September 23rd - Reds 3, Mets 2 (10 innings)

Monday night in Cincinnati, Shin-Soo Choo hit a single off the wall in the bottom of the 10^th inning. The Reds beat the Mets 3-2 in 10 innings.  Aaron Harang started for the Mets and faced his former team, and while his strikeout pitch deserted him, the big righty gutted it out for 6 effective innings.   The Reds scored all their runs in the bottom of the 2^nd. In the inning Harang allowed 3 hits and a pair of walks including an rbi single by Shin-Soo Choo and bases loaded walk to Joey Votto.  Harang  battled with his control all night long walking 6 (3 of them Votto who walked 4 times on the night).  Lucas Duda was the only cog in the Met offense with a sac-fly to make it 2-1 in the 3^rd and a solo homer, his 15^th on the year,  to tie the game at 2 in the 6^th. In the top of the 8^th the Mets missed their best chance to win the game. With Daniel Murphy on 2^nd and David Wright on 1^st with 1 out, Lucas Duda hit into his first double play of the year and the Mets failed to score. In the bottom of the 9^th Shin-Shoo Choo Doubled and stole 3^rd with no out and David Aardsma came and masterfully if not magically got out of the jam. Aardsma remains perfect in not allowing any of his 19 inherited runners this year to score. In the 10^th against Sean Henn with 1^st and 3^rd and one out Choo nailed the game winner.  Johnny Cueto started for the Reds and pitched good enough to get the win, but luck wasn’t on his side. Cueto went 7 innings allowing 5 hits, 2 runs (only 1 earned) he walked 3 and struck out 5. Manny Parra got the win in relief he’s now 2-3. Greg Burke takes the loss. He falls to 0-3. The Mets 3 game winning streak goes by the boards as the Mets fall to  71-85 overall and 39-40 on the road. Tuesday is game two of the series. Jon Niese (7-8  3.81) goes for the Mets.  Mike Leake (14-6  3.21) goes for Cincy. https://www.facebook.com/MetsForum