213 Miles From Shea

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.

The Mets return home tonight to play some Interleague Play ball against the Los Angeles Angels tonight. The Mets are returning from a successful road trip where they split a series with the Pirates and won a series a way against the Brewers and the Braves. Hopefully they can put the balk last night behind them as the Mets look to improve to .500 again behind Chris Capuano as he takes on Joel Pineiro.

Capuano has 4.40 ERA this season in 73.2 innings of work with a 5-6 record. His last start against Pittsburgh was great as he logged in 7 scoreless innings of three hit ball. In his last 13 innings of work he has only allowed one run. In his career he has never faced the Los Angeles Angels franchise, and there are only two batters on their roster who have seem him. Tori Hunter is 5-12 with a homer against Chris while Bobby Abreu is 3-8 with a double. For everyone else, Chris will be a mystery tonight.

The Mets batters will get a crack at Joel Pineiro who is 2-3 this season with a 4.03 ERA over 58.0 innings. He is 0-3 for his last five starts where he has pitched 30.2 innings with an ERA of 5.87. He has made 6 starts against the Mets in his career where he is 3-0 with a 4.15 ERA. The Mets have the following numbers on Joel:

Beltran 5-16, 2B

Harris 1-14

Reyes 7-12, 2 2B, 3B, HR

Bay 5-11, HR

Murphy 3-11, 2B

Hairston 3-5, 2 2B

Let's Go Mets!

The Brooklyn Cyclones open their season tonight and one of the greatest things about the minor league team closest to home is they generally have some great giveaways. The jerseys are always at the top of the list, but I first want to focus on earbuds which are totally awesome and so practical! Anyway, here is a list of the jerseys that they will be giving away:

Irish Jersey

White Jersey

4G Jersey

Black and Teal Jersey

Blue Jersey

Yes, that 4G Jersey is essentially a Verizon Wireless Jersey. I don't know if I would ever be able to wear it, but for some reason the cynical part of me is really glad that it exists. Anyway as you would imagine with a Minor League team, these uniforms are plastered with advertisements, but its all in good fun because they are free.

The Mets go for the sweep tonight in Atlanta as they end a 10 game road trip before coming home to face the Angels tomorrow night. Last night the Mets battled the Braves and the elements as the game was delayed to start. Dillon Gee went out, tossed 4 great innings, but then rain came again and the Mets had to pass the game onto the bullpen, the weakest link of this ball club right now. The pen came through and held the Braves scorless for five innings as the Mets returned to the .500 mark. Tonight Dickey will get the start against Mike Minor.

Dickey is 3-7 on the season with a 3.98 ERA. In his last five starts he has pitched 32.1 innings with an ERA of 2.23 and he also has a streak right now of two consecutive starts where has lasted 8 innings. His last win was against the Braves where he allowed 1 ER in 8 innings of work. The Braves have the following numbers against Robert Allen:

Hinske 3-19, 2 2B

Uggla 0-13

Gonzalez 3-12

McCann 3-10, HR

Mike Minor is 0-2 this season in 4 starts with a 4.50 ERA. He faced the Mets once last season where he pitched 5 innings allowing 2 ER over 7 hits. In his short time in the majors over his career, the Mets have the following numbers against him:

Beltran 1-2, 2B

Tejada 2-2

(And That's It)

Let's Go Mets!

There was another throwback game yesterday, June 15th, in Brooklyn…errr I mean Los Angeles.

As you probably know by now, the fans in Los Angeles voted on a throwback jersey for the Dodgers to wear a few times this year, and they chose the satin, powder blue Brooklyn Jerseys. Yesterday they played the Reds who decided to play along with the Dodgers and wore a throwback Cincinnati uniform with a classy front and a nice black and red hat. Mainly the reason why I liked them is they went with the clean no name on back.

Anyway here is a picture of the Dodgers uniform and here is one of the Reds uniform. Both images are part of the ESPN slide show which has a lot of nice pictures of the uniforms in action.

The Mets and the Braves play game two tonight as the Mets look for the series win in Atlanta. Last night the Mets won by using a familiar combination of strong starting pitching, small ball hitting, and sorta praying the bullpen doesn't implode. Tonight Dillon Gee will look to start his season 8-0 as he faces Tim Hudson.

Dillon Gee has become quite the story for the Mets. The rookie is now 7-0 this season with a 3.05 ERA. In his last three starts he has logged 22.0 innings of work while posting an ERA of 1.64. The second of those three starts was against the Braves where he pitched 7 innings of shutout ball. The Braves have the following numbers on Dillon:

McCann 2-8, 2B

Gonzalez 3-7, 2B

Hinske 0-4

Uggla 2-6, 2B, 3B

Freeman 1-5

The Mets will face Tim Hudson tonight who is 5-5 on the season with a 4.06 ERA. He has pitched 16 innings in his last three starts with a 4.50 ERA, where his only bad start was against the Mets where he allowed 5 ER over 7 hits in 4 innings of work. The Mets have the following numbers on Hudson:

Beltran 26-72, 4 2B, 3B, 4 HR

Reyes 18-62, 3 2B, 2 HR

Bay 5-15, 2B, HR

Pagan 8-16, 2B

Let's Go Mets!