213 Miles From Shea

Former Mets fan favorite Xavier Nady was DFA’d by the Nationals today.

Nady has been on the DL since June for a wrist injury and was activated today. However, the Nationals are playing a double header and wanted to keep Lannan on the roster to start one of the games, therefore Nady had to be DFA’d.

On the season Nady is batting .157 with a .211 OBP, so he would not be a solution in an capacity right now for the Mets. Actually he may be one of the few people in the league that is hitting less than vast majority of the Mets roster. His batting average this year his a departure from previous seasons where last year he hit .248 with Arizona, and then .256 with the Cubs the year before that. Even before that he hit .286 with the Yankees.

Nady was acquired by the Mets via trade before the 2006 season for Mike Cameron. He quickly became a fan favorite, and was traded at the trade deadline to Pittsburgh for Roberto Hernandez and Oliver Perez.

If you recall, Nady was traded after Duaner Sanchez got into a Taxi Cab accident. Sanchez was a critical set-up man at the time, so the Mets went out to get more relief help. Then, when key pieces of the rotation started to get injured, Oliver Perez had to step up (and he did in the post-season at times), however that then launched the Oliver Perez era with the Mets.

The Mets suffered a disappointing loss last night as they dropped the series opener 7-6 to the Dodgers. They look to move past it this afternoon as they take on the Dodgers and Chris Capuano behind Miguel Batista. As a quick side note. Could you imagine if the rolls were reversed and the Mets were playing at 10 AM local time? Odd. Anyway…

Miguel Batista’s (and more specifically Matt Harvey’s) future role on this team depends on his start today. If he is mediocre to good, then he most likely stays for at least the rest of the month. If he is terrible, he probably forces the Mets hand to make a move. On the season Batista is 1-2 on the season over 29 games and 43.2 innings of work with an ERA of 4.33. His last outing was in DC where he allowed 2 ER against the Nationals over 0.2 innings of work. In 0.2 innings of work against the Dodgers this year, he allowed one earned run. The Dodgers have the following numbers against Batista:

Uribe 9-32, 3 2B
Abreu 12-31, 2 2B, 3B, HR
Ellis 6-23, 4 2B
Kennedy 4-17, 2B, 3B
Ethier 5-11, 2 2B, HR
Kemp 3-5

The Mets bats will get a crack at Capuano today, who is 9-5 over 19 starts and a 2.75 ERA this season. In his last two starts he has allowed 5 ER, 9 runs total, in his last 11.2 innings of work. He allowed 3 ER against the Mets last time out while he pitched 7 innings. The Mets have the following numbers against Chris:

Bay 8-21, 2 2B, 3 HR
Cedeno 3-23, 2B, 3B
Wright 6-15, 2 2B, 2 HR
Torres 1-4, 2B

Let’s Go Mets!

The Mets and Dodgers kick things off tonight as the Mets look to build off of yesterday’s win in DC. The Mets opened up the second half of baseball with five consecutive losses against the Braves and Nationals. Now they have a chance to reverse what they just did with a series against the Dodgers followed by the Nationals. Johan Santana gets the start today as he takes on Aaron Harang.

Santana is 6-6 on the season over 18 starts with an ERA of 3.59 with 107.1 innings of work. Santana will be looking to revert back to his June version of himself when he was on fire. In July he has pitched 2 games, 9.2 innings allowing 13 ER. His last good start was against the Dodgers, and it was terrific as Santana allowed no runs on 8 innings of work. The Dodgers have the following numbers against Santana:

Uribe 9-64, 4 2B, HR
Kennedy 5-24, 2B, HR
Ellis 1-19, 2B
Hairston 0-18
Rivera 2-16, 2B
Kemp 4-12
Ethier 0-6

Harang is 6-5 on the season over 18 starts with an ERA of 3.53 with 107.0 innings of work, so similar numbers to Santana. In his two starts since the All-Star break, he has allowed 4 ER over 14 innings of work. He faced the Mets earlier this season where he picked up the loss after allowing 4 earned runs, 5 total over 7 innings. The Mets have the following numbers against Harang:

Bay 17-52, 6 2B, 3B, 5 HR
Cedeno 7-23, 2B, 2 HR
Wright 11-20, 4 2B, HR
Torres 3-12
Hairston 2-10, 2B
Duda 2-7, HR
Tejada 5-8, 2 2B
Thole 7-9, 2B, HR
Murphy 3-8, 2 2B, HR

Let’s Go Mets!

The Mets try to avoid a sweep and an 0-6 road trip this afternoon as they take on the Nationals for an early 12:35 game in Washington. Yesterday was the same story for the Amazin’s as they got a great start from Young, followed by one inning of bad relief from Batista, and then an offense that didn’t show up until late in the game. It is worth noting that Rauch had the only inning in relief so far in the DC series where the bullpen did not allow a run. Anyway the Mets look to Dickey to play stopper and help the Mets gather themselves as they take on Gio Gonzalez.

