Shortstop swipes two bases in loss to Orioles

By Spencer Fordin / MLB.com

ORIOLES 4, METS 3
at Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
Friday, March 28Mets at the plate: Shortstop Jose Reyes had two hits, stole two bases and scored two runs. Third baseman David Wright singled once, drew a walk and drove in a run on a fielder’s choice. First baseman Carlos Delgado walked once and drove in a run. Second baseman Luis Castillo walked once and grounded into a bases-loaded double play.

Orioles at the plate: Left fielder Luke Scott singled and center fielder Adam Jones doubled in the third inning, but Jones got doubled off on a popup. Second baseman Brian Roberts drove Scott home with a two-out double. Scott doubled in the ninth and scored the tying run on Jay Payton’s single. Payton scored the winning run in the bottom of the ninth.

Mets on the mound: Orlando Hernandez fired five effective innings, allowing four hits and one earned run. The right-hander had only made one spring start prior to that outing but appears to be ready for the season. Mike Pelfrey coaxed a double-play grounder to escape a threat in the sixth inning and pitched effectively in the seventh.

Orioles on the mound: Daniel Cabrera had another enigmatic outing, pitching five innings and walking five batters. Cabrera gave up three hits and two earned runs and left with his team trailing by one run. Matt Albers, who was named a swingman on Friday, pitched one scoreless inning and gave up a run in his second inning of work.

Grapefruit League records: Mets 18-11-1; Orioles 10-16-2.

Up next for Mets: New York will pack up and leave Florida on Friday, but only temporarily. The Mets are slated to play the White Sox on Saturday in Memphis, Tenn., for the Civil Rights Game, a matchup that pits John Maine against Chicago’s Jose Contreras. After that, the Mets will return to Florida and will open up their season Monday against the Marlins.

Up next for Orioles: The O’s will wake up at home in Baltimore on Saturday, and they’ll have an eventful day in front of them. The club will have its FanFest at Camden Yards in the morning and the Orioles will play the Nationals in Washington D.C. that night. Baltimore has a workout on Sunday and will kick off its season Monday against Tampa Bay.

Spencer Fordin is a reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

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By Bryan Hoch / MLB.com

NEW YORK — The Yankees activated left-hander Andy Pettitte from the 15-day disabled list on Saturday, permitting him to start against the Rays at Yankee Stadium.Pettitte was placed on the disabled list retroactively to March 21 with lower back spasms that forced him to miss his final two starts of Spring Training.

The 36-year-old last pitched on Sunday in a Minor League intrasquad game, throwing six scoreless innings and 77 pitches against the Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees. Because of the injury, the Yankees rearranged their rotation and slotted Pettitte, originally envisioned as New York’s No. 2 starter, as the No. 5 starter.

“I’m just ready to pitch, more than anything,” Pettitte said. “I’m definitely used to pitching a lot sooner than Game 5. I’m looking forward to getting out there and getting my season under way and get three or four starts under my belt.

To make room on the Yankees’ 25-man roster, right-hander Jonathan Albaladejo was optioned to Triple-A. Albaladejo made his Yankees debut on Friday against Tampa Bay, throwing 2 2/3 scoreless innings and allowing one hit while striking out four.

In other news, Jorge Posada was back behind the plate on Saturday, catching Pettitte. The 36-year-old had been held out of the lineup for two games and served as New York’s designated hitter on Friday due to right shoulder stiffness.

Bryan Hoch is a reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

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Righty allows four runs in four innings; Pagan drives in a pair.

ATLANTA — As much as the Mets want to put 2007 behind, they can not do so — not readily, not yet, not if their bullpen performs as it did on Saturday in a rather ugly loss to the Braves. Losing to the Braves wasn’t particularly reminiscent of what the Mets endured late last season. But parallels were easily drawn between the method of losing then and how they lost, 11-5, on Saturday.

