213 Miles From Shea

The Mets look to bounce back from last night's loss tonight with a win against the Oakland Athletics. The only bright spot in yesterday's game was Jason Bay who hit his third homer of the season, and his first in 104 AB as he slowly starts to turn his season around and maybe give this offense a jolt that it needs. Tonight R.A. Dickey gets the nod for the Mets as he takes on Gio Gonzalez of the Athletics.

Dickey is 3-7 this season with a 4.00 ERA. He had a nice string of starts going for over a month where he pitched 32.1 innings with an ERA of 1.67 but stumbled in his last start against Atlanta where he allowed 6 ER in 4.0 innings of work. In his career against the Athletics, he is 1-4 with a 6.49 ERA, so he'll look to improve on those career numbers tonight. The Athletics have the following numbers on RA:

Crisp 2-8

Matsui 3-6, 2 2B

Barton 1-5

Sweeny 4-6, 2B

DeJesus 1-5

The Mets batters will get a look at Gio Gonzalez tonight, who is 6-5 this season with a 2.69 ERA. He has been more human in the month of June with a 1-3 record over three starts and 24.2 innings posting an ERA of 4.01. As you would expect with a pitcher who broke into the Majors in 2008 and has been in Oakland his entire career, he has never faced the Mets before. The only batter that has seen him is jason Bay, who is 0-2 lifetime against him.

Let's Go Mets!

Not sure how I missed this, but the Bisons repeated one of their best promotions early this month where they donned Star Wars themed uniforms for the benefit of the American Cancer Society. They used the same log as they did last time, with the AT-AT walker as the corollary for the Buffalo Bisons main logo. The rest of the uniform was white this year (black last time) and was made to look like a storm trooper uniform. Nice touch guys, nice touch.

The Mets and Athletics start a series tonight in New York as the Mets look to bounce back from their first losing series since the 29th of May. Tonight the Mets will look to Dillon Gee to continue to be himself as he takes on Josh Outman. For the record, Josh Outman has one of my favorite names for a pitcher of all time.

Dillon Gee is 7-0 this season with a 2.86 ERA. In his last start he pitched 4.0 innings of shutout ball as the rain pushed him out of the game. He is 3-0 in his last four starts as he has logged 26.0 innings with a 1.38 ERA. In those 26 innings, he has only walked 4 batters, while striking out 20, which has a lot to do with the success he has found this season. As you would imagine, since Gee is a rookie, and the Athletics are in the American league, he has never faced Oakland nor has he faced any batters that currently play for Oakland.

The Mets will try to get men on base and not record a lot of outs against Outman tonight (terrible attempt at an unfunny pun, I'm so sorry) who is 2-1 this season with a 3.14 ERA. His last two starts have been good as he has allowed only 3 ER in 13 innings of work including a 7 inning shutout his last time out. In his limited time in 2008, 2009 and this season, Outman has not faced the New York Mets. In addition to that, he has never faced anyone on the Mets.

Another game of mystery tonight for the Mets. Let's Go!

In our last installment, we took a look at the Yankees Jerseys in the Players Signature Series, and today we will finish our journey with the Phillies, who have two players participating in this year's clothing line. After looking at these Jerseys, I take back what I stated yesterday when I exclaimed that the Yankees had the most conservative jerseys of the bunch. Upon further review, or a first view, that honor clearly goes to the Phillies:

Yeah, so these jerseys are a step above a fashion jersey in the crazy department. I can't believe I'm going to say this, but, good job Phillies. Here's a link where they can be seen.

We pick up our tour of the 2011 Players Signature Series line today with the New York Yankees. The Yankees are one of two teams (the other being the Phillies) that had this line last year as well. This season, four players will have jerseys made for them:

The Yankees probably have the most conservative line of the four teams, which is not surprising at all. My favorite one would have to be Posada because it has the logos of the Championships he has won and its the perfect combination of crazy but not too much crazy. If for some reason you want to purchase one of these, they are available here.

The current skipper of the Marlins, Edwin Rodriguez, stepped down this morning. The Marlins have been in a tailspin in their last 24 games as they have lost 21 over that stretch including losing 18 of their last 19 games. Before this all started they were 29-19 and were almost keeping pace with the Phillies however now they are in last place in the division and are 11.5 games out.

The game today was managed by Brandon Hyde, but he hasn't been named the interim manager yet. The Marlins made an announcement they are hoping to move forward quickly, possibly having a new manager by tomorrow. There are a few candidates that are floating around:

Bo Porter: Rumored because the Marlins almost hired him over this last offseason.

Wally Backman: The Mets fan favorite may be interviewed as the Marlins have asked the Mets organization for permission to interview Backman.

Jack McKeon: He's already in the organization, he's tough, and he took over for the team in 2003 and then led them to the World Series.

