GAME 1 Mets 11 Brewers 10 The latest fad at Shea Stadium is not booing Bobby Bonilla and not showing up early for a twi-night doubleheader. The latest thing at the empty old stadium, which started in Game 1 of last night’s doubleheader, was to chant “Benn-y, Benn-y, Benn-y.”
The chants were for Benny Agbayani, a Triple-A player who only Bobby Valentine seemed to like before yesterday, a player the Mets didn’t even invite to spring training this year, a player who for the past several seasons has had the minor-league distinction of being the Toast of Norfolk.
Now, after a two-home run, four-hit performance in the Mets’ unkempt 11-10 win over the Brewers, Agbayani was the toast of Shea.
With the Mets trailing by a run in the fifth inning, he hit a three-run homer to give his team an 8-6 lead and allow Al Leiter (2-4) to gain only his second win of the season despite another poor outing. Leiter, who was sitting on the Mets’ bench having already thrown 121 pitches, was not going to come out for the sixth.
Sitting there contemplating his rough start to the season, Leiter was probably ahead of the curve, chanting “Benn-y” before anyone else picked it up. But after the second home run, a solo blast way beyond the left-field wall that carried an estimated 421 feet, the entire crowd – such as it was – began chanting “Benn-y, Benn-y” in earnest until their newest hero sheepishly emerged from the dugout to acknowledge the cheers.
That home run made it 11-6 Mets and didn’t seem at the time to be needed for anything more than capping his career day. Nor did Mike Piazza’s two-run blast to dead center in the sixth inning, which made it 10-6, seem significant.
But because Allen Watson gave up a three-run home run to Jeff Cirillo in the eighth, those runs became much needed.
In fact, the Mets had four home runs in the game, with Robin Ventura’s first-inning grand slam nothing but a faded memory after this 3 hour and 29 minute slop-fest of a game. It was his 11th grand slam of his career.
The win, which broke a three-game losing streak for the Mets, wasn’t sealed until Roger Cedeno easily threw out Alex Ochoa at the plate in the ninth after Edgardo Alfonzo dropped a shallow pop fly. John Franco earned his 12th save in 12 opportunities. In the second game Masato Yoshii was scheduled to start against Steve Woodard.
Although Leiter didn’t shut down the Brewers, he did get the win. In his last start against the Phillies, when he gave up six runs (five earned), the Mets came back to win 9-7 and Bobby Valentine was shouting, “The worm has turned. The worm has turned for Al Leiter.”
So Leiter has gone from losing, to getting no decisions, to winning. If the pattern holds he may actually start pitching well.
Leiter gave up five earned runs in five innings, which means that in his last four outings he has given up 24 runs in 22 innings for an ERA of 9.82. All the talk about what’s wrong with Al Leiter is really not important anymore. Just because it can’t be pinpointed doesn’t mean there isn’t something wrong. What’s wrong with Al Leiter is simply that he is not pitching well.
He gave up nine hits in five innings. He didn’t bear down when he had to, but he also didn’t get help from some of the fielders and only the Mets’ power surge kept it all from mattering.
After being staked to a four-run lead thanks to Ventura’s slam, Leiter gave up three runs in the third on RBI hits by Lou Collier, Jeromy Burnitz and Marquis Grissom. he allowed another run in the fourth when Rey Ordonez failed to catch his throw at third on Jim Abbott’s sacrifice bunt attempt.
Ochoa hit a two-out, two-RBI double in the fifth to make it 6-5 Brewers.
