The Mets continue their tour against NL Central Teams, this time at Citi Field as the Mets open up their series with the Reds. THe Mets, who recently lost 6 games in a row, now have won 3 out of their last 4 and could use this week to build off of that. Tonight Shaun Marcum will get the nod as he goes up against Johnny Cueto.

Shaun Marcum is 0-4 on the season with a 6.75 ERA over 21.1 innings of work. His last start was the best of the season so far as he allowed 3 runs, 2 earned over 6.2 innings of work. Last year he allowed one earned runs over 6.0 innings of work while striking out 7 batters against the Reds who have the following numbers against him:

Paul 3-12, 2B
Phillips 0-12, 3 K
Votto 5-9, HR
Bruce 2-8, HR
Choo 2-9, 3B

The Mets bats will try to do some damage against Johnny Cueto who is 1-0 this season over three starts and 17.1 innings with a 2.60 ERA. This will be Cueto’s first start since mid-April due to oblique issues. Last year he made one star against the Mets where he allowed 1 earned run over 7 innings of work allowing 6 hits and striking out 8 Mets. The Mets have the following numbers against Johnny:

Wright 5-17, HR
Ankiel 7-16, 2B, HR
Byrd 6-11, 2B
Murphy 2-7
Davis 2-6
Turner 2-3, 2B

Let’s Go Mets!

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This weekend, the MLB did a soft release of the All-Star BP jerseys linking them to the online site. Since the late 90′s, All-Star Batting Practice jerseys have been made in the style of the host city. They range in styles and I’ve been waiting anxiously to see what the Mets one’s will look like. The American and National League uniforms look like this:

Let’s break it down. Both uniforms are in Mets colors and the main logo features the skyline on the Mets circular logo. The standard All-Star patch is on the sleeve. I imagine when the team logos are placed on the jerseys, for the Mets it may look redundant but I’m ok with that. The secondary All-Star logo is featured on the laundry tag.

Thankfully, the different color color on the top back of the jersey was ditched. This is featured on about half of the leagues BP uniforms and the All Star BP jerseys last year. Instead we have a striped color which looks pretty nice. Also interestingly, the inside of the uniforms our swapped from each other.

Still to come: National League and American League hats, USA Jersey and World Jersey for the Minor League game.

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While surfing around the internet today I came across this article with a picture of a delicious new ballpark concession item:

Mets go to Pittsburgh July 12th-14th. Lets get on this people.

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The Mets look to bounce back from yesterday’s loss this afternoon as Dillon Gee takes on Travis Wood in the rubber game in Chicago. Yesterday the Mets just could not get it done on all fronts, but Rick Ankiel still hit a homer. Anyway, let’s hope for the the best today!

Dillon Gee is 2-5 on the season over 8 games with 39.2 innings of work while posting an ERA of 6.13. In the month of May he has made two poor starts sandwiched around a good start thus making 1-1 over 14.0 innings of work with a 6.43 ERA while walking 7 and striking out 9. Last year he was 1-1 over 13.0 innings with a 3.46 ERA. The Cubs have the following numbers against Gee:

Castro 3-9
Barney 2-9
Soriano 1-8, 2B
DeJesus 3-7
Rizzo 3-6, 2B

The Mets bats will get a crack at Travis Wood today who is 4-2 over 8 games and 53.1 innings of work with a 2.03 ERA. He’s 2-1 over 3 games over 21.1 innings with a 1.69 ERA while walking 6 batters and striking out 13 batters. Last year he was 2-0 against the Mets over 13.0 innings with a 1.38 ERA. The Mets have the following numbers against Wood:

Byrd 2-9, 2B
Tejada 0-8
Wright 3-9, 3B
Davis 1-5
Duda 1-6, HR
Buck 1-4, HR
Turner 3-4, 2B
Valdespin 0-1

Lets Go Mets!

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The Mets now have won two games in a row and they are looking to do more this afternoon in Chicago as they play game two of this series. Yesterday the Mets got limited, but strong hits from David Wright and Daniel Murphy, good pitching from Matt Harvey and surprising defense from Byrd. Today Jeremy Hefner tries to keep it going against Scott Feldman.

Jeremy Hefner is 0-4 this season over 41.0 innings of work with a 4.61 ERA. His last start was average, contract definition of quality, as he allowed 3 ER over 6 innings of work and in that game he allowed 5 hits, 4 walks and 2 strikeouts. Last year he pitched only 1.1 innings against the Cubs and they were quiet: no hits, no runs, no walks and one strikeout. The Cubs have the following numbers against Hefner:

Schierholtz 1-4, 3B
Edwin Jackson, 0-3 (Yes, I know he’s a pitcher and he went yesterday but whatever)
Castro 0-1
DeJesus 0-1
Rizzo 0-1
Russel 0-1

Scott Feldman is 3-3 this season with a 2.53 ERA over 7 games and 42.2 innings of work. He has been fantastic in the month of May pitching 22.0 innings with a 1.23 ERA while walking 5 and striking out 21 batters. He has made one start in his career against the Mets where he picked up the loss after 5 innings with 8 hits, 7 runs, 6 earned. The Mets have the following numbers against Scott:

Buck 3-13, 2 2B
Wright 0-2
(It’s been a while since Feldman has faced the Mets)

Lets Go Mets!

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The Mets stopped the losing yesterday afternoon as they beat the Cardinals by the score of 5-2 and avoided the sweep. This afternoon, the Mets look to repair their season by building off of yesterday’s win. Murphy was a big reason for success yesterday with a 4-4 day at the plate with 2 doubles and going an overall 11 for his last 17 (after going 0-17). In addition to Murphy yesterday, the Mets got some good starting pitching from someone not named Matt Harvey. Speaking of Matt Harvey, happy Harvey Day!

Matt is still 4-0 this season thanks to the Mets bullpen and really the Mets offense in his last several starts. It speaks to the season Harvey is having that we were disappointed with 7 inning, 2 ER, 4 K performance his last time out that actually raised his ERA to 1.44. This afternoon will be Harvey’s first time pitching in Chicago, pitching against Chicago and facing any batter on the Chicago roster.

The Mets bats will square off with Edwin Jackson who is 1-5 over the first 8 starts of the year with a 6.02 ERA over 43.1 innings of work. His last start wasn’t bad as he allowed 2 ER over 5.1 innings but in his previous two starts he has allowed 12 ER in 9.2 innings of work. Last season he was 1-1 against the Mets in three starts with a 3.32 ERA in 19.0 innings. The Mets have the following numbers against Edwin:

Byrd 6-21, 4 2B, HR
Buck 3-13, HR
Wright 2-10
Murphy 1-9
Tejada 0-7
Davis 2-6, 2B, HR
Duda 1-6, 2B

Lets Go Mets!

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The Mets and Cardinals play the final game of the series this afternoon where the Mets try to avoid losing 7 games in a row, a 4 game sweep and try to break out of this terrible offense funk. Last night Marcum wasn’t bad. He allowed 3 runs, 2 earned over 6.2 innings but the only run support the Mets had came from a 2 run homer by Ankiel. Besides that the Mets were completely flat again. Niese will try to play stopper as he goes up against Wainwright.

Jon Niese is 2-4 over 8 games this season with a 5.93 ERA over 41.0 innings of work. His last two starts have been some of the worse in his career as he allowed 7 ER over 4.1 innings and followed that by 4.0 innings 8 ER in his last outing. Last year he had one start against the Cardinals and it was quite good as he pitched 6.0 innings of shutout ball striking out 10 batters. The Cards have the following numbers against Jon:

Wigginton 4-10, 2 2B
Holliday 2-10
Molina 2-8
Jon Jay 3-7, 2B
Freese 0-6
Beltran 1-3

The Mets will finish off this series against one of the figures of lore in Mets nemesis history: Adam Wainwright. Wainwright is 5-2 this season over 8 games with a 2.30 ERA while pitching 58.2 innings and a Major League leading 2 complete game shutouts, including his last outing. That last stunning performance was the follow up to a weak 5.1 innings, 5 ER outing. Last season he was not effective against the Mets going 0-2 in as many games allowing 12 ER over 11.1 innings the Mets have the following numbers against Adam:

Wright 1-9, 2B
Byrd 3-11, 2B
Buck 1-8, HR
Davis 2-7, HR
Baxter 2-6
Duda 2-4, 2B, HR
Murphy 3-6, 3B

Let’s Go Mets!

