213 Miles From Shea

I have a personal problems with asterisks, and it has nothing to do with steroids. I feel compelled to use them to explain the whole truth of the situation, even when the truth is not poetic, wordy, and takes meaning away from a special event.

For example, as a High School Physics teacher, I cringe inside when I tell my students one of the laws of Physics is that “Matter Cannot Be Created Or Destroyed”, when theoretically that law can be broken on a quantum level as long as the effects are nullified within a Planck time. I then cringe because I know my students are just not there yet to start talking about quantum physics (maybe in June).

So if you are sitting by a computer next week, wondering what I feel about Opening Day, or standing by a tree, or walking down the street, you can probably guess how I feel about it. Although, I do highly doubt you, as a reader, are concerned at all about my personal feelings about Opening Day.

I will be cringing, or wailing (let’s get melodramatic at 5:45 in the morning), that its not really Opening Day. It may be Opening  Day for the Mets, that would be completely true. However Opening Day was yesterday. Zero Fan Fare. Zero cares given by this guy writing this article (which surprised me too).

Opening Day is my favorite Day of the year, and it just doesn’t feel quite the same since the season already started.

There were two big stories to come out of the Mets ownership department yesterday. First, the Mets settled on Picard case with a 162 million settlement. Second, the Mets completed selling minority shares of the team, totaling 240 million. The News is that the Mets have already committed the Money to the MLB and Bank of America to pay back their loans.

That leaves only one major financial case ahead of the Mets, to see if the Owners will be compensated for Madoff, thus negating the 162 million in the settlement.

Those are the facts, but they leave a lot of room for speculation. On one side is Mike Francesca, who sees a brighter future of the Mets because he envisions a Mets team now where the owners can commingle assets with the Mets franchise to start spending money again. The thought here would be that the Mets were not doing this because they didn’t know what accounts were toxic.

Bob Klapisch disagrees. He asserts that there is no guarantee that the Wilpons will put the money inside of the team.

And honestly this is where the problem for the future of team lies. Up until this point,  the question was whether the Wilpons would have to sell the team, and that hampered the Mets on field moves. Now the question is, since the Wilpons will be able to own the team for a while, will they actually invest in the team? Will they keep the team in standstill as it is now or try to push it forward.

It is no secret that the Wilpons want the team to start bringing in more money before additional heavy investment, but they aren’t going to get the income without bringing something to the team, especially with the division as it is now.

I can’t commit myself to saying the team is better off now or not, because I don’t know. Hopefully we’ll see a different approach to the offseason before the 2013 season, which will put a lot of these conversations to rest.

Yesterday’s 7-1 loss to the Cards was a rough game all around.

Let’s start off with something positive. The hits in today’s game came from the starters on the team. Murphy had a 2-4 day, Bay had a double, Torres had a hit. Acosta, Parnell and Olson all had clean outings out of the bullpen.

The pitching was the real problem in this game. Pelfrey pitched 4.1 innings allowing 4 ER off of 2 homers and a flat sinkers. Francisco pitched an inning allowing 2 hits and an earned run. Ramirez allowed 2 earned runs over three hits over 1 inning.

It’s still early in spring, however it is easy to start to see hope fading from the team with outings like this plus all of the injuries that are starting to pile up. I’m hoping the team rebounds today because they need something to hold onto.

The Mets stagnated their record at 3-5-1 today after a 7-7 with the Detroit Tigers. The highlight of the game was Lucas Duda, who went 1-2 with a Grand Slam. Duda was playing his first game back from injury and it was really good to see him back at good level of play. Nickeas also had a good game with a 2-3 day at the plate with a run, 2 RBI’s and a double. Nickeas, who is still slated to be the opening day back up catcher thanks to his defense, is showing a good display of offense this Spring, which has suddenly become important with the rise of Lucas May. Also having a good day at the plate was Valdespin, who went 2-4 with a triple and a run.

On the pitching side, Niese on the stat side, had a rough day allowing 3 ER over 3 innings of work. He kept things quiet in the first two innings, but couldn’t hold off the Tigers in the 3rd. Carson, who has become more important with the news of Byrdak’s surgery, had a good day on the mound today pitching a scoreless inning.

Tomorrow the Mets return to Port St. Lucie to take on the Cardinals.

In the middle of the less than good news about Wright, Byrdak, Hairston, Torres and Herrera, there is Johan Santana who pitched 2.2 innings allowing 2 hits, a run (none earned), walked one and struck out 2. Johan cruised through the first two innings allowing just one hit. At the end of the second, there was a question if he would come out again due to the rain, but he did and left for pretty much the same reason in the third. He succeeded behind shaky defense that eventually led to the bases being loaded (and it was his relief that caused the run on his record).

Rauch didn’t have a good game yesterday. No way around it. It seemed like something was off with his mechanics as Warthen went out to talk to him after two pitches.

Finally, Loewen continues to impress as the teams option in CF. It is well known that the Mets are dealing with injury problems and depth out in Center and while Loewen isn’t a natural CF’er, he is playing his way onto this team with his bat.

Over the last two days the Mets have split two Spring Training Games. The main story over the last two games would be Harvey who was fantastic on Friday. Before his latest start, he was informed he would be starting the year off in the minors. In a performance where he got to show his work without having to try too hard he pitched 2 innings allowing no hits, no runs, and no walks while striking out 1. Another pitcher who showed additional success in yesterday’s game would be Parnell as he continued to build on his positive Spring, basically cementing his role in the pen.

