 win over a surprisingly competitive Nigeria side, although the Argentines had numerous near misses; the kind that if they start to convert, they will be tough to stop. Watching Messi out there, it's hard to imagine how anyone still thinks Ronaldo is the best player in the world. Korea looked very strong as well, doing a fantastic job of shutting down the Greek longball attack, and consistently frustrating the Greek effort. With the 2-0 win, Korea will need an epic collapse to fail to advance from the group stage. Til tomorrow...
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