213 Miles From Shea

The Mets dropped their second game in a row last night as the Marlins beat the Mets by the score of 7-5. In the first two games of the season, the Mets had excellent starting pitching and timely hitting. In the second two games of the season, the Mets still had excellent starting pitching, but the hitting fell apart. Earlier on yesterday’s game the Mets had a ton of chances to score earlier in the game and couldn’t get it done. When the Mets started to score, the Mets bullpen simultaneously fell apart. This afternoon Jon Niese will be making his second start of the season as he goes up against Ricky Nolasco.

Jon Niese picked up a win in his first start of the season pitching 6.2 innings allowing 2 ER and 4 hits while walking 2 and striking out 4. Terry attempted to pull Niese out of the game after 6, but Niese insisted to stay in the game. Last season Niese had a 13-9 record over 190.1 innings while posting a 3.40 ERA. Against the Marlins he totaled 25.1 innings over 4 starts with a 1-1 record allowing 9 ER, which would be a 3.20 ERA. The Marlins have the following numbers against Niese:

Polanco 11-32, 5 2B
Kearns 5-15, 2B
Stanton 3-12
Coghlan 2-10, 2B
Nolasco 0-4
Ruggiano 2-5
Brantly 0-3

Nolasco was the hard luck loser in his first start of the season against the Nationals. He allowed only 3 hits over 6 innings of work. Sadly for Ricky, two of those hits were solo homers to Bryce Harper. Last season Nolasco was 12-13 over 31 starts and 191.0 innings while posting a 4.48 ERA. He picked up one loss in three starts over 18.1 innings against the Marlins. Rickey allowed 9 earned runs and 19 hits during that stretch, which is a 4.34 ERA. The Mets have the following numbers against Nolasco:

Wright 25-63, 6 2B, 6 HR (.397 BA)
Murphy 8-25, 3 2B
Davis 3-20, 2 2B
Duda 2-14
Tejada 2-12, 3B
Kirk 3-5, 2B

Let’s Go Mets!

The Mets and Marlins play their first game together at Citi Field tonight as Jeremy Hefner gets the start against Alex Sanabia. Yesterday the Mets dropped the final game of a three game set vs. the Padres by the score of 2-1. Dillon Gee gave the Mets their third straight game of excellent starting pitching but the bats just couldn’t do anything – except for Turner who surprisingly collected a bunch of hits and John Buck who smacked his second homer in as many days. The Marlins are coming off of a sweep by the Nationals. The Marlins managed to score 1 run over that three game stretch.

Hefner gets the nod for the Mets today. Last season he was 4-7 with a 5.09 ERA over 93.2 innings. On the positive side he walked only 18 batters during that stretch (and struck out 62). Last year he totaled 14.1 innings of work over 3 games and 2 starts against the Marlins where he allowed only 4 ER walking 4 batters and striking out 11. The Marlins have the following numbers against Hefner:

Stanton 1-7
Solano 2-5
Pierre 2-3
Polanco 2-4
Ruggiano 0-2
Dobbs 0-3

The Mets bats look to bounce back against Alex Sanabia tonight who is making his 2013 debut. Last season Sanabia did not pitch in the majors at all. In 2011, he had a limited stint with the Marlins pitching in 3 games, 2 starts totaling 11.0 innings allowing 4 ER. The year before he pitched in 15 games, 12 starts where he logged 72.1 innings with a 3.71 ERA. During Spring Training this year, he pitched 7.0 innings allowing 4 ER. He has pitched 13.1 innings against the Mets allowing 8 runs, 6 earned. The Mets have the following numbers against Alex:

Davis 2-6, 3B
Wright 2-6, 2B
Tejada 1-4
Byrd 0-3
Duda 0-1

Let’s Go Mets!

Yesterday Manny Ramirez hit a homer for his new team. The passion from the fans and announcers is something to be hold.

 You can see the USA Today’s article here, especially with their better look at the white uniform.

The Mets look to start 2013 the same way they started 2012 this afternoon at Citi Field as they go for the sweep! In both games this season, the Mets have experienced excellent starting pitching and good hitting. During the Opener, it was a controlled Jon Niese, 2 out RBI’s and a grand slam that drove the game. Yesterday, it was a dazzling performance by Harvey, pitching 7 innings and striking out 10 batters. He was backed by power bats with homers from Duda, Davis and Buck. The Mets look to continue this trend with Dillon Gee who faces Eric Stults.