In the last two days the Mets starting pitchers have been “eh”. Gee allowed 2 earned runs in 3 innings while Dickey allowed 5 ER in the same amount. The offense yesterday outside of Davis was also the same, just “eh”. The offense on Friday was also the same.

Over the next week the Mets are looking for the return of Duda to the lineup, Beato to the pen and hopefully Wright by the end of the week.

Pelfrey struggled in the Mets 5-4 loss to the Marlins yesterday afternoon. On the positive side, he pitched 2.2 innings, which was longer than any previous Mets pitcher (probably due to his time in the intrasquad games last weekend) but in the process he allowed 4 ER. Since it was just the first Spring Training start of the season, I’m not too concerned about the outcome, (especially since I couldn’t see the game, so I couldn’t see his pitch selection), but if this continues, I’ll be slightly but not seriously concerned.

Rauch, after having a mediocre debut, pitched two scoreless innings where he allowed no hits, no walks, no runs while striking out 2.

On the other side of the ball,the only major notes came from Lucas May, making a push to be the back up catcher, went 2-3 with a double in yesterday’s game and Adam Loewen went 1-4 hitting the Mets second homer of the Spring. Loewen is now hitting .375 this Spring as he makes his case to be the bench player for the Mets if Hairston has to miss significant time.

The Mets improved their spring record to 2-2 this afternoon as the New York Mets beat the Miami Marlins 7-0. The two biggest stars for the Mets today would be Jon Niese and Justin Turner. Niese, making his first spring start, tossed two innings, allowing no hits, no runs, walking one and striking out 2. Very sharp first outing for Jon.

Turner is trying to prove himself on the bench and more importantly, make the case for more AB’s in the season. He went 3-3 today, including blasting the first Met home run of the Spring Season. He also had 3 RBI’s.

Other Mets also had a notable day:

• Thole 2-3, RBI, R, BB, 2B
• Nickeas 2-3, R, RBI
• Parnell, who needs a strong spring to make the team in a prominent role, had a scoreless inning of work, no hits and a strikeout
• Ramon Ramirez, a pick up in the Pagan trade, logged 1.2 innings allowing 2 hits and a walk and striking out 3 K
• James, Acosta and Olson all had scoreless outings.

All in all, this was a good day for the Mets. They scored runs and prevented the Marlins from doing the same. It was the first game this season that a lot of people had a good day, and very few had a terrible day.

The most important story of the day is Santana. Johan finally returned to the mound against an opposing team today, and he did more than he had to do. The Mets booth said it right last night that all he had to do today was to pitch and compete. He didn’t need success, he just had to get the ball over the plate. After a lead off walk, Santana induced a double play ball and then waltzed through 2 frames where he allowed no hits and no runs. The real test will be how he feels tomorrow and how his arm reacts as he throws more pitches, more innings and a greater variety of pitches. Right now, Santana is exactly where he needs to be, and for a team that needs some positive news, this was just fantastic.

Torres picked up right where he left off last night. He made an impressive debut yesterday and today he went 2-3, with a bases clearing triple. He is playing with hustle. This is the type of play that the Mets were hoping to get out of Pagan last season. I hope this is the real deal out of Torres.

The other big story of the day was Nimmo’s debut. In two appearances today, Nimmo walked and went 0-1 where he also scored a run.

Other notes:

• R.A. Dickey had a great spring debut with a 2 inning, no hits and 2 K line
• Familia struggled in his debut, allowing 4 ER in 1.2 innings of work.
• Rauch also struggled in his debut, allowing 2 ER in 1 inning of work
• Keeping with the theme, Schwinden had a messy start allowing 3 runs, 1 earned in 2 innings of work
• The entire Mets offense, with the exception of Josh Satin, struggled against the Astros today including 0-3 performances by Tejada, Flores and Murphy
• Fernando Martinez, now an Astro, also went 0-3 today

The Mets played their first Spring Training Game tonight which means its time to start tracking the players. The Mets came out of the gate literally running. They ran a lot tonight as they showed off speed on the base paths. Anyway let’s break down some performances:

Torres made a good impression in his first game, drawing a walk, getting a hit in one official AB, a stolen base and scoring a run off of a Murphy RBI hit. I’m not going to make my entire opinion about Torres off of one game, but this was a good way to start quieting his naysayers.

Rottino, who is a real outside shot of making this club, got off to a bad start tonight as he went 0-2 with two strikeouts. The main attribute that keeps Rottino relevant is the amount of positions he can play, including catcher. As it was for the offense, there wasn’t really much to write home about in this game.

The pitcher to watch in this game for the Mets was Harvey, because of who he is. Harvey had a great first inning. In his second inning, he got into a jam, but he was able to pitch his way out without allowing a run. In his two innings of work he allowed no hits, walked three batters and struck out one. He faced Harper in this game (Harper got the walk) and one has to think that this is the first of many times these two players will face each other at the “Major League Level” (if you can call it that in Spring).

The MVP of the game has to go to Keith Hernandez and the rest of the booth, who were all back to mid season form tonight. Some of the highlights include:

Gary: What did you do this winter?
Keith: I read all 7 Harry Potter books.

Keith: I’m surprised Kevin said Voldemort. He must not be named.

Keith: We may not believe in trickle down economics, but we believe in trickle down Santana