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For the second time this season, the Mets have lost 5 games in a row. Last time the streak went to 6 games and hopefully the Mets bats and Shaun Marcum can prevent that from happening tonight. Last night the Mets bats seemed beat against the rookie pitcher until the 6th inning when they scored 4 runs in the inning. It was the first time since May 5th they scored more than 3 runs in a game and the first time since May 1st that they scored 4 in an inning. Gee and Carson made it difficult last night as well as they allowed 5 and 4 each early on. Tonight Marcum will face off against Shelby Miller.

Shaun Marcum is 0-3 to start off his Mets career with a 8.59 ERA. He hasn’t been pitching deep into games and overall he hasn’t looked effective on the mound at all allowing hit after hit after hit. Last year he faced the Cardinals once allowing 4 ER and 8 hits over 5 innings of work. The Cardinals have the following numbers against him:

Wigginton 4-17
Holliday 4-14, 2 HR
Jon Jay 7-14, 2B
Molina 3-12, 2B
Freese 2-10, HR
Beltran 1-6, HR

The Mets bats will look to build off of the 6th inning yesterday as they go to battle with Shelby Miller tonight. This year Miller has been 5-2 with a 1.58 ERA over 45.2 innings while striking out 51 batters – Harvey-esque stats. Last year he came in relief against the Mets allowing one hit and no runs over 2 innings of work while striking out 4 batters. The Mets have the  following numbers against Miller:

Baxter 0-1
Duda 0-1
Davis 0-1
Murphy 1-1
Tejada 0-1

Let’s Go Mets!

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The Mets try to correct the ship tonight in St. Louis and break their four game losing streak. Last night the Mets and Cardinals each  got 3 runs early and then things fell silent until the Cards were able to get to the Mets pen for 3 runs. Meanwhile the Mets were able to do nothing against the Cardinals pen thus locking in a loss in the opener. Tonight Dillon Gee will try to play stopper as he goes up against John Gast in his major league debut.

Dillon Gee is 2-4 with a 5.55 ERA on the season over 7 starts and 35.2 innings of work. After a couple of poor starts in a row, Gee allowed only 1 ER in his last outing, but was only able to stay in the game for 5 innings. Last year he made one start against the Cardinals where he allowed 3 runs, 2 earned over 7 innings of work. The Cards have the following numbers against Gee:

Freese 3-6
Holliday 1-6, 2B
Molina 0-6
Beltran 0-4
Craig 1-2
Descalso 0-2
Jay 0-2
Wigginton 1-2, HR

The Mets bats will try to break out of their collective slump tonight against John Gast in his major league debut. Gast, the left hander, is 3-1 this season over 7 games allowing 5 ER over 38.2 innings in Memphis. When you run the numbers, that’s an ERA of 1.16. In those 38.2 innings he allowed 15 BB and struck out 35 batters. Last season in Memphis he was 9-5 over 109.1 innings and 20 games with an ERA of 5.10.

Let’s Go Mets!

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It would be best to imagine the last several days didn’t happen. Really.

After winning the opener on Thursday night, the Mets then dropped three straight to Bucs thanks to a variety of reasons, but mainly the offense. Because the baseball gods by nature are cruel, the Mets will now take their anemic bats to some of the best pitching in the National League. If you have been watching the broadcasts this past weekend, then you already know the Mets will be paired up against righties for the vast majority of the upcoming week, therefore yesterday’s line up is probably what we can expect. Tonight Jeremy Hefner gets the start against Lance Lynn.

Hefner hasn’t been as bad as you might assume. On the season he is 0-4 (ouch) but has a 4.63 ERA over 35.0 innings. In his last three starts, he has a 3.00 ERA over 21.0 innings, mostly due to allowing 4 ER over 6 last time out. Recently it has just been bad luck Jeremy as things slightly break against him out there. Hefner has never faced the Cardinals and the only batter he has seen on the team is Ty Wigginton who is 2-4 with a homer against him.

The Mets draw Lance Lynn who is 5-1 over 7 games with a 2.72 ERA over 43.o innings. The season started out rough for him but in his last 4 games he has pitched 28.0 innings with a 1.29 ERA. Last season he was 0-1 over 5.1 innings against the Mets where he allowed 5 hits, 3 runs, 2 earned. The Mets have the following numbers against him:

Murphy 1-5
Duda 0-3
Wright 1-3, 2B
Byrd 0-3
Davis 1-2

Let’s Go Mets!

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