This was a huge win for New York on so many levels. Of course starting off a five game series with a win is always big, but especially since the Mets have so many pitching issues right now. Pedro Martinez and El Duque Hernandez will probably miss the entire postseason due to injury, so that forced the Mets to start John Maine, who made his postseason debut. The 25-year-old Maine wasn’t overly impressive by any means, but he held the Dodgers to only one run on six hits in 4.1 innings of work.
Maine got a huge lift in the second inning after a rare play at home netted a double play. Maine surrendered an opposite field hit to Russell Martin with Jeff Kent and J.D. Drew already on base. Kent got a late jump and Drew practically was in his hip pocket running behind him. The ball careened off the bottom of the wall in right field where Shawn Green was able to field it cleanly and throw a strike to relay man Jose Valentin at second base. Valentin spun around and threw a one-hopper to catcher Paul Lo Duca at home plate. Lo Duca had plenty of time to tag Kent for an out, but then turned around to show the home plate umpire that he still had the ball. Almost a second later, Lo Duca noticed that Drew was still running and spun back around in time to nail him for the double play. Maine eventually gave up a run that inning before getting out of the jam, but the damage could have been much worse.
Carlos Delgado waited almost an eternity (14 seasons to be exact) to make his postseason debut and he didn’t disappoint. Delgado homered to center in the forth inning to tie the score at 1-1 and then singled in a go-ahead run in the seventh to give New York a 5-4 lead. Delgado finished 4 for 5 at the plate with two RBI and two runs scored.
LA put together 11 hits, but they were scattered and that left the Dodgers to play catch up for virtually the entire game after netting an early 1-0 lead. Despite being tagged for three runs in two innings, Guillermo Mota (1-0) got the win while Brad Penny (0-1) took the loss for LA.
Game two is Thursday night and will feature Hong Chih Kuo (0-0) vs. Tom Glavine (0-0).
