Gonzalez Homer In 10th Pushes Friars Over Mets In Wild Game

The San Diego Padres and New York Metropolitans finished up a ridiculous series with the Padres winning Thursday 9-8 and taking two of three from the Mets at home. After taking a commanding 6-1 lead to the 6th, the Padres third baseman Kevin Kouzmanoff's error opened the flood gates to a 6 run inning. The Friars had a chance to even the score in the 7th after David Wright's 2nd error of the night; with runners on the corners and 1 out Brian Giles hit into an inning ending twin killing. The Pads entered the 9th trailing by one against hard throwing lefty closer Billy Wagner. Khalil Greene continued his strong series by leading off with a hustle double to left. Many failed bunt attempts and hits that found holes came off the bats of Marcus Giles, Sledge, and Josh Bard lead to a 2 run inning setting up Trevor Hoffman to protect a 1 run lead. Hoffman who took the loss with his blown save on Tuesday night came right back and earned a save in Wednesday's game. After retiring the first batter Hoffman gave up consecutive singles by Jose Reyes and Luis Castillo; with 1 out and David Wright at the plate the Mets pulled off a double steal (which were the 10 & 11 stolen bases off of catcher Josh Bard in the series) to put runners at 2nd and 3rd. A fly ball to center tied the game at 8 before Hoffman loaded the bases and got Alou to ground out to second. Adrian Gonzalez hit a 1 out solo shot to right center to set former Met Heath Bell up for his first major league save, which he earned to push the Padres to 2 games over the Phillies (who they play in a 3 game weekend series beginning Friday) and just 3 games back of the idle Diamondbacks.

You would have figured the scores to look a lot different with the NL's best 2 pitching staffs going at it ~ this could be a preview of a playoff series this October, if that ends up happening make sure to have plenty of antacid handy.