While Street Is Traded, Benoit Gives Up Winning Run

As the talk swirling around the Twittersphere was centered on the Padres sending major league closer Huston Street and Double-A pitcher Trevor Gott to the Angels for four minor league prospects, three of whom are among the very best prospects in the Angels’ system, there was also a baseball game being played at Petco Park.

Before news of the details of the trade were reported, the Mets’ Bartolo Colon looked like he was going to continue where the Dodgers’ pitching staff left off last Sunday. The Padres’ offense, after being shut out twice in the last two games by LA prior to the break, didn’t get anything on the board for the first four innings against the 41-year old Mets starter.

In the meantime, starter Ian Kennedy allowed three runs in the top of the first, giving up three hits, a walk and a hit-by-pitch, as the Mets sent eight men to the plate before the Padres even got to hit.  Kennedy wasn’t particularly sharp tonight, allowing six hits and three walks while throwing 105 pitches in his five innings of work. The Padres headed into their half of the fifth trailing 4-0.

A few minutes before that, the news of some of the details of the trade broke. The Padres would be getting top Angels prospect Taylor Lindsey, Jose Rondon and right-handed pitchers R.J. Alvarez and Elliot Morris for Street and Gott.

Whether the team was aware of the trade or not is uncertain, but they certainly seemed to try to send Street off with a win after that. In the fifth, Will Venable singled and Jake Goebbert walked, and on a 3-0 pitch to 2B Chris Nelson, called up from Triple-A earlier in the day, Venable and Goebbert pulled off a double steal, setting the stage for Nelson’s run-scoring single. The run broke a string of 25 innings without scoring. But the Padres weren’t done. Alexi Amarista followed with an RBI single of his own, and after a pair of outs, Chase Headley, himself the subject of many a trade rumor, knotted the score at 4 with a pair of ribbies on a base hit to left.

The two steals by Venable and Goebbert were number 4,998 and 4,999 in Padres history.

Both Kennedy and Colon were done after five innings. The game stayed tied through eight, and although Street was still in the bullpen, Joaquin Benoit came out to pitch the ninth. Curtis Granderson greeted Benoit with a walk, and advanced to third on a pair of groundouts. Mets’ cleanup hitter Lucas Duda was intentionally walked, but the move backfired when Travis d’Arnaud sliced a single to right through the infield, driving in Granderson with the winning run.

Final score: 5-4

We wish Street and Gott the very best in their new adventures with the Angels.

Box Score