NEW YORK -- It was a clash of imperfect successes -- Jeff Suppan's strong outing marred by one quick burst of disaster, Jorge Sosa's sharp start dulled by two ill-timed mistakes.
Both starting pitchers were effective. Neither was perfect, and both pitched well enough -- or poorly enough -- to win or lose on any given night.
Let the chips fall where they may. They had scattered in favor of the Brewers six straight times, but on Friday night, for the first time in more than a week, they scattered away. Even Suppan's best efforts weren't enough to keep the streak alive, and the Brewers fell to the Mets, 5-4, at Shea Stadium.
"It was a great pitching matchup," manager Ned Yost said. "They've got some guys over there that if you make a mistake, they're going to bash it, and the couple of mistakes that we made, they made us pay for."
Those mistakes, at least early, were scant. The last time Suppan pitched at Shea Stadium was Game 7 of the 2006 National League Championship Series, when, as a Cardinal, the right-hander stymied the Mets for seven innings on his way to a World Series ring.
He seemed equally as sharp early on Friday after walking Jose Reyes to lead off the game. Only a Bill Hall error slowed Suppan's quick work of the Mets' lineup, and even that miscue was erased a batter later on a double play.
Not bad, considering that the Mets' offense led the league in batting average heading into the game.
But this Brewers club led the league in what matters most -- wins. The only difference was that the Mets had been there before, sitting as favorites atop the league. The Brewers hadn't, and that morphed the early stages of Friday's game into a test of sorts for the NL's hottest team.
It was a test that Suppan was passing with flying colors. But then, suddenly, his pencil snapped, and everything went awry.
Suppan was cruising when Mets third baseman David Wright led off the fourth with a home run, the first run Suppan had relinquished in 9 2/3 innings dating back to his last game. For a pitcher who had come into the game winning five straight starts, it easily could have been an isolated incident.
It wasn't.
The next batter tagged Suppan for a single. Then it was another home run, this one off the bat of Carlos Delgado. The hits kept coming. A double. Then a line-drive out. Then two more singles before the damage was done.
When the Mets had finally finished batting around at Suppan's expense, the right-hander had served up four runs on six hits, putting thoughts of seven straight squarely on the back burner.
And then, just like that, everything was back to normal. Suppan tossed two more perfect innings, as if nothing had ever happened. At day's end, his line was respectable -- six innings, six hits, four runs. But that one blotch of imperfection ruined everything.
"Tonight was the fourth inning," Suppan said. "They're very professional hitters, and they go out and are able to do a lot of things. Tonight, basically, it came down to some pitches that were up in the zone, middle of the plate, and they were able to capitalize."
It was an anomaly, bursting out of nowhere and shooting away as quickly as it had come. But that one inning, in one swift stroke, ended Milwaukee's winning streak and Suppan's personal winning streak while perhaps leaking a bit of the confidence that had been swelling inside an increasingly popular team.
The Brewers did their best to pick up Suppan's pieces. The problem was that New York's starter, Sosa, was pitching equally as effectively. He, too, cruised through the early innings, retiring nine straight at one juncture. And he, too, had some regrets, specifically that Geoff Jenkins and Prince Fielder launched home runs of their own.
"[Sosa] didn't make many mistakes," Yost said. "And when he did, our big boys did what their big boys did -- they hammered it over the fence. They just scored one more run than we did tonight."
Both clubs, in fact, made a mockery of Shea's spacious outfield, launching three homers apiece to every corner of the park.
The biggest of those came after both starters had gone, with Carlos Villanueva having entered the game for the Brewers. The first batter he faced, Damion Easley, guided a looping long ball over the left-field fence to extend New York's lead to 5-2.
The insurance run didn't seem vital at the time, but the Mets quickly cashed in on that policy an inning later, when J.J. Hardy launched a two-run shot of his own, driving in Rickie Weeks.
It was a comeback that fell just short, as Mets closer Billy Wagner came in to close the door. And though the loss poked just a hole in a bid for continued perfection, it also gave hope that on a night when two streaks died, another few might soon be born.
"They're a bunch of battlers," Yost said. "They feel like they're in the game right up until the last out is made, and that's why they're a special group of guys."
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