213 Miles From Shea

The Mets continue their West Coast Road swing by going into Dodger Town tonight to try their recent hot streak against one of the leagues best teams right now. Yesterday the Mets bats came alive as they trounced the Diamondbacks 9-4 in the rubber game featuring the first homer by Wilmer Flores. Tonight Jenrry Mejia takes the mound for the Mets as he takes on an old foe in Ricky Nolasco.

Jenrry Mejia is 1-1 over 3 games and 18.1 innings with a 1.96 ERA. After his first start (7 scoreless) he allowed 3 ER over 6 in his second outing. Last time out he allowed 2 runs, 1 earned over 5.1. He’s logged one inning against the Dodgers where he has allowed no hits, no runs, no strikeouts and one walk. The Dodgers have the following numbers against Jenrry:

Ramirez 1-3
Hairston 0-1
Nolasco 0-2Ellis 0-1
Uribe 0-1

For those who don’t remember, Ricky was one of the few players that survived the fire sale of the Marlins back in the offseason. He was also one of the players that a lot of people predicted would be moved at some point this season (which was not at all a bold prediction). Nolasco was traded back on July 6. On the season he is 8-9 with a 3.65 ERA over 145.1 innings. His ERA with the Marlins was 3.85 and has been reduced to 3.00 with the Dodgers. His second start of the season was against the Mets where he allowed 3 ER over 5.1 innings. The Mets have the following numbers against Nolasco:

Murphy 8-28, 3 2B
Davis 5-23, 2 2B
Byrd 2-11, 2B
Baxter 1-2
Young 1-3

Lets Go Mets!

The Mets and Diamondbacks play the rubber game today as the Mets look for a series win to start this road trip off on the right foot. It is also a big day for the Mets as Jon Niese finally rejoins the rotation after injury. In case you missed last night’s game, Wheeler was great through 6.1 innings and the bullpen was able to hold it together as the Mets (and specifically Wilmer Flores) were able to put some runs on the board. Niese in his return today will be facing Zeke Spruill.

As stated earlier, this is the first start for Niese in a minute. Niese is 3-6 over 14 innings with a 4.32 ERA over 77.0 innings and 49 strikeouts this year. In his rehab starts, he pitched 11.0 innings allowing only 3 ER (2.45 ERA) while walking 4 and striking out 11. Last year Niese faced the Diamondbacks once and it didn’t go well as he allowed 9 hits, 8 runs, 6 earned over 6 innings of work. The Diamondbacks have the following numbers against Niese:

Prado 6-29, 4 2B, 3B
Ross 2-6
Hill 0-2
Goldschmidt 1-3
Kubel 1-3, 2B

Zeke Spruill is 0-1 with a 6.48 ERA over 5 games, 1 start and 8.1 innings of work. The 23 year old rookie made his first start in his last outing where he allowed 5 ER (he’s allowed 6 in his career) over 4.1 innings. He’s made 17 starts in the minors this year with a 2.68 ERA pitching 104.0 innings with 54 strikeouts. He’s never faced the Mets or anyone on the Mets roster in a major league game.

Lets Go Mets!

The Mets look to bounce back from last night’s loss as they take on the Diamondbacks for game two tonight in Arizona. Yesterday the Mets did not get a good performance from Hefner which put Atchison in a position to give up the walk off homer. The Mets bats didn’t help going 3-13 with runners in scoring position. Tonight Zack Wheeler takes the mound for the Mets as he takes on Brandon McCarthy.

Zack Wheeler is 4-2 over 9 games with a 3.91 ERA over 50.2 innings with 41 K’s. His last start against Kansas City was rocky. He allowed 4 ER over 5 innings. This will be Wheeler’s first start against the Diamondbacks in his career and he hasn’t faced anyone on their roster in a major league game.

The Mets bats draw Brandon McCarthy tonight who is 2-5 over 12 games with a 4.94 ERA. His last start (4.1 IP, 2 ER) was a good bounce back, sorta, from his start before that lasted 2.2 innings with 6 ER. Even though McCarthy has been pitching since 2005, almost all of his seasons have been in the American League and he never faced the Mets as a team. But since he has been teaching since 2005 there are a few Mets who have seen him on other teams:

Buck 1-7, HR
Byrd 0-2
Young 1-3

Lets Go Mets!

Go West Boys From Queens!

