Mets Lose to Cards, 10-8

Shea Stadium was home to 14 innings of hitter heaven and hurler hell as the Mets and Cardinals combined to produce 18 runs on 37 hits in a kitchen-sink game that, drawing heavily on both relief staffs, started last night and ended early this morning. Brandon Knight, up from the minors for the Mets in his first major league start, gave up four runs to the Cards in the first inning but settled in for four more innings without allowing any more runs. Meanwhile, the Mets climbed their way into the lead with two runs in the first, two runs in the third, and one run in the fourth.

In the top of the sixth inning St. Louis racked up another four runs that the Mets answered with two runs in the bottom of the inning and a game-prolonging run in the bottom of the ninth, which tied the game at 8-8. Billy Wagner pitched a strong two innings and the game became a standoff until Cardinal superstar Albert Pujols knocked a two-run homer off of Aaron Heilman that that the Mets didn't match, ending the game after more than five hours.

It was only this morning that I learned that a man had fallen from an escalator at Shea during the game; it was the second such incident this season.