As anyone who watched Thursday night's game is surely aware, Tim Lincecum had never beaten the Mets in four previous outings against them. That left them in select National League company. En route to two straight Cy Youngs, Lincecum had beaten every NL outfit but the Reds and the Mets.
The Reds now stand alone.
Lincecum was nearly flawless on Thursday night in San Francisco which made the Giants 2-0 winners and R.A. Dickey the hardest of hard-luck losers. It was a beautiful game to watch. Don't know how you feel, but we're of the opinion that the wait for the All-Star break to end feels more interminable than the offseason so even a sloppier game would have been welcome. Two great pitching performances and the bay in the background is a wonderful re-entry to the world of games that matter after three days without baseball.
Speaking of re-entries, that was in fact Carlos Beltran you saw in a Mets uniform. The center fielder made his 2010 debut with a hit, a caught stealing, a bulky looking brace on his knee but no noticable limp to his step. While he was caught on the steal attempt, it took a great throw to get him and it was a good sign that Beltran is actually ready to be on the field and going 100 percent. With the Mets, you can't take that kind of thing for granted.
Take Jose Reyes, for example. The Mets originally had the shortstop in the lineup on Thursday even though he hasn't swung a bat since Sunday and still has an oblique injury that keeps him from batting left-handed. Reyes wound up scratching himself from the lineup, making it very clear that the Mets really haven't learned a damn thing from 2009 or even from last weekend's shenanigans. If Reyes pushed the issue, the Mets wouldn't have thought twice about putting a wounded duck out there.
Nice backdrop for Beltran's return, huh?
Josh Alper is a writer living in New York City and is a contributor to FanHouse.com and ProFootballTalk.com in addition to his duties for NBCNewYork.com. You can follow him on Twitter.
