Baseball can be a funny game.....

It certainly can.

The Mets get 15 hits today. Pedro Martinez strikes out 12 in 6 innings. Carlos Beltran comes within a triple of the cycle. Reyes hits two doubles. Wright scalds a line drive at third base and comes within 3 feet of a homer. Aybar is serviceable, giving up a run due to a pseudo-drop in center by Beltran, and Dae-Sung Koo looks solid in the 8th.

This looks like a win, right? 6-4 Mets, going into the 9th, in a game that they'd thoroughly dominated.

I can't fault the Mets for strategy today (I strongly objected to having Kaz Matsui sacrifice bunt Reyes from 2nd to 3rd in the 7th, but they did come out with 3 runs), and I can't fault them for pitcher choice (Looper's the closer, right?). But the results of the 9th inning bring a different question....how much do matchups have to do with anything?

I actually said outloud, "they should leave Koo in to face Kearns and Dunn" because I was scared of what Dunn would do against a righty like Looper, who struggles against lefties. He's similar to Scott Strickland in this sense, just a little better and with much better control. Then again, normally, I'm really opposed to working the lefty/righty crap, but there are some cases where it's worth considering.

Coincidentally, Looper just "didn't have it" today, and when Dunn stepped in, I remembered one of the many stat lines I looked at in the offseason:

Scenario 1: .227/.264/.279
Scenario 2: .311/.348/.417

This is Looper's righty / lefty split, in terms of what opponents did against him. When Dunn stepped in, I said, "he's going to go deep again," mainly because Dunn is a great hitter and he's a lefty. Sure enough, he did. He assaulted a merciless pitch to right center, his second jack of the game. Now, while this helps my fantasy team, it was quite depressing. But you can't do anything about that, except maybe get some better bullpen help. And, FYI, righties today against Looper went 1.000/1.000/2.500, so is there really a difference?

Looper is best suited to be a righty specialist. He's out of place as a closer, unfortunately. Today doesn't change that too much, but it just shows the facts. He's a serviceable closer who will probably get a big raise next year, but he's not one of those guys I'd want to commit to for the long-haul.

All in all, it doesn't mean much, but it makes for a damn disappointing opening day. One loss isn't a killer, but it's tough to give up these games, especially with that pitching matchup.