It wasn’t merely the pinch-hit grand slam Kelly Johnson hit against Jorge Sosa — Sosa playing the role of discarded Guillermo Mota — in the seventh inning, or the two runs the Braves scored in the eighth against Nelson Figueroa, though those runs seemed to be pieces of unwanted nostalgia. But the bullpen let down the Mets even before Sosa was summoned. The Braves, having scored four times against losing pitcher John Maine, added a run to their lead in the sixth inning against Joe Smith and Scott Schoeneweis. So the Mets trailed 5-3 before the slam.

The Mets scored twice against the Braves’ already suspect bullpen in the eighth inning, but they couldn’t offset the damage. Maine, arguably the best pitcher in Florida last month, lasted merely four innings in his 2008 debut, allowing runs in three of them. He surrendered eight hits, three walks and four runs. He needed 96 pitches to achieve 12 outs, an unhealthy ratio.

The Mets scored once in the second inning and twice in the fifth, when the reversal of an incorrect call on a line drive struck by Jose Reyes changed an inning-ending double play into a run-scoring single. But even that assist was insufficient.

Smith retired the Braves in order in the fifth, But a leadoff single by Ruben Gotay, waived by the Mets in the final days of Spring Training, and an RBI single by Mark Kotsay against Schoeneweis doubled the Mets’ deficit.

The Mets managed six hits in six innings against Tim Hudson (1-0), the winning pitcher. David Wright was hitless in four at-bats; his hitting streak, carried over from last season, ended at 20 games.

Marty Noble is a reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

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Friday’s rainout pushes game against rivals back to May 20.

ATLANTA — Any advantage for the Mets created by the rainout Friday night is likely to be of the time-release quality. After amassing 17 hits and scoring 13 runs on Wednesday night, the Mets didn’t embrace the day off on Thursday, much less the postponement in Atlanta on Friday. The rainout will be played as part of a day-night doubleheader on May 20, and therein lies the advantage, subtle as it may be.

Come May 20, the Mets may be at full strength when they play a four-game series in Atlanta, following three games in the Bronx and a trip to Denver. Indeed, the Mets may have all their broken pieces back together again by then.

Some updates of the wounded follow:

• Manager Willie Randolph said on Saturday that Moises Alou had resumed swinging a bat. The manager wasn’t sure whether Alou was swinging at pitches or balls on tee, but either way, swinging constitutes progress for the disabled left fielder who underwent surgery to repair a hernia early last month.

• The Mets are wont to say velocity is not the end all and be all of all aspects of pitching. And Orlando Hernandez, in what little he does say for public consumption, dismisses velocity as an issue in his on-going effort to return to the big leagues. But the club has concerns that his velocity isn’t increasing, even though his pitch count and stamina have increased in the past three weeks and the precision of his pitches has improved as well. El Duque, assigned to the disabled list, threw 64 pitches in a Class A game on Thursday; most were in the 80-84-mph range.

The Mets believe he will need at least two more starts, no matter what his velocity is.

• As disappointed as Pedro Martinez is by the right hamstring strain that has interrupted his comeback season, he was buoyed by what he was told by the Mets’ medical staff, that the injury was not so severe — the club announced it as a “mild” strain. But the fickle nature of hamstring injuries is a well-recognized variable, particularly for pitchers. Randolph said the prognosis — four to six weeks before Martinez will return to pitching — seemed “conservative.” And knowing how conservative the club is with recovering players, he said he wouldn’t be surprised if Martinez were to miss eight weeks.

• Still assigned to the disabled list, Duaner Sanchez made his first appearance in a Minor League game on Friday night. And it wasn’t a good one. He allowed two home runs and a single in one inning, pitching for the Mets’ Class A St. Lucie affiliate against the Vero Beach Devil Rays. The Mets were pleased by his velocity and how he threw, and they attributed the homers to strong winds and the smallish park at Vero Beach.

Randolph says Sanchez needs to pitch on successive days without after-effects — probably next week — before the reliever will be added to the big league roster.

• Ramon Castro, assigned to the DL because of a strained right hamstring, still hasn’t played in a Minor League game. The club is unsure when he will.

Marty Noble is a reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

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