By the end of this season, you get the sense we’re going to know the name of every umpire. Yesterday, Phil Cuzzi added his name to the rolls, infuriating Francisco Rodriguez, Henry Blanco, and Jerry Manuel in the ninth inning with some crazy umpiring, and then turning right back around and saving the Mets’ series with a wretched call at home plate that would have given the Giants the win and the series sweep. Cuzzi was a bloopers reel in the ninth, and if he didn’t prove baseball needs replay, he proved that by the end of the day on Sunday West Coast swings, Phil Cuzzi gets a little drowsy.
The Mets’ wild victory gave them a win at the end of a rather terrible series in San Francisco; by the fifth inning of Saturday’s Game Three, you had to wonder if the Mets were physically capable of scoring. They scored a total of eight runs in the four games, four each in the latter two, and were rather brutally shut out by Barry Zito on Friday night.
A little bit of help: Carlos Beltran, who went four for twelve on the weekend with a double, a triple, and two singles. Not much help: about everyone else other than Ike Davis. Had the Mets not come back to win last night, the sweep would have been devastating.
The Mets are still starting to push up on August in a tough spot. The team has still lost six of eight to fall five games behind the Braves and a game and a half out of the wild-card spot, with three teams ahead of them (Colorado, Cincinnati, and San Francisco) and one tied (Los Angeles). PECOTA has them at 28 percent odds to make the playoffs. And Mike Pelfrey was scratched from his start this weekend. (He’ll go tonight.) The hot streaks that have kept them around have passed. They need another one. Or three.