Padres 2 - Mets 1

How is Brian Bannister getting away with this? His 2.14 ERA is, I would argue, the most deceptive statistic in baseball right now. He is not pitching well. Thus far, opposing teams have not been able to capitalize on the many, many opportunities he's been giving them. Nonetheless, even assuming for the moment that he's one of those pitchers with a knack for getting out of jams, I'd be much more comfortable with a pitcher with a knack for getting hitters out.

Of course, a pitcher's job is to prevent runs, not baserunners, but damn. You just cannot keep walking more guys (5.9 per 9) than you strike out (5.1) and get away with it on any kind of consistent basis. At some point, opponents will start hitting timely doubles, instead of into timely double plays, especially given that Bannister has not demonstrated the ability to induce groundballs with any regularity (22 GB: 29 FB).

I'm as happy as anyone that he's been able to dodge bullets for 21 innings, but the way he's pitching, he's going to get the Sonny Corleone tollbooth treatment sooner rather than later. And when Willie has to run out to the mound to get him, and wails with tears in his eyes "Look what they did to my boy!", let it never be said that I didn't try to warn him.

Carlos Delgado continues to do it, but the Mets offense once again failed to put any crooked numbers on the board. It's not like Woody Williams is quite in that Hudson-Peavy class either, but I'm not going to worry about the offense just yet.

Although Chad Bradford ended up taking the collar, both bullpens put up incredible combined lines last night:

SD: 6 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 7 K
NY: 8 IP, 7 H, 1 R, 2 BB, 10 K

How much fun was it to watch Cliff Floyd swipe second off Mike Piazza? It's the little things, really. After so many years of watching teams exploit Mike like an 11 year-old Malaysian seamstress, it was nice to be wearing the Nikes for once.

Elsewhere in the division, Alfonso Soriano tagged three home runs and a double to pretty much singlehandedly beat the Braves. I had expected his offensive numbers to suffer dramatically in RFK, but apparently he can clear those fences, too. Meanwhile John Lieber took his 4th loss of the season f0r the Phils despite pitching very well.

Tonight Pedro Martinez faces former/escaped Texas Ranger Chris Young. At some point you would think the string of pitchers' duels would have to end, but this is a much stronger matchup than last night's. And given the aforementioned reliever contributions, I think both managers would like to see their guys make it at least into the seventh.