08 August 2007

Moises Alou hit a tiebreaking homer in the eighth inning and Billy Wagner escaped a bases-loaded, none-out jam in the ninth to help the New York Mets edge the Atlanta Braves 4-3 on Wednesday night.Wagner earned his 350th career save and extended his scoreless streak to 21 innings when slumping Andruw Jones grounded into a game-ending double play. Jeff Francouer bounced into a force play at the plate for the first out of the inning. Luis Castillo's broken-bat, two-run single off reliever Ron Mahay tied the score with two outs in the seventh. After a great pitchers' duel between John Smoltz and Orlando Hernandez, the Braves went ahead 2-1 in the sixth on a two-out, two-run double by Mets nemesis Chipper Jones. Mark Teixeira followed with an RBI single. Wagner entered in the ninth with a 4-3 lead, but Chipper Jones and Teixeira hit consecutive singles before the closer walked pinch-hitter Chris Woodward, who was squaring around to bunt. Francouer, on a recent tear, hit a grounder to third baseman David Wright for an out at the plate. Andruw Jones, struggling through a poor season and dropped to seventh in the lineup for the second time this season, then hit a grounder to Castillo at second for a tailor-made double play. I just didn't understand why Peter Moylan only pitched to one person. He is our best reliever and he one faces on batter that really puzzles me. I thought he was going to come in to face Reyes and Castillo and he didn't. I also thought Moylan was going to start off the 8th but he didn't. Soriano and Dotel need to work on their sliders. Since the All-Star break their offspeed pitch has been horrible. Maybe a Matt Diaz for Andruw would of got the run in but I don't think I would of done that if I was Mr. Cox.