213 Miles From Shea

June 1st, 2012

After 50 seasons, the Mets finally have a no-hitter and it came from the ace of the staff, Johan Santana. As Johan said during his post game interview, “I don’t even pitch no-hitters in video games”.

So I’m sitting here and I have no idea how to react. This is easily been the best Mets game I have seen in my life (outside of the 9/21/01 game, I’m only 23 so I don’t have any World Championships to compete with) and this was the first time in a while, a WHILE, that I have been this excited, this anxious during a baseball game.

There will be a lot of time for over analyzing about pitch counts, amazing plays, umpires later, but right now this is a time for Santana and the Mets. Santana, coming back from injury has a pinnacle moment. The Mets, who between two collapses, injury plagues, owner money scandals and boatloads of negative press, finally have something to be excited about.

I hate to agree with Steve Phillips on something. But Steve said back when Santana went to the Mets, that he would throw the first Mets No-Hitter, and he was right about that.

The Mets start a four game set tonight with the Cardinals to wrap up their 11 game home stand. In their last series, the Mets were unable to take two of three from the Phillies as the Mets bullpen just could not hold it together. The Cardinals will be seeing a different team than the Phillies did as the Mets now have a different looking bullpen. Tonight’s game features Adam Wainright vs. Johan Santana as Carlos Beltran makes his return to Queens.

Santana is 2-2 this season with 2.75 ERA over 10 starts and 59.0 innings of work. His last start was masterful as he through the first complete game shutout (and complete game period) for anyone on the Mets staff this season as he struck out 7. In 2010, Johan had two no decisions against the Cards as he allowed 7 ER over 12.2 innings of work. The Cardinals have the following numbers against him:

Beltran 6-26, 2B, 2 HR
Molina 7-17
Schumaker 4-16, 2B
Furcal 4-12, 2 2B
Holliday 3-11, 2B, HR

Wainwright is 4-5 this season over 10 starts and 58.2 innings with an ERA of a 4.45. Adam has improved greatly over his last two starts as he has pitched a combine 15.0 innings with one earned run. In 2010 he made two starts against the Mets where he allowed 8 earned runs, 8 total over 14.0 innings. The Mets have the following numbers against Wainwright, who in an odd course of baseball history is now on the same team with Carlos Beltran:

Wright 0-7
Quintanilla 3-6, 2 2B
Davis 1-3
Johnson 0-3
Torres 1-1

Let’s Go Mets! Check 213 Miles From Shea!

This week the new 2012 BP jerseys came out for the All-Star game. Honestly, not that bad! As you know these uniforms need to incorpate motifs from the team that is hosting, which is usually an indicator of whether the uniforms will look nice or not. Luckily for us, the Royals have a nice uniform set and a nice color scheme, so personally before seeing the uniforms I had a lot of hope for what they would look like this year (especially with the quality All-Star patch that came out). Anyway here are the uniforms:

At first I wasn’t a fan of the grey outline for the National League uniforms, but then remembering that the National League is the road team, it seems like the grey outline is a clever touch!

Anway good use of the powerder blue vs the royal blue, the colors of the Royals in the banner across the front, the font of the royals and the inclusion of the star on the uniform with the “i”. That seems to be the tradition now to make the “i” have a star for the dot, if you recall the Diamondback’s All Star game uniforms. Keeping the star in color theme though works for this uniform (the Diamondbacks didn’t)

The Mets and Phillies play the rubber game tonight as the Mets look to take a series from their division rival. Last night the Mets beat the Phillies 6-3 as the Mets showed fight throughout the game as the Phillies constantly either scored first or tied the game, until the Mets bats were able to pull away. Tonight Dillon Gee will take on Cliff Lee (second time this season they have faced each other).

Dillon Gee is 4-3 this season with a 4.92 ERA over 9 starts and 56.2 innings of work. In his last two starts he is 2-0 over 13.2 innings with a 2.63 ERA. In his only start against the Phillies this season he lasted 5.2 innings over 4 innings. The Phillies have the following numbers against Gee:

Victorino 2-10, 3B
Pence 1-9
Mayberry 2-9, HR
Polanco 2-9
Rollins 4-6
Ruiz 1-5, 2B

Cliff Lee is 0-2 on the season with a 2.82 ERA over 51.0 innings of work. He’s been a little off of himself in his last two starts as he has allowed 8 ER in 14.0 innings of work. In two starts against the Mets this season he has pitched 13.0 innings allowing 6 ER. The Mets have the following numbers against Lee:

Hairston 3-17, HR
Torres 4-8, 2B, 3B
Wright 3-10
Murphy 3-9, 3 2B
Davis 0-8
Johnson 3-4, 2B

Let’s Go Mets! Check 213 Miles From Shea!

The new look Mets look to return to their winning ways tonight as they take on the Phillies in game 2. After yesterday’s loss, the Mets DFA’d Acosta and placed Turner on the DL thus recalling the contracts of Schwinden and Quintanilla. Anyway, the Mets will send out Hefner to make his second start as he takes on Joe Blanton.

Hefner’s first major league was bizarre. He cruised through the first inning, then had a 68 minute rain delay, and then came back out after the delay. His start last 3.2 innings with 6 ER. Because of the odd nature of this start, it is rather unfair to use it it as a way to judge his ability as a starter. This will be Hefner’s first time facing the Phillies, thus the Phillies have no experience facing Jeremy.

Joe Blanton is 4-4 this season with a 4.55 ERA over 57.1 innings of work. He has faced the Mets once this season totaling 6.2 innings of work allowing 4 ER. In his last two starts he has combined for 8.2 innings and 13 ER. The Mets have the following numbers against Joe:

Wright 7-26, 4 2B
Davis 5-14, 2 2B
Torres 2-7, HR
Hairston 3-7, 2B, HR
Murphy 1-6

Let’s Go Mets! Check 213 Miles From Shea!

Manny Acosta was finally DFA’d today as the Mets made some roster moves.

If you watched today’s game, the writing was on wall for Manny pretty much immediately. He came into the game with the Mets down a run and promptly gave up two hits and then some how struck out a batter. Then he gave up a three run bomb and the Mets were basically out of it from that point on. Acosta leaves the Mets with an ERA in 2012 of 11.86. It seemed that Acosta was going to be on his way out anyway where Beato nearing a return to the majors, but today’s performance expedited his trip.

With Acosta leaving, and the Turner injury, the Mets recalled the contracts of Chris Schwinden and Omar Quintanilla. I’m losing track, but I think this is the third trip up to the majors Schwinden has made to the majors. Rather than disrupting Valdespin again, the Mets with Omar to fill in for Turner who is filling in for Tejada (shades of 2009 right now).

Schwinden is 3-4 right now in the minors over 9 games and 48.2 innings with an ERA of 2.59.

This is Quintanilla’s first trip to the majors as a Met. Right now he’s batting .281 over 153 AB in AAA with 11 2B, 2 3B, and 6 HR.

For the Mets, its a question of when will players get healthy. Schwinden is almost in certain competition right now with Hefner and Egbert for who will go down with Beato and Young come from the minors. The Mets bench picture gets more clear as Tejada, Thole and Bay all come back (although the ETA is still not known). At that point Quintanilla will be on his way down, with one catcher and at least one more bench player.