Mets vs. Angels - 6/17/08 - Keys to the Mets loss (or if you like half-full, Angels' win!)

Game 2 of the 3-game interleague series between the New York Mets, now managed by Jerry Manuel, and the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, ended with the Angels beating the Mets 6-1 behind the insanely great pitching of John Lackey.

While this was billed as a big-time pitching matchup, a battle of staff aces, Johan Santana doesn't pitch well against the Angels, and even less so when he's at Angel Stadium. Santana was 2-3 with a 4.05 ERA in 10 games - eight starts - against the Angels. After tonight's loss, make that 2-4 in 11 games, 9 starts against the Angels. I don't know the ERA offhand but it's definitely gone up.

Here are the key points of the game:

• Angel John Lackey was great. He scattered 6 Hits in 7.2 IP, walking 1, striking out 7, and the only run he gave up during the game was when David Wright hit into a double play, scoring Damion Easley, who replaced Jose Reyes after was pulled from the game by Manuel after he seemed to tweak his hamstring running to first on a leadoff single. I'm told that on TV, Reyes was shown throwing a tantrum in the dugout after being removed from the game. Apparently he thought it was just a temporary thing, but Jerry Manuel thought otherwise. All I could see from my vantage point was when Reyes threw the helmet, but no one knew what had happened.

• The Mets defense was terrible. They would've lost the game either way, but they committed 3 charged errors, and probably committed another 2-3 during the game that didn't make the official scorecard. Carlos Beltran could've nailed Vladimir Guerrero at the plate, but his throw to Brian Schneider was on the first base side of homeplate, allowing the Angels' 3rd run to score in the 1st inning.

• Johan Santana didn't pitch well, and earned the L in this game on his own. 4 of 5 Angel runs were scored on 8 hits in 6 Innings. Santana walked 2 and struck out 5. Angel catcher Jeff Mathis also connected on a solo blast in the bottom 6.

• Aaron Heilman pitched again tonight, and was perfect in the 7th. Heilman quite possibly saved last night's game by striking out Vladimir Guerrero and Torii Hunter with 1 out and runners on 1st and 3rd. The Mets led 8-6 at that point, so it was imperative to escape the inning.

• Claudio Vargas pitched the 8th, gave up an unearned run thanks to some more poor defense by Fernando Tatis and Luis Castillo, but at that point the game was pretty much over anyways.

The teams will meet tomorrow night in the rubber game of the series when Oliver Perez faces Jon Garland. Initially I thought this matchup favored Garland since he doesn't pitch very well at home, and has not looked anything remarkable lately. Then I heard that the Angels record against lefty starters is something like 12-3 this season, and with Perez' propensity to walk batters even in his GOOD starts, the Angels are a team with speed that will create problems for Perez.

This may end up being a battle of which pitcher sucks less. Considering the Angels scored 6 runs each in the first two games, the Mets pitching staff is going to have to come through Wednesday night, or the team will continue to slide, no matter who the manager is.