Livan settles down after 1st inning as Mets win
Photo credit: AP | Houston Astros' Hunter Pence (9) is caught stealing second on a tag by New York Mets shortstop Alex Cora, left, during the first inning of a baseball game Sunday, July 26, 2009 in Houston. (AP Photo)
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HOUSTON - Livan Hernandez ended the sixth inning Sunday sitting on the pitcher's mound, his legs contorted in a full split. It was an unusual position for him to be in.
Not the sitting part - Hernandez ended up that way after he kicked at a ground ball, lost his balance and gracefully floated to the dirt as he turned his body and watched Luis Castillo complete a routine out.
No, that Hernandez was anywhere near the mound in the sixth inning was the amazing part. The way the Astros cuffed him around in the first, scoring three runs on four consecutive hard hits, it looked as if Hernandez was going to be sitting for most of the afternoon. In the clubhouse.
Jerry Manuel later said he was one or two batters away from taking out Hernandez and bringing Tim Redding in.
But Houston ran into two outs on the basepaths to end the inning, Hernandez straightened up and pitched six shutout innings, and the Mets continued their weekend offensive resurgence with an 8-3 win at Minute Maid Park.
The Mets had 22 runs and 38 hits in the three-game series after scoring one run total in their previous two games. They beat the hot Astros two out of three to take a series for the first time since the All-Star break and ended this three-city trip at 4-6.
The Mets come home for a 10-game homestand starting Monday night against wild card-leading Colorado. In fact, 21 of their next 28 are at Citi Field, where they are five games over .500.
You'd have to be kind of delusional to think the Mets, with most of their best offensive players on the DL, can really make a run at the division title or wild card. They are 10½ games behind the Phillies and trail seven teams in the wild-card race.
But it doesn't cost anything to dream. "You've got to take advantage," said Jeff Francoeur, who had a single and two RBIs. "You've got teams that are leading the wild card coming there, so you start to look at it. We understand that Philly's playing really good and will be tough to catch for anybody. But in this kind of thing, you never know what can happen."
Hernandez can attest to that. His pitches were getting bashed around the roofed-in yard as the Astros took a 3-0 lead in the first. It went walk, double, double, double, single, and Redding was heating up in the bullpen.
But Angel Pagan threw out Geoff Blum at the plate on the single and Brian Schneider cut down Hunter Pence trying to steal second to end the inning.
"That was good to see," Hernandez said. "Plays like that keep you on the mound."
Hernandez came out for the second and, according to him, did absolutely nothing different except "try not to throw it over the middle of the plate."
It worked.
Hernandez (7-5) allowed no runs, four hits and no walks in the next six innings. He struck out seven.
Trailing 3-0, the Mets scored three in the third against Brian Moehler (7-6). Luis Castillo had an RBI triple, David Wright a run-scoring single and Francoeur a tying sacrifice fly.
Pagan gave the Mets the lead in the fourth with an RBI triple before Castillo drove in another run with a two-out bunt down the third-base line. Pagan scored when Moehler threw the ball away at home in what was inexplicably scored a fielder's choice and not an error.
Pinch hitter Jeremy Reed tripled in a run in the eighth to make it 6-3. In the ninth, Wright hit a long RBI double to center and scored on Francoeur's single to give the Mets an 8-3 cushion.
"To beat a team like the Astros that had been super-hot is a big deal for us," Francoeur said. "We go home and we've got four versus the Rockies. We've got a chance to go home and play good ball."
