Associate reporter Cash Kruth here, once again filling in for Chris, who will be back with the Giants on Monday in L.A.

There's no way around it: Home plate umpire Phil Cuzzi's blown call in the bottom of the ninth was awful. Sometimes with plays, I like to look at the TV replay before making a decision on whether or not a call was bad (umpiring is clearly not in my future), but that one was obvious from the start. It wasn't Armando Galarraga/Jim Joyce bad, but I thought it was pretty cut and dry.

The most telling quotes came from Mets catcher Henry Blanco:

"I was surprised when he called him out."
"He was safe all the way. Good for us."
"I was getting ready to go to the dugout."

But the most eye-popping was this gem: "He missed a lot of pitches, not only for us, for them too," Blanco said. "It was bad all game long, so I'm happy we got the win."

A lot has been made this season on the umpiring in Major League Baseball. Personally, I've always believed that umpires have made mistakes since the dawn of baseball, it's just that the microscope on these guys is sharper because of advanced technology and more replay. But this season - and stemming back to last year's playoffs, really - has me just constantly shaking my head.

It'll be interesting to see what changes will be made in the offseason. Although, for teams like the Giants who will probably be in a close race throughout, it'll be tough to swallow those changes should they miss out on the division title by one game or less.

A couple other notes from today's game:

I thought Jonathan Sanchez threw wonderfully today, and it was good to see him come back after his previous rough outing. Plus, that ninth-inning comeback kept him from getting saddled with the loss. Despite the Angel Pagan's ground-rule double and David Wright's home run, Sanchez kept pretty even Santana throughout the game. Between the four Giants starters and the Mets' R.A. Dickey on Thursday and Jonathan Niese on Friday, I thought this was the strongest series of pitching I've seen in two summers of covering MLB. (Granted, last year I was in Milwaukee, so take that as a grain of salt.)

*Buster Posey extended his hitting streak to 12 games. Ho-hum. ... David Wright's homer was his 15th of the season and 155th of his career, putting him fourth on the Mets' all-time home run list. Remember when Citi Field messed with his swing last year and people were worried his power might be gone? So much for that theory.