213 Miles From Shea

The Mets beat the Astros by the score of 9-6 today and finally had a day where the offense was really clicking.

Specifically, today was a big day for Lucas Duda, who came into this game with only three hits in Spring Training and a bunch of strikeouts. In today’s game, he went 3-3, R, 2B, 2 RBI’s and two of the hits went to the opposite field. Byrd continued his strong spring going 1-3 with a double, becoming the second Met outfielder to have double digit hit totals in Spring Training/Exhibition games.

All in all, it was nice to see the Mets to get some hits and score some runs. I keep saying this, but I’ll group the players on the following chart soon but right now the OF race looks like this:

Inside Track: Duda, Cowgill, Byrd
Pushing Up: den Dekker, Valdespin
Injury: Kirk
Falling: Baxter
Way Outside Shot: Lutz, Turner, Lagares, Brown, Hoffman

The Mets took a long trip yesterday to play the Tigers and ultimately lost, but there were some positives to write about.

On the pitching side, Gee logged 4 innings while allowing only one run. He needs to work on his control though as he walked three batters. Parnell and Hawkins both contributed a scoreless inning of relief.

On the batting side, Cowgill continued to get on base as he went 0-1 but walked twice. Valdespin flashed power with a homer as his time in the OF started to increase and Baxter went 0-3.

If we look at how this Spring has gone. In the start the OF looked like Baxter/Kirk/Duda with a possible platoon in left with Cowgill (as the secondary) and Byrd as the outside shot. When injuries and performance are taken into account, the OF now looks more like Cowgill/den Dekker/Duda with Baxter as a backup. Cowgill could replace den Dekker in CF and a Byrd/Valdespin platoon is equally likely in left. If Valdespin keeps hitting like he is, one would think he would develop a stronger inside track to Left than Byrd.

Anyway, here are some stats:

The Mets beat the Marlins 4-1 today behind a fantastic start by Matt Harvey, reminding all of us of the exciting possibilities this 2013 team has in its young talent.

With regards to the Mets OF situation, there were two interesting developments today:

– den Dekker went 2-3 today as he is starting to hit with his defense, pushing himself more into the OF conversation. One of his hits today was a homer
– Turner officially got sometime in the OF today (first time since 2006), so I added him to the chart as well, which is getting long

Here’s the data:

Images have been circulating this week of a leak of the 2013 All-Star Uniform design from a video game. Fansided has one of the clearest galleries of images on the internet, I recommend heading over there to take a look.

I’m going to attempt to avoid a review of the uniform because digital mock ups tend to look different than the reality, usually in the front where the front script looks too small, which would be my major complete here. On this image, it looks like the first letter is larger than the rest of the League Name which is that extra added detail this jersey needs.

Unlike last year, it looks like the BP uniforms have gone back to a pull over style, which is surprising here. Other uniforms almost needed to be pull over due to the detail in the front design. This front looks simple, so you would think it would be a button down, but not here.

Alright, now for the inconsistencies.

In an effort to make everyone to wear Mets colors (I can’t disagree with that), American League jerseys are blue and National are orange. The brim on the hat matches the jersey and the back is opposite. For example, the American League has a blue brim and an orange back. (Look at the above image).

I found this interesting because the underarm panels are not inverse of each other. The National League has blue underarm panels, and the American League has white underarm panels. I wonder if this will hold up when the actual uniforms come out.

The other inconsistency could be a mistake or an oversight that no one will really care about. In this image, the National League BP helmet is orange, but staying true to the hat design, it should be blue. If this is intentional, no one will really know. BP helmets aren’t worn in the homerun derby and during the actual game, teams wear their actual uniform with a patch. The only time this will be seen is if the color templates are the same for the USA vs World Futures game, and generally the templates are the same for that game.

Just some thoughts to chew on while we wait for the actual uniforms to be released. Once again, these photos are not mine, they are published on Fansided.

