Mets Earn Split of Weekend Series

In the final Subway Series game ever at Shea, The Mets defeated the Yankees by a score of 3-1 this afternoon. The good Ollie showed up today as he pitched a gem giving up just one run on a solo home run by Second Baseman Wilson Betemit, which was one of three hits he gave up, while striking out eight, and walking none, in seven innings of work.

The Mets who have been struggling the most this season (Castillo, Delgado, and Perez), showed signs of coming out of their slumps during the Yankees series this weekend. As I mentioned in my last post, Luis Castillo scored a career best five runs in Friday's day portion of the double header, and of course Delgado had those 9 RBI's. After Andy Pettite got a 3-2 win yesterday, which was helped by another base running blunder by Jose Reyes as he got picked off by Pettite as the tying run at 2nd with Wright at the plate in the bottom of the 5th, Delgado got back on the attack today, as he hit his 14th home run of the season, and 3rd of the series against the Yankees. Castillo, on the other hand, went 3 for 5 today with 3 singles.

Perez's good start today might not only be attributed to the fact that the Yankees were in town, as he always pitches well against the Yankees, but not against anyone else. It also might be attributed to new Pitching Coach Dan Warthen changing his delivery a little bit as well as changing his position on the rubber. Let's see if this Perez shows up in his next start against the Phillies.

As the Mets take the final Subway Series of 2008 four games to two by winning 3 at Yankee Stadium and once at Shea, they head out on a grueling eight game road trip against two of the NL's best teams in St. Louis and Philadelphia before returning home to face the Giants.

At the end of this trip, we should have an idea if Manager Jerry Manuel has made enough of a difference to earn himself the opportunity to shed the "interim" manager tag.