213 Miles From Shea

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.

Who can forget last year’s Concert Series at Citi Field? The only commercial shown more than the Citi Bank “Somebody Left Gate Open” last year was the REO Speedwagon TV spot. Joining REO last year was Cheap Trick and MercyMe.

Well the Mets stepped it up this year with concerts by Foriegner, Nas, OAR, and Third Eye Blind.

Personally, I’m very excited for Nas, the queen native hip hop artist who is not secret about being a Mets fan. Last year when his album dropped, he performed at the MLB Fan Cave in a Mets jersey. Not only is he a Mets fan, he is still considered one of the best lyrcists of all time.

In a later update, I’ll post some videos of Nas to get you pumped for July 19th against the Phillies (concert date)

The Mets tied the Nationals tonight with a score of 4-4 after 10 innings.

If you were watching the game, or following on Mets Twitter, then you probably already know the real story of the game was the Nationals Announcers, who were awful. They were complete homers, exaggerating everything the Nationals, and downplayed the Mets due to jet streams on the field. The kicker would be Reese Havens who was called Flores and Hicks for a large chunk of time. It was pretty bad. Like really bad.

Anyway, non-Outfield game notes. Montero got the start for the Mets and allowed three doubles in two innings of work. That being said, his stuff looked quite good. Rather intriguing. Besides that there were a few blunders in the field which is to be expected because the Mets brought their B and C squad teams.

The Mets OF stats so far:

(By the end of the weekend, I’m going to start to clean up this chart a little bit)

The last team we’ll go over in this long, 26 part series, is Brazil. Take a look:

I love Brazil’s uniforms. They were a surprise team beating out Panama to get into the tournament. They did a great job with the typeface, the colors, the spacing and the BP template.

The Mets dropped this afternoon’s game 12-4 to the Cardinals behind some pitching struggles of Gorski and Torres who each allowed 4 earned runs in 2 innings of work. Bullpen hopeful Greg Burke also struggled allowing 3 earned runs in 2 innings of work (although I can’t imagine a game situation where Burke would be pitching 2 innings).

On the positive side, the Mets finally flexed some muscle today as the probable Opening Roster catchers (Buck and Recker) both homered and so did Cowgill.

And on the topic of outfielders, when you look at the stats below, this really is anyone’s race to steal. As some players continue to struggle, players like Cowgill, slotted to be a platoon, climb the depth chart. Byrd has been good at the plate this spring as well but had some struggles in the field. Besides these two, the rest of the competition has been dim: