With workman-like precision and little wasted motion, the Mets came to Busch last night and made quick work of the Cardinals.  It was a stealth operation - get in, score early, shut down the Cardinal offense and get out.  Nothing fancy, just good, old-fashioned, crisp, professional baseball.

In keeping with the Stealth theme, Jose Reyes struck with quick and deadly force in the first.  Walking to lead off the game, Jose became an instant distraction.  He went to second on an errant pick-off attempt by Pitcher Kip Wells, and advanced to third on a sacrifice bunt by LoDuca.  Instantly, the Mets had a man on third, with only one out, and with Beltran, Delgado and Wright coming up.  Beltran hit a deep fly to bring Reyes home in and ca-ching…1-0 Mets.  That’s walk, error, sac bunt, sac fly, Mets take the lead.  As Bob Murphy would say, there’s soooooooo many ways this lineup can hurt you.

The Mets also made it happen with Pitching and defense.  Again.  As someone who expects little from El Duque this year, I am happy to say he looked fantastic last night.  He was changing speeds, mixing up pitches, painting the corners and he kept the Cardinals pretty much befuddled at the plate all night.  He also helped his own cause going 2-3 with a double.  So far, the “Shaky Mets Rotation”, the team’s supposed “Achilles heel”, has turned in two gems.

Probably the best and most appropos line of last night’s broadcast came from Ron Darling.  In discussing the impact of the stellar D the Mets have been flashing, Darling said,

“When you take average pitching and put it with excellent Defense, you have excellent pitching”

In the field, Calros Beltran tracked down everything that came near him and the Mets infield, who turned 4 double-plays on opening day, registered another three DPs last night.  That’s 7 double-plays in their first 15 innings of the season.  It feels like anytime St. Louie has managed to put someone on base this week, the Mets have induced a grounder and turned two.

All the hard work could have been for naught, however, if it were not for the biggest moment of the game, which came in the 8th.  Albert Pujols came to the plate with men on first and third, representing the tieing run at the plate.  Randolph called on Aaron Heilman who did not tip-toe around.  He challenged Pujols, through some nasty moving fastballs and induced a flyout to Center.

So, to recap, the Mets scored early, El Duque looked great, they broke out the SB as a weapon stealing their first two bases of the season (Reyes and Beltran), Heilman slayed the savage beast and Wagner looked sharp closing the door in the 9^th.   The Mets have held the Cardinals to 2 runs in 18 innings and we get to tee off today on Braden Looper.  There is no way Looper can sustain 5 innings of Met offense.  Not gonna happen. 

Picking right up where we left off last year, the Mets are operating on all cylinders.