But actually yes, head west. The Mets start an 11 game road trip tonight with the Diamondbacks, Dodgers, Padres and Twins on the heels of a 3 game sweep of the Rockies. Yesterday, the Mets got another great start from a starter, this time Gee as he was able to hold the Rockies to one run and the offense scored the minimum to win with 2. Tonight Hefner gets the mound as he squares up against Corbin:

Hefner is 4-8 on the season with a 4.23 ERA over 125.2 innings of work. His last tart, 3 ER over 6 innings, was the best since the All-Star break so hopefully he can continue to put it back together tonight. The last time he faced the Diamondbacks he allowed only one run over 7 innings. The Diamondbacks have the following numbers against him:

Prado 2-5, 2B, HR
Corbin 0-3
Goldschmidt 0-3
Hill 0-3
Kubel 1-2
Ross 0-3

The Mets get to look at Corbin again (and I guess Corbin gets another look at Hefner specifically). Corbin is 12-3, the best winning percentage in the league, with a 2.33 ERA over 150.1 innings of work. After four straight starts of allowing only 1 ER, he allowed 3 ER over 6 in his last outing. His last terrible outing was against the Mets as he allowed 5 ER over 6 innings. The Mets have the following numbers against him:

Young 3-9, 3 2B
Brown 3-7, HR
Buck 1-3
Byrd 1-3, 2B
Lagares 1-3, 2B
Satin 1-3, 2B
Murphy 2-2

Lets Go Mets!

Yesterday Mark Simon posted this article to ESPN explaining that the Mets are doing something so positive, so well that we are making the rest of the league look silly.

What are they doing? UBR!

…what?

Yes, this seems like the most hipster of all of the hipster sabermetrics, but it stands for Ultimate Base Running (also BSR). Its calculated for doing positive things on the bases like taking an extra base, stealing but not being caught, not doing something stupid and being called out, etc. It attempts to calculate how many runs the base running alone has contributed. Here are the top 5 teams in the league:

1. Mets 15.3
2. Royals 8.9
3. Indians 7.6
4. Pirates 7.6
5. Rockies 7.0

We are above and beyond the best at this. Mark Simon points out that for the Mets, taking the extra base has been the critical for the Mets this year and reflecting on that there have been a lot of times watching that I’ve commented or someone else has commented something to the effect of “Way to take the extra base.” Now while a lot of this is intuition, I think Terry deserves a lot of credit for this. It was one of his initiatives to take the extra base this year in spring and it has been paying off in this objective stat about the Mets baserunning abilities this year.

Now if you look at the teams with the Mets, the Rockies are also a team not heading towards meaningful games in September this year. It is important to remember though that earlier this year they were at the top of the West division, so there seems to be some correlation that good UBR means competitive teams. For the Mets, a lot of their UBR has come from Eric Young (so this hurts the objective stat for Terry argument) and the Mets have been competitive since he has joined.

The Mets go for the series sweep this afternoon in Queens against the Rockies as this blogger finds himself in an unusual situation. I usually write these articles before 6 AM and the Rockies, who will be playing 6 hours and 15 minutes from this exact moment (5:45 AM) still have not announced a starter yet. Last night the Rockies announced that the planned starter, Tyler Chatwood, is suffering elbow inflmation and will be bumped. Anyway last night Harvey was masterful in a 4 hit shutout as Wilmer Flores had his first two major league hits with 3 huge insurance RBI’s. Dillon Gee will get the nod today against the Rockies mystery man.

Dillon Gee is 7-8 on the season with a 3.97 ERA pitching 131.1 innings. His last start was a nice bounce back as he allowed only 1 ER over 7 innings of work and now has allowed 1 ER or fewer over 6.2 innings or more in three of his last four starts. He faced Colorado before this season and it was a rough game as he allowed 5 ER over 4.2 innings and 7 hits. The Rockies have the following numbers against Gee:

Herrera 0-7
Cuddyer 2-5, 2B
Gonzalez 3-4, HR
Helton 2-5, 2B
Tulo 2-5
Fowler 0-3

Lets Go Mets!

The Mets and Rockies play the second game of the series tonight as the Mets look to make it two in a row. Last night the Mets got a quick 2-0 lead which the Rockies eventually tied. Thanks to some amazing defense from Eric Young and a late run, the Mets were able to finish on top 3-2 in Flores’ debut (0-4 at the plate). Tonight, Matt Harvey (Happy Harvey Day) against Jhoulys Chacin.

