213 Miles From Shea

The Mets look to get back to their winning ways tonight against the Phillies. The last time these two teams met was at the start of the season where the Mets roster looked quite different. Since the last the last time we have faced them, the Mets no longer have Emaus, Carrasco, Pagan, and Boyer and now have Bay, Paulino, Turner, Iggy, Izzy and Gee. Tonight Mike Pelfrey will get the start against Vance Worley.

Pelfrey is coming off of a nasty flu bug that has been hanging around the New York Mets of late, and according to some reports has caused Mike to lose 11 pounds. He was cleared to pitch tonight, but just in case Dillon Gee is also available. On the season Pelfrey is 1-2 over 5 games with a 7.23 ERA over 23.2 innings of work. His last start was the best of this season as he pitched 7 innings allowing 5 hits, 1 earned runs, walked 2 and struck out 4. One of his worst starts of the season was against the Phillies where he pitched 2 innings allowing 7 runs, 6 earned. The Phillies have the following numbers on Mike:

Victorino 12-39, 2 2B, 3B, HR

Howard 13-30, 2 2B, 2 HR

Rollins 7-29, 3B, HR

Polanco 2-13

Francisco 0-2

Vance Worley will be making his first start of the season against the Mets tonight. Last year he pitched 13.0 innings in the majors over 5 games and 2 starts where logged an ERA of 1.38 and struck out 12 batters. He faced the Mets once last season, allowing 0 runs in 1 inning of work. In the minors this year he has logged 22.2 innings with an ERA of 2.78. The only current Met with numbers against him is Jose Reyes, who is 0-1.

Let's Go Mets!

It's the last week of April which in my hyper critical world has become synonymous with the start of All-Star Game Ballot. You could have started your maximum of 25 votes per valid email address this past Monday, or near limitless voting at the Ballpark (I'd assume sometime this week). Similar to the argument that I have articulated in previous seasons, my problem from this come from two issues, that are connected.

How can you decide an All-Star less than 25 games into the season?

It is a fair assessment to say that 25 games is still not a good statement of whether someone is having an All-Star season or not. It is still the length of a hot streak. Wright last season was a great example of this. He had a fairly cold April, but then the rest of season he was David Wright. I know that the counter statement for this argument is that voting goes on through June, and that balances it out. Well my response to that is start voting in late May. Yeah it's less votes and less money (which is the driver of this entire process), but it would be a more accurate assessment of All-Star game. Starting voting this early just has people voting for the big names they want to see play.

That brings me to point number 2. That is what this is, a popularity contest. There is nothing wrong with that. If people want to watch a group of players be on the same team and play another group of players, then it is a great thing we do this, but it isn't really an All-Star game. The only part of the All-Star in this now is the pitching and the bench, picked by the manager. Those players, generally, truly deserve to play in a game called the “All Star Game”. Some of the players on the starting roster all deserve this honor, but not all of them.

It is this distinction between All-Star and Fan Favorite that get blurred in having voting start so early. The loser is the weight of accolade the title All Star has, but the winner is still the fan. So in essence, the losers are then really people like me who seek out to complain about this topic year after year, because no one is really hurt by it.

I'll still complain about this again next season.

The Mets go for their seventh win in a row, and a series sweep tonight in Washington, DC. Last night was a night where we saw the grit of this ball club as they fought all sorts of issues to come back with fury. Tonight the Mets will send out Chris Capuano who will face Livan Hernandez.

Chris is 2-1 on the season with a 5.95 ERA over 19.2 innings of work. His last outing was his best this season as he turned in 7 strong innings of work, allowing only one earned run, walking two while striking out 4. He has also faced the Nationals already this season where he allowed 4 earned runs over 6 innings, walking one, striking out 8 (!), picking up his first win of the season. The Nationals have these numbers against Capuano:

Hairston 4-17, HR

Werth 1-7

Ankiel 1-6

Espinosa 1-3, HR

Ramos 2-3, 2B

The Mets will face Livan Hernandez for the first time this season tonight. So far this year he is 2-2 over 5 games and 31 innings of work with an ERA of 3.48. He was tremendous against the Mets last season with a 1-1 record and a 1.89 ERA over 5 games and 33 innings of work. The Mets have the following numbers against the former Met:

Reyes 14-53, 2 2B, 2 HR

Wright 12-45, 3 2B, 4 HR

Beltran 10-31, 2 2B, 2 HR

Bay 3-14, 2B

Davis 3-12

Thole 0-4

Let's Go Mets!

Some teams have slogans, others don't. For a while in the last decade, the Mets were really guilty of some bad slogans, that are laughable now (The New Mets, Next Year is Now, or my personal favorite from 2003 – Catch the Energy). Here's a list of teams that slogans this season: (It's worth noting that some teams have repeated slogans from previous years, forming some identity. The Orioles and Cubs are examples of this).

Baltimore Orioles – This is Bird Land

Boston Red Sox – We Won't Rest

Toronto Blue Jays – Heart + Hustle 2.0

Minnesota Twins – This Is Twins Territory

Chicago White Sox – All In.