Dickey is 12-1 on the season with a 2.66 ERA over 18 starts and 125 innings of work. In three of his last four starts he has allowed 5 ER, so he is looking to get back on the correct path himself. In one start against Washington this season he pitched 7.1 innings of shutout ball allowing only 4 hits, 2 walks and striking out 8 batters. The Nationals have the following numbers against Dickey:

Ankiel 9-23, 3 2B, HR
Zimmerman 5-22
Desmond 3-19, 3B
Espinosa 0-13
LaRoche 2-11
Morse 5-18, 2B

The Mets will get a look at Gio Gonzalez today who is 12-4 on the season with a 2.93 ERA over 18 starts and 107. 2 innings of work. In his last 8 starts, he has been a different pitcher as he has posted an ERA of 4.11 over 46.0 innings (2.04 ERA over his first 10 starts). Since returning from the All-Star break he has pitched 12.0 innings with 3 ER. He has pitched one game against the Mets in his career where he allowed 1 earned run over 7 innings of work. The Mets have the following numbers against him:

Torres 2-11
Bay 0-5
Duda 1-2
Hairston 1-3, 2B
Tejada 0-3
Turner 0-3

Let’s Go Mets!

The Mets look to pick up the pieces from last night and try again tonight in DC. For the first 7 innings of the game, the only part of the Mets that was effective was the starting pitching. Then, in the 9th, the Mets bats came alive and started to do their job. The weak point for the Mets (not surprisingly) was the bullpen which just did not work innings 8-10. Anyway today is a new day and the Mets look for Chris Young to lead them on the winning road against Jordan Zimmermann.

Chris Young is 2-3 on the season over 7 games and 40.0 innings of work with an ERA of 4.28. June was a very good month for Young, July has proved to be the opposite. He has totaled 10 innings and 8 ER over two starts in July, mainly due to his last outing where he allowed 5 ER over 3 innings. His first start of the year was against Washington where he allowed 2 ER, 3 total over 5 innings of work. The Nationals have the following numbers against Young:

LaRoche 3-25, 2B, HR
Zimmerman 4-14, 2B, HR
Ankiel 0-9
Espinosa 1-6
Morse 2-7, 2B
Desmond 0-5
Zimmermann 2-2, 2B

The Mets bats will get a crack at Jordan Zimmermann, who has developed into a real strength in the Washington rotation. Zimmermann is 6-6 over 18 starts and 116.1 innings with a 2.48 ERA. In July he has made three starts with a 2-0 record over 19.0 innings and a 0.95 ERA. In his one start against the Mets this year he allowed 2 ER over 5 hits in 6.0 innings. The Mets have the following numbers against Jordan:

Wright 5-19, 2B, HR
Murphy 6-14, 2B, HR
Thole 4-11
Davis 3-8, 2B, HR
Bay 4-9
Valdespin 1-1, HR

Let’s Go Mets!

I was at the game yesterday and before we start ripping apart the team, at least the team has fight. The offense was playing miserable the entire night, and after the Mets let up the first run in relief in 8th, the game, I’ll admit, felt out of reach.

Especially when you take the Nationals bullpen into consideration. They had just enough opportunity to feel demoralized. Their amazing closer, and I do mean amazing, blew a two run save, with a go ahead run. The bullpen then allowed in the ahead run again in the following inning. That only happens because this team has fight and was able to storm back into the game.

But it has to be rough to be in the Mets bullpen at this point. They are in a tailspin. Every inning of relief last night they failed. Flat out did not do their job. Bullpens don’t need to be perfect, but they can’t give up the lead, especially twice in one game. At some point, you have to consider if this is mental because everyone has started to underperform.

If you look at the Mets batting roster, the lineup has over achieved at points this season. Meaning, they have scored a lot more runs than their BA’s and sometimes skills suggest (due to players like Rottino getting key hits, or Turner coming through in big spots). The bullpen has underachieved. Are Beato, Parnell, Brydak, Edgin, Batista really that bad? Well maybe a few of them but there is more talent in that pen that is being shown.

Trading for a reliever may be a necessary step, however it might be time to try again to switch things up. Mejia has a 4.22 ERA in 32.0 innings and has control problems, but how strong of a case can we make that he isn’t better than someone else in the pen? Or bring back Hefner, who seems to have figured it out again in Buffalo.

Basically an additional problem the Mets are faced with right now is that talent wise in the bullpen the players are not living up to their talents, but the Mets don’t have the pieces to get the next level talent they would need in the bullpen. Is it really worth the risk blowing up the 2013-2016 seasons for a sort of shot at the postseason now when the Mets still have the potential to do it now without a trade? I don’t know. I think it’s a tougher call than a lot Mets fans will give the GM credit for.

Finally there is Bay and Valdespin. Bay had an underwhelming night at the plate. I know it is first game back but at some point the experiment will have to end. The Mets will be faced with another move soon when Baxter gets activated, and thinking ahead to next year, wouldn’t it be worth it to get Valdespin a shot every day in the OF? Kirk is struggling, Hairston struggles against righties and Duda may be hurt. But more importantly, letting Valdespin start is NOT throwing in the towel for this year, rather letting him start gives the Mets a kick of attitude and energy they need at this moment in time.

Things are not good in Mets land, but things are not on fire yet either. It’s way too early to jump off this team when they still have a shot of pulling this off internally keeping them competitive for 2013 and beyond.