With Carlos Beltran reportedly en route to join the Giants, the Mets played the Reds with 24 men on Friday but still took their third straight from the Reds, 8-2. Unless the Beltran deal hits a snag, he will be sent to San Francisco in exchange for highly regarded pitching prospect Zack Wheeler, who was with Class A San Jose. Mike Pelfrey impressed with a complete game, striking out three and walking none. Lucas Duda, playing right field in Beltran's absence, had a homer for the Mets' fifth run. Much of the damage had been done before that. Angel Pagan had a two-run double in the first and Daniel Murphy—still blistering hot—had another one in the fifth. David Wright had a homer in a 2-for-4 performance.
The Mariners had the long losing streak, but the Yankees were the team that looked as though it had lost 17 straight games. They misplayed ground balls and fly balls and lost pop ups in the sun. They also gave up nine runs to the Mariners, which is really hard to do. Felix Hernandez shut them down—no shame in that—and the Yankees will have to skulk through Thursday's off-day with the taste of a loss in their mouths. Phil Hughes allowed two runs in six innings, a good performance for him but nothing remarkable against Seattle.
Manchester United had no trouble downing MLS' best in a 4-0 drubbing in the annual All-Star Game in Harrison, N.J.'s Red Bull arena. The MLS side had few chances, but the Red Devils continued their impressive Stateside summer tour with goals from Anderson, Ji-Sung Park, Dimitar Berbatov and Danny Welbeck. So the English side had Brazil, South Korea, Buglaria and England represented. Not too shabby.
