The Mets are going to play the Braves a lot now for a period of time and today they lost to them by the score of 5-1. The bats really went cold today as really Church and Murphy provided the only offense. Niese was starting pitcher for the Mets today, and if you stretch out his work to 6 innings, then he did have a quality start, but for him to get that last rotation spot he has to get better than QS. Hernandez will probably not hold the fifth spot the entire season, so Niese has time to get his stuff tuned in the minors before eventually coming up the majors again this season. Anyway here are some box highlights for the Mets today:
The Good:
Muprhy 3-4, 2B
Chuch 1-3, HR, R, RBI
Parnell 1.0 IP, K
Stokes 1.0 IP, K
The Bad:
Anderson 0-3
Valentine 0-4
Evans 0-4
Niese 4.0 IP, 2H, 2ER, 3BB, 3K
Fossum .2 IP, 3H, 2ER, BB
The Mets apparently are going to let Cherry go back to the Orioles today, which is shame because I really like him but at the same time he is very similar to O'day, who has a good chance of making the team (he pitched 1.1 IP today and let up a run). Today was basically a very quiet game, and a lot of that had to do with the bench guys who all had quiet days at the plate. Anderson, Valetine and Evans, all went 0-11. For Anderson that doesn't mean much because he will be on the team, for Evans that is sorta important because he is fighting for that last spot, but in recent days he has had some big days and for Valetine, he is just slipping farther behind the pack, but starting camp he wasn't expecting to make the major league roster.
