Nothing but Nieve: Mets 11, Cardinals 0

What a nice change of pace for tonight.  Not only did the Mets win, but it was a laugher.  There’s only been a handful of those all season.  The story of tonight has to be Fernando Nieve.

I know it’s only three starts, but this guy has been absolutely awesome.  His stuff is great and he looks unhittable at times.  And he’s doing it against some of the best offenses in baseball.  I like to think this isn’t a fluke.  After all the bad stuff that’s happened to this team, imagine if they discovered something out of nowhere in Nieve.  What a huge lift that would be.  And he’s only 26 too.  So maybe something finally clicked with him.  It’s happened in the past with other players although you have to suspect a lot of that might have been steroids.  It’s not probable, but it’s certainly possible that Nieve could turn out to be one of those hidden gems that comes along every once in a while.

On the offensive side, you see 11 runs and wonder why can’t they do this every night!?  I know the Cardinals gifted the Mets some of those runs, but they did hit the ball hard all night.  You don’t get 16 fluke hits in a game.

Have to give props to David Wright for a four-hit game but bonus points to Ryan Church and Brian Schneider.  I’ve killed both guys this season but they looked awesome tonight.  Church was hitting with power to left field and Schneider continues to drive the ball on mistakes from the pitcher.

I’ve been negative in the past few weeks and rightfully so.  This team blows games, they don’t hustle and frankly they just aren’t very good.  But tomorrow’s game is so enormous.  First of all Johan Santana is on the mound and he’s been shaky lately.  They could use a great start for him.  Second, they’re up against Chris Carpenter so if you beat him you get some extra confidence.  But most importantly, you finally win a series during this tough stretch and your record in this time goes to 7-9.  All things considered, that wouldn’t be terrible.  But first, you have to win the series.