What makes this article series different than what you’ll find in the official stat books is the inclusion of non-scheduled spring training games in the data (like Michigan, Venezuela and the Braves B Game). Today, I updated the chart to include Lutz, since he was tried in the OF earlier last week and Nimmo/Vaughn, who took official AB’s today. In other OF news, Valdespin finally got game time in the OF, making his spot on this list official now.

Venezuela beat the Mets 14-10 today in a game that saw Byrd and Cowgill pull ahead of the competition for the OF. Byrd smacked a three run homer as he leads OF candidates with 7 RBI’s this spring. Cowgill is making the case for earning a full spot in the OF with a 3-4 performance today including 2 doubles. He now has 5 during Spring Training and a .500 batting average.

Here are everyone’s updated stats:

Enough starters / players competing for major roster pieces played in today’s “B” game that it warrants a review and an update of our OF spreadsheet (thus furthering the differences between our chart and the MLB official stats).

The Mets lost 4-0 today to the Braves. On the positive side, Marcum pitched two scoreless innings on his healing trip back to the “important” spring training games. Feliciano allowed one run in one inning in his first outing since his heart problems were discovered. This is probably a good time to note that the Mets only played 7 innings in this game.

Nobody had a terrific day at the plate, but Brown hit a double and den Dekker hit a triple. The Mets play another “exhibition” exhibition game tomorrow against team Venezuela.

The Mets dropped another one today against the Braves by a score of 4-2.

No one from the pitching side of the ball had a terrible day (with the exception of Gorski who allowed a run on three hits in one inning, but he also got two strikeouts) that saw solid outings from each of Hefner, Montero, Familia, and Parnell. No one really had a standout day at the plate either, however some positive notes would be Davis hitting a double and Byrd getting another hit and the Mets only two RBI’s of the day. Besides that it was a pretty normal game.

The chart tracking progress is updated below. The Mets are actually off tomorrow and on Wednesday they’ll play an exhibition game against Venezuela.

The Mets dropped today’s game against the Marlins by the score of 6-4 as a roster of all back ups + Gee and Buck made the trip to the Marlin’s camp.

On the offensive side of the ball today, Buck and Hicks showed some power, each hitting a homer. For Buck, it was his second homer of the spring. Besides that there weren’t too many other batting notes (except Lagares hitting a double).

On the rubber today Gee had a solid three inning outing allowing 3 hits with a walk and a strike out. The Marlins at that point were losing 4-0. Mazzoni then allowed 2 runs over 2 innings and Rice allowed 3 runs in one inning (his first bad inning of the spring) to give the Marlins the lead.

The real story out of camp today comes from Kirk who left the game with a knee injury and as of right now the extent of the damage is still unknown. I’m about to state the obvious but this is a really bad time for him to miss AB’s since he is 1-18 (exhibition games included). Here’s hoping he’ll get better and fast.

In other interesting OF news, Lutz saw some playing time. If he gets another shot in the OF, I’ll add him too the running stat box below:

The Mets tied again today (this time 8-8) as they march on to become the first team ever (I haven’t checked this but I imagine its true) to have more ties in Spring Training than wins and losses.

Matt Harvey had a nice start for the Mets today after allowing a lead off homer strike out 4 batters over 50 pitches of work. E. Ramirez not so much as he got hit around a bunch struggling to find his release point. On the bat side today, the Mets put a few good rallies together to get the game tied including some of the first positive moments for Lucas Duda. Duda had a double today followed by a homer. It doesn’t make sense to dive deep into the stats yet because it has only been 8 days of Spring Training games, that being said here are all of the stats below:

The Mets ended their five game winless strerak yesterday afternoon against Detroit by the score of 6-2 in a send off for David Wright.

Game Notes:
– Niese looked good today allowing no runs on three hits over 3 innings of work while striking out 3 batters.- Familia followed with a scoreless inning, so did Parnell and Atchison had 1.1 scoreless
– Mets as a team showed off speed with stolen bases by Kirk, Jordany and Turner. Also some power with doubles by Cowgill, Byrd and Recker.

Below are the updated OF stats.