the story of the game: mike jacobs' two-out, two-strike rbi double in the 6th inning. morris had whiffed the previous batter, victor diaz, with a runner on 3d and one out, and immediately put jacobs in an 0-2 hole. if he finishes him off the score remains 1-0, morris is only at 81 pitches, and the mets have the 8-9-1 hitters up in the 7th. . . . . but jacobs went with an outside fastball and grounded it down the line. not an awful pitch; morris walked (semi-intentionally) the next hitter and labored through a 6-pitch at-bat to retire pedro, raising his pitch count to 92.
he should have come out at that point. it took him 24 pitches to get through the 6th; the top of the order was due up in the 7th, the 4th cycle through, and the mets were clearly seeing the ball better. his line at that point: 6 innings, 7 hits, 2 runs, 2 walks, 3 ks.
he looked great at the outset from section 248 --- as in his last start, he had hitters swinging late on the fastball and flailing at the curve. the mets put 12 swings on him in the 1st and only got four balls into play, only 1 for a hit. but by the 5th they were seeing the ball much better --- 8 swings, 5 in play, 4 of them very well hit, 2 for doubles. and in the 7th they swung 4 times and put 3 in play --- triple, sac fly, homer.
once again he couldn't put hitters away with two strikes --- mets went 4 for 11 with an rbi double and a homer on 2-strike counts, and morris hit a guy too.
the brass declared themselves satisfied, and they have reason to be. but why can't they just come out and say: we stayed with him too long. he was gassed after 6 on a hot day, and we wanted to leave him in and see if our bats could rally and put another W on his record (fat chance with those bats against pedro), and the last 3d of an inning ruined morris' line. our bad --- think of this as a 6 inn, 2 run start. that's all we're asking of matt for the playoffs.