Mets vs Dodgers on Cinco De Mayo at Beaner Ravine

Random thoughts from tonight's game.

- As often as it is noted that Oliver Perez can be erratic, the same goes for Chad Billingsley. Unfortunately for the Mets, the good Chad Billingsley showed up, so did the crappy Oliver Perez.

- What's the story of the game? Furcal HR, Dewitt's first MLB HR, Kemp's HR. Perez sucked, Billingsley was great. I suppose the silver lining was that Perez didn't leave in the 2nd inning like last time?

- How great was Billingsley? He threw 1 ball in the first inning, and was hammering the 1-2-3 batters with fastballs. I THINK he threw 12 total pitches that inning, 11 strikes. He only got in one real jam the whole game, and got out of it easily. He also K'd Wright twice.

- The Mets biggest threat was in the 2nd when they had Delgado on 2nd and Beltran on 3rd with 1 out. Billingsley got Schneider to K, and Castillo to ground out weakly to 3rd. This was also probably the early turning point in the game for the Dodgers as the Mets never had any runners reach 3rd again until Beltran's triple in the 6th.

- From my view, Brian Schneider was having a lot of trouble throwing guys out at 2B. 2 balls went into CF, one of them charged as an Error since Russell Martin was able to take 3rd as well.

- Andruw Jones is beyond awful, but this is known even to scumbag Dodger fans, who (deservingly) boo him at every AB. This team is lucky to have 4 out of 5 OFs who can hit.

- Conversely, all this talk about the best SS in the NL. Whether it's Hanley Ramirez, Jimmy Rollins, Jose Reyes, OH NO. Wrong Wrong Wrong!
The correct answer right now is Rafael Furcal, who is hitting up a crazy storm, and his arm for a SS is second-to-none.

- Beltran probably would have scored safely on his triple, had he went for the inside-the-park HR. But when you're down 5-0 in the 6th inning with 0 out, why risk it? It wasn't a sure thing that he'd be safe, and holding him up at 3rd was the right call. If it had been 2 out instead, you send him and hope for the best. Good thing Alou got his first RBI this season and broke the shutout. You think I wanted to leave that dump being shutout?

- Speaking of Alou, is it me or is he not hitting the way we had hoped? I know it's VERY early to judge him, but he's 2-for-11 so far, and those 2 hits were singles up the middle. He hasn't hit the ball HARD yet. Maybe he'll bang Kuroda around tomorrow.

- Dodgers bullpen was lights out. Beimel the 7th, Big John Broxton the 8th, Takashi Saito the 9th. Their pen has been very impressive over the last two seasons. It's their starting pitching past Penny, and I guess Billingsley on occasion, and lack of power bats (though you wouldn't know it tonight) which are their weaknesses.

- I thought it was... odd that Sosa pitched an inning tonight instead of Aaron Heilman. Sosa pitched Sunday against Arizona and got the club-leading 4th win. Heilman did not pitch. Either way, Sosa was fine, so I can only guess that Willie is hoping to use Aaron in Tuesday's game in the 7th or 8th, which I do believe is a game the Mets will win.

- Tuesday night's game pits Nelson Figueroa vs Hiroki Kuroda.
Kuroda has been mediocre for L.A. so far, Figueroa has been good enough for the Mets this season, although I am still of the opinion that once teams develop a book on him, he's going to fall off sharply come June if not sooner.

Won't be seeing this one in person, but I'll record it on the DVR and maybe end up watching it at some point riding the FF button. Although if they lose, will I really want to?