Last Night's Action: One Goes Up, One Goes Down
Glavine takes control, and so do Mets
Tom Glavine twirled six shutout innings and the Mets' offense patiently worked over the Dodgers' pitchers in a 4-1 victory that gave them a 2-0 lead in the three-of-five National League Division Series. The Dodgers have to think they lost this series when they had two players tagged out at home plate in the second inning of Game 1. If they didn't, they could have lost it with offensive impotence against Glavine, who showed that the Mets made the right move in holding him back until Game 2 before starting him.
Mets Enter Playoffs with Questions
After a cruise-control regular season, the Mets have hit a speed bump before the playoffs start. The health of their pitching staff has downgraded from bad to worse. After they learned Pedro Martinez would miss the postseason -- and half of next season -- with a torn muscle in his calf and a torn rotator cuff, the Mets got more bad news Tuesday when Orlando Hernandez pulled his calf during a workout. The Mets now hand the game 1 ball over to 25 year-old John Maine, who has played in only 27 Major League games and has no playoff starts. Maine was 6-5 with a 3.60 ERA in his 16 starts this season. Hernandez, in comparison, is 9-2 with a 2.64 ERA in his 14 postseason starts.
Last Night's Action: The Locals Lose
-Dodgers 5 Mets 0: Hong-Chih Kuo was impressive in his first major league start, surrendering only three hits over six shutout innings. LA got all the runs they would need in the first off of an error by David Wright. The loss and the Phillies win keeps the Mets’ magic number at 7.