If I had to bet, I would say Jack McKeon because he is in their organization, and could be moved to the helm quickly.

The Mets and Angels play the rubber game today for the classic afternoon Sunday game in Citi Field. Yesterday the Mets won as Pelfrey led the way with a strong complete game outing and was backed by a Mets offense that stole bases and flashed some power. Today, Jon Niese will try to keep it going for the Amazin's while the Mets bats will try to sink Tyler Chatwood.

Jon Niese is 6-5 this season with a 3.46 ERA. In his last six starts he has pitched 40.0 innings with an ERA of 1.58. The difference for Niese this season, especially in the last six starts, is his use of his curveball in respect to his other pitches. Last year he was using his cutter too much but he went back to the pitch this season, the cuveball, that landed him in the major league rotation. He has never faced the Angels, which is not surprising, and the only player who has seen Niese pitch is Dan Haren who went 0-2 against Niese (and it is a fairly safe bet that Haren will not be seeing the plate today).

The Mets batters will get a look today at Tyler Chatwood who is 3-4 this season with a 4.20 ERA. His last two starts have been rough as he has pitched 10.2 innings and allowed 10 runs, 9 earned. Chatwood is a rookie, so tonight will be the first time that he will face the Mets and anybody on the Mets thus setting up a game of mystery as neither lineup has seen opposing pitcher.

Let's Go Mets!

There are certain Interleague matchups one expects to see this time of year like the Subway Series, the Cross Town Rivals (Cubs/White Sox), the Beltway Series (Orioles/Nationals), the Bay Area (Giants/Athletics) and the i-70 series. In this addition, the Royals and the Cardinals paid tribute to Joplin, the town in Missouri that was destroyed on May 22nd when a devastating Tornado went through the city. To show unity for the state and Joplin, the Royals and Cardinals wore the Joplin High School baseball caps during batting practice yesterday and they are also wearing “Teams Unite For Joplin” patches on their uniforms.

The patch can be seen below:

The proceeds of the patch go to the relief efforts in Joplin.

Here's a shot of the patch on the arm of a Cardinal and here's on the front of Royal.

The Mets and Angels play game two tonight as the Mets look to bounce back from two tough losses in a row. Last night the Mets were in the game all night but they just fell short, as they lost the game by the score of 4-3. In tonight's game, Mike Pelfrey will get the start to see if he can get the Mets on back while he face the former ace of the Diamondbacks rotation in Dan Haren (who is having a very good season this year).

Mike is 3-5 this season with a 5.11 ERA. In his last two starts he has pitched 13.0 innings while allowing 4 ER which would give him an ERA of 2.77. In three of his last four starts, he has allowed only 2 ER pitching 7.2, 6 and 7 innings in each of those starts. He has never faced the Angels, which isn't too surprising since he has been a Met his entire life, but he has some numbers against current Angels:

Abreu 0-2

Branyan 1-3, 2B

Hunter 1-2

Izturis 2-2

The Mets batters will get a crack at Dan Haren today who is 6-4 with a 2.54 ERA. He is 2-2 in his last four starts where he has an ERA of 4.84. Essentially, he was lights out all season, but recently he has been human. He is still good, just human. He is 1-0 in 5 starts and 6 games against the Mets in his career where has pitched 34.2 innings with an ERA of 3.89. The Mets have the follwoing numbers on Daren:

Beltran 6-18, 3B, HR

Reyes 2-13

Hairston 3-12, 2B

Bay 1-7, HR

Pagan 4-6, 2B, 3B, HR

Let's Go Mets!

I'm currently in the process of moving, and as I was going through a box of papers, I came across the daily program for the Washington Nationals for May 19-20 of 2010 and in it, of course, was the Mets roster. So approximately 13 months ago, these was your baseball team:

Active Pitchers: Acosta, Feliciano, Maine, Mejia, Niese, Nieve, Pelfrey, Perez, K-Rod, Santana, Takahashi, Valdes

Active Catchers: Barajas, Blanco

Active Infielders: Castillo, Cora, Davis, Reyes, Tatis, Wright

Active Outfielders: Bay, Francoeur, Matthews, Pagan

Inactive Players: Escobar, Green, Igarashi, Murphy, Beltran

Coaches: Manuel, Johnson, Warthen, Shines, Hale, Jauss, Niemann

Before you ask, yes, this program was from the infamous John Maine game from last year.

Players That Are No Longer With The Mets:

Feliciano, Maine, Nieve, Perez, Takahashi, Valdes, Barajas, Blanco, Castillo, Cora, Tatis, Francoeur, Matthews, Escobar, Green

Players That Are Currently Inactive:

Mejia, Santana, Davis, Wright

The team looks quite different than it did 13 months ago, but you didn't need me to tell you that.