Another Pitcher’s Duel, Another Mets Win

The old baseball adage is “good pitching beats good hitting.” The adage for the Mets these days could be “good pitching makes up for struggling hitting” and for the second straight night, the Mets beat the Marlins.

Following Monday’s Johan Santana-Josh Johnson pitching duel, Tuesday night we had one between R.A. Dickey and Mark Buehrle. Dickey (left) had the knuckleball dancing, striking out seven Marlins and allowing just three hits in seven innings. The only run he allowed was on a mammoth homer by Omar Infante off the facing of the second deck in left field in the fifth inning.

Buehrle was just as good in his seven innings, but David Wright took him deep in the sixth with a man on to give the Mets the 2-1 lead. The two RBIs made Wright the all-time RBI leader for the Mets, topping Darryl Strawberry’s 733.

The offense was scuffling along until the Mets broke the game open in the eighth with three runs, including a pinch-hit two-run double by Mike Baxter, leading the Mets to a 5-1 win.

After scoring just four runs in their previous three games, let’s hope this five-run performance is a sign of things to come. The Mets bats need to heat up if they have any hope to keep pace with the rest of the NL East.

They Mets go for the sweep of the Marlins in a Thursday matinee, then it is off to the rarefied air of Denver for a three-game set against the Rockies. That’s always a good cure for slumping bats.