213 Miles From Shea

The Mets will try to salvage the final game of the series today in Atlanta as Johan Santana takes the hill against Ben Sheets. Santana is 6-5 on the season with a 3.24 ERA over 17 games and 102.2 innings of work. Johan’s last outing was a rough one where he ultimately allowed 7 ER over 4.2 innings of work while having another play step on his calf while Santana was covering first base. Johan’s two starts against the Braves were very different games. He opened his season throwing 5.0 innings of shutout ball against them, and then two starts later allowed 4 ER over 1.1 innings. The Braves have the following numbers against Santana:

Diaz 18-35, 4 2B, HR
McCann 8-32, 2B, 3 HR
Chipper 7-27, HR
Prado 4-22, 2B
Uggla 1-21, HR
Bourn 5-16
Heyward 2-12

You didn’t go back in time today, Ben Sheets is actually pitching. Sheets will be making his first start since 201o when he went 4-9 over 20 starts and 119.1 innings with a 4.53 ERA for the Oakland Athletics. He made two starts in AA to prepare for 2012. In those two starts he pitched 10.1 innings and allowed 6 ER. In his career he has made 8 starts over 47.1 innings against the Mets with a 4-2 record and a 4.56 ERA. The Mets have the following numbers on Sheets:

Wright 4-9, 2B, HR
Torres 2-6, 2B
Murphy 0-2

Let’s Go Mets!

The Mets look to move beyond yesterday’s disappointing start to the second half by sending out Robert Allen Dickey the All Star. Yesterday the Mets quickly fell into a 5-0 hole, battled back to 5-4, fell back 7-4 and then ended at 7-5. Hopefully the first game allowed the Mets to shake off the All Star break rust as they take on Tommy Hanson.

Dickey is 12-1 on the season over 17 starts and 120 innings of work with a 2.40 ERA. He has struggled in two of his last three starts, allowed 5 runs in each of those starts, but normal Dickey fashion, they sandwich an 8 inning no run performance and were preceded by back to back one hitters. He has pitched 10.1 innings against the Braves this year allowing 10 ER. (His only terrible start was in Atlanta way back in April). The Braves have the following numbers against Dickey:

Bourn 8-25, 2B, 3B
Uggla 1-25, HR
Prado 4-23, 2B, HR
Hinske 3-20, 2 2B
McCann 3-17, HR
Chipper 4-8, 2B, HR

Hanson is 10-5 on the season over 18 starts and 106.1 innings of work with a 3.71 ERA. In his last four starts he has pitched 25.1 innings with an ERA of 4.97. In two starts against the Mets this season he has pitched 12.0 innings while allowed 6 ER. The Mets have the following numbers against Tommy:

Wright 4-22, 2 2B
Thole 9-21, 2B, HR
Davis 3-15, 2B, HR
Tejada 1-11, 2B
Murphy 5-11, 2 2B
Turner 2-3, 2 HR
Duda 3-11, HR

Let’s Go Mets!

After the World’s longest All-Star break, the Mets finally get back to action tonight as they take on the Atlanta Braves in the south. Tonight, Chris Young will be taking on Tim Hudson. Chris Young is 2-2 on the season over 6 starts and a 3.41 ERA over 37.0 innings of work. In his career he has made only 5 starts against the Braves where he has a 2-2 record and a 7.50 ERA. The Braves have the following numbers against Chris Young:

Chipper 5-9, 2 HR
McCann 0-7
Uggla 2-6, 3B
Wilson 0-5
Hinske 0-5
Bourn 0-2
Diaz 2-2

Tim Hudson on the season has a record of 7-4 over 13 starts and 86.0 innings of work with a 3.56 ERA. Over his last 6 starts he has pitched 41.0 innings with a 4-2 record and a 2.41 ERA. Believe it or not, this is Hudson’s first start against the Mets this season. Last year he made five starts against the Mets over 29.1 innings with a 2-3 record and a 3.68 ERA. The Mets have the following numbers against Hudson:

Wright 13-62, 2B, 2 HR
Duda 4-16, 2B
Cedeno 2-11, 3B
Thole 3-12
Davis 2-9, 2B
Tejada 6-11, 2B
Murphy 3-10
Let’s Go Mets!

Happy Let’s All Be Superstitious Day For No Scientific Reason!

What do all these players have in common?

Edgardo Alfonzo
Billy Wagner
Lee Mazzilli
Mike Nickeas (via 2011, not 2012)

The Mets will be faced with an upcoming roster move soon as Gee is about to go on the DL till at least September. You can read about that story everywhere, it’s not the focus here.

What are the Mets supposed to do? Do they trade for another pitcher? Do they rely on Batista? Do they rush Harvey?

Harvey says he’s ready, and his last several starts have shown improvement but Mets officials still want him to get more seasoning. Earlier on twitter, I alluded to Harvey as a green (now editing that to green-yellow) banana. He’s almost ripe. He’s almost ready. It’s tempting because you don’t want him to overripe, which here would mean waste quality starts that he could be producing at the major league level.

Because he’s almost ripe, the Mets could reach for him and just deal with the problems that come with impatience (he’s not mushy yet!). There may be another way.

First off, Gee will probably be replaced with Edgin. The Mets could look at Edgin for the four days leading up to Gee’s start, and see if he is worth to keep around (or if the GM is going to need to acquire a new arm for the pen).

I propose, regrettably, that the Mets send down Edgin on Gee’s start and call up Hefner and then do a duel start, similar to Colorado-ish. Have Hefner start, but limit him to 75 pitches. Then have Batista do the same. Maybe even more limits on each, like 60-65 pitches. It takes the pressure off, but will keep them fresh. More importantly, it will limit the amount of exposure they have. When teams get around to these guys the second or third time, they crush them, so let’s prevent that from happening.

After 3 weeks to a month of this, hopefully Harvey will be ready to go, and the Mets can have a perfectly ripened banana.

The Mets bounced back from Friday night’s loss with a good looking win yesterday. Gee had a great outing yesterday and the Mets bats scratched out two homers to support him. Today the Mets will send out Jon Niese as he takes on Ryan Dempster, who is making his first start since landing on the Disabled List.

Jon Niese is 7-3 on the season over 16 games and 96.2 innings of work with an ERA of 3.35. In his last six starts he 4-1 over 41.1 innings of work with an ERA of 1.74. In that stretch he faced the Cubs where he pitched 7.0 innings, allowed 1 ER, 8 hits, BB and 6 K’s. The Cubs have the following numbers against Niese:

Soriano 3-11, 2B
Soto 2-8, 2B, HR
Baker 4-9
Castro 3-9, 3B
Mather 3-8
Rizzo 1-3, 2B

Ryan Dempster is on the trade block right now, so there should be a good amount of scout activity around his start today. On the season he is 3-3 over 12 starts with a 2.11 ERA and 81.0 innings of work. His last start was June 15, he was in the midst of a strong streak of 23.0 innings of work with 0 ER. Last year against the Mets he picked up the win in 7 innings of work allowing 1 ER over 7 hits. The Mets have the following numbers on Ryan:

Cedeno 6-17, 2B
Murphy 2-5, 2B
Quintanilla 3-6, HR
Tejada 3-5, 2B
Wright 2-3
Davis 2-3

Let’s Go Mets!