Dillon Gee is making his first start since July of last year when he was sidelined with blood clot. At that point last year he was starting to get into a groove and left the season with a 6-7 record over 17 starts and 109.2 innings of work. During that stretch Gee had an ERA of 4.10 while walking only 29 batters and striking out 27. This past spring wasn’t the greatest for Gee as he allowed 15 ER over 23 innings of work.

Recently, another story about Gee from last year was brought to light by Kristine Ackert of the Daily News. While Dillon was battling his injury, his brother, Jared, was fighting leukemia. Please take a minute or two and read the article here.

Last year Gee made one of his better starts against the Padres. He allowed 1 ER over 7 innings of work while striking out 9 batters and walking only 3. The Padres have the following numbers against Gee:

Guzman 0-5
Maybin 1-5, 2B
Venable 1-5, 2B
Ransom 2-4, 2B, HR
Alonso 1-3
Cabrera 1-3

The Mets will get a shot at Eric Stults this afternoon. Stults was 8-3 last season over 20 games and 15 starts. During that time he pitched 99.0 innings with a nice 2.91 ERA walking 27 batters and striking out 55. He picked up a win against the Mets last year holding the Amazin’s to 4 hits and 1 run (unearned) over 5 innings of work, walking one and striking out two. The Mets have the following numbers against Stults:

Wright 3-6, 2B
Duda 1-2
Murphy 0-2
Turner 1-1, 2B

Let’s Go Mets!

The Mets look to repeat their opener tonight as they take on the Padres for game two of the season. On Monday, the Mets continued their Opening Day success mashing the Padres by the score of 11-2 in a game that featured great pitching by Niese (and a great debut from Rice) and a lot of timely hitting up and down the lineup. The new guys contributed a lot with hits and RBI’s by Byrd and Buck, topped off with a grand slam by Colin Cowgill. Today Matt Harvey will make his season debut as he squares up against Clayton Richard.

Matt Harvey had a tremendous 2012 season going 3-5 over 10 starts while pitching 59.1 innings with a 2.73 ERA. Even more impressive, in that near 60 inning stretch, he walked only 26 batters while striking out 70. That’s a K/9 of 10.6! He made only a handful of negative starts last year, and one was against the Padres where he lasted 5 innings allowing 5 ER over 8 hits while walking 2 and striking out 5. The Padres have the following numbers against him:

Alonso 2-3, 2B, HR
Amarista 0-3
Cabrera 1-3
Quentin 1-3, 2B
Venable 1-3, 3B
Maybin 1-2, 2B

The Mets batters look to continue their hot start against Clayton Richard. Richard 14-14 over 33 starts and 218.2 innings last season with a 3.99 ERA. His ERA is surprisingly low when you factor in he led all pitchers in hits allowed (228) and homers (31) last year (but also pitched a ton of innings). He was 1-1 against the Mets last year as he totaled 13.0 innings over 2 games allowing 5 ER. The Mets posted the following numbers against Clayton:

Wright 3-12, 2B
Davis 1-9
Byrd 2-6
Tejada 2-6
Turner 2-4
Buck 1-3, 2B
Cowgill 1-3
Duda 0-3
Murphy 1-3, 2B

Let’s Go Mets!

Opening Day is finally here!

Why write the Mets off yet for 2013 when they haven’t even played a game yet?

Anyway, the Mets open the season at Queens this afternoon with Jon Niese at the helm. Niese had a great season last year where he dropped his ERA to a career low thanks to a better pitch selection. He was 13-9 over 30 starts and 190.1 innings with a 3.40 ERA. He didn’t face the Padres at all in 2012 but in 2011 he was 0-2 in as many starts allowing 6 runs, 5 earned over 13.2 innings of work. The Padres have the following numbers against Niese:

Maybin 6-22, HR
Forsythe 2-7, 2B
Guzman 2-6
Darnell 0-4
Hundley 2-4, 3B
Headley 0-3

The Mets bats will get the season started against Edison Volquez. Volquez had a bounce back year in his first season with the Padres as he posted an 11-11 record and a 4.14 ERA over 32 starts, 182.2 innings. Last season the Mets got the best of Edison as he allowed 6 ER over 7.1 innings in two starts (both losses). The Mets have posted the following numbers against Volquez:

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

Let’s Go Mets! Let’s start the season off Wright!

Yesterday we looked at the American League Promotions, today we’ll walk through the National League, starting with the Mets!

New York Mets: I’m disappointed with the magnetic schedule (actually I’m disappointed with the MLB that a magnetic schedule is a promotion) but it looks almost the same as last year’s! Come on SNY. However this Dog bandana is creative

Chicago Cubs: This will become a thing given away at many parks quickly

Pittsburgh Pirates: Flags!

St. Louis Cardinals: The Cardinals are having the best giveaways this month! Stan Musial harmonica, an awesome jersey, a double award statue and the 2006 replica ring (why, I’m not sure)

Los Angeles Dodgers: A sweatshirt, kids jersey, triple statue and interesting bobblehead

San Francisco Giants: That’s a lot of awards. Also a banner and globe!

Arizona Diamondbacks: Rivalry T-shirt and GNOME

It’s finally here! Opening Day 2013! (I know the Mets don’t play until tomorrow but technically OD is today for the league)

The best day of the season because everything is possible! The season is wide open for everyone and anything can happen.

Of course, it doesn’t feel that way. The Mets are in the toughest division in baseball and already have a ton of injuries on the roster. It would be really easy, albeit depressing, to just say, “Can 2013 be over yet? Can we start 2014?”

Long time readers of this site know that for the last two years, since I graduated college, I moved to Newark, NJ (completely ruining the name of the site) to become a high school teacher. One of my students this year is absolutely convince that the Mets will make the playoffs this year. He really thinks that the Mets are a good team (for basically all of the reasons listed below). While I want to call him crazy, I was the same way in high school and younger, even back in the 2003/2004 days before the wholesale changes to the Mets.

I know it’s a stretch, but the mantra I’m going to keep telling my self all season is remember the 2012 Athletics and Orioles.

The Mets, believe it or not, still have a lot of excitement for this upcoming season:

• Zack Wheeler Day!
• Travis d’Arnaud Day!
• Matt Harver and Jon Niese!
• Captian Wright!
• Ike Davis!
• Cowgill could surprise! Valdespin is Valdespin!

Look, there are some tangible events to look forward to this season. There’s a lot of player development and some real talent to look forward to in later seasons. The last couple of seasons I felt like I was lying to myself when to get excited about prospects because there wasn’t enough to truly change the course of the team. The Mets have a core group of young players that will be ready to make an impact over the next 3 seasons.

Logic tells me that the Mets will finish 4th. My heart tells me maybe if they are lucky, they might finish 3rd. I’m still excited the upcoming season, and I hope you are too…mainly I’m exciting for d’Arnaud because I don’t know how many B game rosters I can handle with Recker starting.

It’s the start of baseball season so lets step through the American League and see what interesting promotions teams are using to get fans into the ballpark:

Tampa Bay Rays: A Joe Madden….GNOME!

Detroit Tigers: Championship Banners are always a winner and a triple crown hat (and since it’s Detroit, giving it away at the end of April still works)

Chicago White Sox: This is what they are calling a “puzzle cube” even though we already know what it actually is. Perfect for those stressful moments during the game:

Oakland Athletics: Cool Looking Bobblehead

Los Angeles Angels: Another cool looking bobblehead

Seattle Mariners: THIS IS AWESOME.

Reader Participation! You fill in all of the details yourself and you get a full article!

As you have read by now, there is a recent (INSERT ISSUE HERE) happening with the Mets. One (PLAYER, EXECUTIVE, MANAGEMENT, REPORTER, FAMILY MEMBER) did (SOMETHING SORTA NORMAL BUT A LITTLE BIT EXTRA) to (ANOTHER PARTY).

Honestly this wasn’t a big deal! This (ISSUE) is just a normal (BASEBALL, LIFE, DIFFERENCE OF OPINIONS) thing. But now with the media attention things are just (OVERBLOWN ADJECTIVE)

The media has now turned this into a huge issue, just another issue in a long list of issues with this ball club. It seems like every week that something unbelievable happens to ball club like (INSERT LIST OF LAST THREE THINGS THAT HAVE HAPPENED TO THIS TEAM THAT WERE TOTALLY OVERBLOWN).

This (EARLIER NAMED ISSUE) would never have happened if the Mets were a winning ball club. When a team has high expectations that are reachable, a lot of these problems never come up. Back in 2006 when these off field issues would occur, either no one would report them, or the issues would die instantly. This ridiculousness of (ISSUE) doesn’t even matter!

Just gotta win. Just gotta win.

I will now refer to this article whenever there is an off-field article with the Mets!