213 Miles From Shea

The Mets return from the All-Star break against the Phillies tonight as the Mets start an important stretch to see if they are contenders or sellers. As you know by now, K-Rod was dealt a few days ago, and a Beltran deal is really contingent on the Mets play the next few series. The Mets will face Worley in tomorrows game while the Mets will start off the series with Dickey.

Dickey is 4-7 on the season with a 3.61 ERA. In his last four starts he has pitched 27.0 innings with a 2.33 ERA. He hasn't faced the Phillies yet this season but last year he had a 2.25 ERA over 4 starts. The Phillies have the following numbers against Robert Allen:

Polanco 7-23, HR

Ibanez 5-19

Rollins 1-7, 2B

Howard 2-6

The Mets will get another look at Worley tonight. Vance is 4-1 on the season with a 2.20 ERA. Vance made his first career start against the Mets where he shut them down for 6 innings of scoreless work. He wasn't so luck the second time around as he allowed 8 runs, 5 earned, in only 3 innings of work in his only really bad outing of his career. The Mets have the following numbers on him:

Beltran 1-5, 2B

Bay 2-4

Murphy 3-5

Thole 2-3, 2B

Let's Go Mets!

Bonus 90's cap! In the three part series from earlier, I completely forgot about another 90's hat. This one is the Holden Snapback hat, and it is modeled this time by the Reds:

This is an odd Minor League Hat. The Wilmington Blue Rocks usually have a crap like mascot for their caps, but for some reason they added in Celery this year. My friend explained this too me a while ago, and I forgot the reasoning, and am a bit lazy to go look it up.

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Just a quick update.

As you know a certain movie about a boy who lived is coming out tomorrow night. Harry Potter has been an event that has defined the current generation, myself included, and the movie portion is officially coming to end this weekend with the final Harry Potter movie.

Pop Culture and Minor League baseball generally blend together very well so two teams, the Grizzlies and the Pelicans, have decided to change their uniforms for Harry Potter nights.

Here's a picture of the Grizzlies and a picture of the Pelicans. As an added bonus, the Pelicans are also giving away a wand.

It pains me to do this hat, but it was so gimmicky I had to. The Phillies are, of course, excited about their rotation, so they obviously had to make this hat:

Well that conversation is now over.

There should be no financial reason now why the Mets cannot sign Reyes to a large contract. I still maintain that even with K-Rod on payroll next season, they would have been able to afford Reyes. With last nights trade, the Mets are completely off the hook for 2012 season with K-Rod and have alleviated their payroll quite a bit.

Let's backtrack though. The deal made last night sends K-Rod and cash to the Brewers for two players to be named later. The cash (estimated 5 million) is the rest of what K-Rod is owed this season, thus forcing the Brewers to either buyout his contract at the end of the season or let the option vest. As you know the Brewers don't have much of a farm system, and have given the Mets a list of players to choose from, and the Mets will make this decision at a later time.

We shouldn't fool ourselves too much, (not that I think anyone is actually doing this) this trade was not for prospects, but to prevent K-Rod from being on the team next year due to how much he was owed, and it was the right move. The only player on the Mets right now who should be making 17.5 million a season is Reyes, and that K-Rod contract was just ridiculous.

Of course this does make this season feel a little empty now.The Mets can still compete without K-Rod, but it will be very difficult. The next two series will probably be even more important. If the team can be dominant without K-Rod, then Beltran will stay with the team. If the team doesn't do so hot, then Beltran could go, and that will almost certainly be for prospects.

An interesting time to be a Mets fan indeed.

As you can recall, the Mets left Norfolk after many years a few years back, and the Orioles moved their AAA team from Canada down to take their spot. They made one uniform change, which was an alternate jersey and an alternate hat, that focused on the Oriole Orange and Black that the AAA team was missing:

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Sometimes when a team wears a throwback cap, it makes you really wonder why they felt the need to change. That is the feeling I get whenever I see the old style Senator caps from the 30's. The below cap was worn earlier this season, and it just looks so clean and fresh. It will never get back into the Nationals normal rotation mainly because they branded themselves as the “Curly W”. Just behold it's awesomenss:

The Mets and Giants play a game on National Television as the Mets wrap up their first half of the season before the All-Star break. Last night the Mets got strong pitching, but just couldn't back it up with the bats. Tonight Mike Pelfrey will take the mound for the Mets as he faces Matt Cain of the Giants.

Pelfrey is 5-7 on the season with an ERA of 4.64. He had a strong start (in the box score) his last time out as he logged 6 scoreless innings. In reality, he struggled, but he didn't let the struggle get to him and put the Mets in a position to win. One of his better starts of the season came against the Giants as he logged 7.2 innings allowing 2 runs, one earned. The Giants have the following numbers against Big Pelf:

Ross 7-23, 2B, 2 3B

Rowand 4-17, 2B

Huff 4-12

Tejada 1-9

Sandoval 2-10

Matt Cain is 7-5 on the season with a 3.22 ERA. He two very good back to back starts where he logged 14 innings allowing no runs but in his last start he allowed 5 ER in 7 innings. He didn't face the Mets yet this season, but last year he got the win in 7 innings of work allowing 2 earned runs. The Mets have the following numbers on Matt:

Harris 4-13, 3B

Beltran 6-13, 2 2B, 3B

Bay 4-7, 2B

Murphy 1-4

Let's Go Mets!

We looked at majors for the last three days, so before we go back, today we will take a break and look at one of the odder logos I have ever seen in the minors. The Fort Wayne TinCaps play with caps that have an apple, wearing a Tin Cap. Wow.

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