Matt Harvey is 8-3 over 22 games and more importantly right now, 150.2 innings of work, with a 2.21 ERA. He still is leading the league at strikeouts wit 172. Harvey was cruising through the first 5.0 innings but allowed 3 ER in his last inning of work that day. In his one start against the Rockies he allowed 1 ER over 6 innings of work. The Rockies have the following numbers against Harvey:

Blackmon 0-3
Gonzalez 0-3
Herrera 1-3
Fowler 1-2
Rosario 0-1

Jhoulys Chacin is 10-5 with a 3.40 ERA over 21 starts and 135.0 innings this year. After two near identical starts of allowing 3 ER over 7 innings, he had a spectacular start last time out allowing 1 ER over 8 innings of work. Last year he made one start against the Mets allowing 1 ER over 6 innings of work. The Mets have the following numbers against Chacin:

Byrd 1-6
Davis 3-6
Buck 0-3
Murphy 0-4
Baxter 0-3

Lets Go Mets!

The Rockies travel to Queens as the Mets look to move past their disappointing series with the Royals. Over the weekend the Mets started off great winning an extra inning game but then fell flat in another extra inning game before losing on Sunday. They also lost David Wright for a month, but that’s another story. Tonight Jenrry Mejia takes the mound as he goes up against Tyler Chatwood.

Jenrry Mejia is 1-1 this season over two starts with a 2.08 ERA over 13.0 innings. More specifically, after tossing a seven innings of shutout ball in his first start, in his second start he allowed 3 ER over 6 innings, which is still quality. He has faced the Rockies for one inning of relief where he allowed 1 ER over 1 inning of work. Only three current Rockies have faced him (Tulo, Helton, Fowler) and they are all 0-1.

The Mets bats will try to rough up Tyler Chatwood who is 7-4 over 15 games with a 3.15 ERA. Tyler is coming off of a rough start where he allowed 8 runs, 7 earned in 2.1 innings. He faced the Mets earlier this season and allowed only one earned run and 4 hits over 6.0 innings of work. The Mets have the following numbers against him:

Murphy 1-8
Byrd 1-3
Lagares 1-3
Omar 0-2
Satin 0-2
Turner 1-3, 2B

Lets Go Mets!

The Mets and Royals try to keep it at 9 innings today as Ervin Santana takes the mound against Zack Wheeler. In the opener of the series, the Mets won on a walk-off homer from Eric Young in the bottom of the 11th. Yesterday the Mets lost in the 12th inning. Does it feel like the Mets play a lot of extras? Well they played their major league leading 48th extra inning yesterday.

Zack Wheeler is 4-1 over 8 starts this season pitching 45.2 innings with a 3.55 ERA. In his last start he allowed 2 ER over 7 innings of work while walking 3 batters and striking out 5, it was the first time a few starts that his ERA dropped after the game. Since Wheeler is a rookie in the National league, he has never faced the Royals before and never has faced anyone on the Royals in a major league game before.

The Mets draw Ervin Santana today who is 7-6 over 145.1 innings with a 3.03 ERA. In his last three starts he has allowed 5 runs, only 3 earned, over 21.2 innings with a 1.21 ERA. Santana has never faced the Mets in his career, which isn’t unusual since he spent the vast majority of his career with the Angels. There are a few Mets who have faced him before on other teams:

Byrd 5-24, HR
Buck 1-15, HR
Young 1-1

Lets Go Mets!

The Mets and Royals play the second game of the series today as the Mets try to build off of yesterday’s exciting extra-inning win. The Mets had a 2-0 lead most of the game yesterday but towards the end of the game the Royals were able to scratch back and tie the game. Eric Young then smacked a game winning homer in the bottom of the 11th. For all of the positive news yesterday, there was also some scary news as David Wright will need an MRI after running out a ball to first base. Today Bruce Chen, who is still in baseball apparently, will take the mound against Jeremy Hefner.

Hefner is 4-8 this season with a 4.21 ERA over 119.2 innings. He still hasn’t quite gotten back to his self before the all star break. In total since the break over three starts, he has pitched 11.0 innings allowing 19 runs, 16 earned. Not surprisingly, Hefner has never faced the Royals and has never faced anyone on the Royals roster in a major league game.

Bruce Chen, at age 36, is having a good season. If the name sounds familiar, its because he’s a Met that you have probably forgotten (2001-02). He is 4-0 over 22 games, 3 starts this year with a 2.09 ERA and 51.2 innings of work. As a starter, he has pitched 6.0 innings each time and has allowed a total of 3 ER over 18.0 innings. The only two Mets who have faced Chen are Byrd (3-6) and Buck (2-2, 2B).

Lets Go Mets!