Detroit Tigers – Who's Your Tiger?

Kansas City Royals – Major League Moments

Oakland Athletics – Green Collar Baseball

Texas Rangers – My Texas. My Rangers.

Chicago Cubs – It's A Way Of Life

Florida Marlins – Catch Our Moves

Cincinnati Reds – This Is Reds Country

Houston Astros – We Are Your Astros

Pittsburgh Pirates – Pride. Passion. Pittsburgh Pirates

St. Louis Cardinals – We Are Cardinals Nation

San Francisco Giants – Together We're Giant

Los Angels Dodgers – It's Time For Dodger Baseball

First off, congrats to the Mets who at least don't have one posted on the top of the website, which is where I got these from. I like seasons without them. There are three teams talking about location, like territory or nation. So some of these slogans are essentially copies of each other. Some are creative like the Oakland Athletics and then others are just funny like the Marlins and the Royals.

After being largely ignored by the backpages this season (makes sense, we are largely mediocre except of late, plus the Knicks were messing up in the playoffs) the Mets finally landed on the back of the New York Daily News:

That is easily the image I would like to remember for the rest of the season.

It is the first time, maybe since 2006, that I feel I've seen some form of swagger, some form energy, some form of grit from this ball club, and it came from one of the most important players in the clubhouse.

Here's hoping we get to watch more high energy games like this one.

The Mets go for 6 in a row tonight against the Nationals as they try to take series in the Nation's capital. Last night the Mets took the lead early, allowed the Nationals to tie it, then stepped up to put the game away for good. Last night was also the first game in the 5 game streak where the starting pitching wasn't fully on for the game. Luckily, the offense and the bullpen picked up the weight, which is exactly how a winning team performs. The Mets batters will face Tom Gorzelanney tonight while the Nationals draw Dickey.

Robert Allen is 1-3 on the season over the first four games with a 4.10 ERA. In his last outing he allowed four runs in 8 innings, and although the Mets lost that game, it was the game that in a way got this winning streak going. Earlier this season he had a below average start against the Nationals as he allowed 3 ER over 5 innings of work. Last season he had a 1.80 ERA against the Nationals in 20.0 innings of work. The Nationals have these numbers against Dickey:

Werth 4-14, 2B, HR

Pudge 4-13, 2B

Stairs 5-11, 3B, HR

Ankiel 4-10, 2B

Espinosa 0-4

The Mets will get another crack at To Gorzelanny this season tonight. So far this season he is 0-2 over 16.1 innings of work with a 4.96 ERA. Against the Mets this season he logged 5.1 innings of work allowed 6 runs, 5 earned over 4 hits, 2 walks, 2 homers while striking out 8 batters. The Mets have the following numbers on Tom:

Reyes 2-12

Wright 3-12, 3 2B

Beltran 2-5, 2 HR

Davis 3-5, HR

Bay 0-3

Let's Go Mets!

Over the last two days we have looked at what other teams in the league are giving out in the month of May. Now it's time to look at what the Mets are doing special for the upcoming month:

May 6th – Collectors Cup

May 7th – Your Basic All Black Cap

May 8th – Mr. Mets Dash

May 27th – Rally Towel

May 28th – Tote Bag

The only standout in May is the Rally Towel, which is orange with blue writing and will be given out against the Phillies. If the Mets are competitive that night, it should look really cool at the ball park.

When looking at the Mets recent losing streak, and now win streak, I personally see it as three separate streaks. The losing steak started off due to ineffective pitching, but the bats were still there. It then morphed into effective pitching, but the bats went absent. Finally, the Mets are on a winning streak where both the bats and the pitching are evident (imagine that, winning when pitching and hitting), so I wondered where the Mets stood with respect to the league in hits, OBP, and runs (the league average is in parenthesis):

Hits: Mets – 196 (200), Rank: 8

OBP: Mets – .322 (.321), Rank: 9

Runs: Mets – 105 (100), Rank: 6

So the stat that surprised me was that the Mets are 6th in the league in Runs, when 9th in OBP. It always feels at least, to me, that the Mets were leaving a lot of runners on base. Since I'm human, I know that there is a difference between truth and perception. I could perceive something to be bad because of high expectations and that I tend to pay closer attention to the Mets when they are in scoring position. So like any good scientist, I decided to calculate a statistic that compares runs to hits, walks and HBP, after the rankings I'll discuss meaning:

1) Cincinnati .407

2) Arizona .402

3) Colorado .398

4) New York Mets .375

5) Houston .370

5) St. Louis .370

7) Philadelphia .362

8) Atlanta .358

9) San Francisco .357

10) Washington .355

11) Milwaukee .353

12) Florida .351

13) Los Angeles .329

14) Chicago .323

15) Pittsburgh .312

16) San Diego .259

Average .355

Median .357

Standard Deviation .037

First, what does this stat even mean? It is a reflection of the ratio of runs to runners. It is hard to derive a strong statement about the rankings other than the question the stat was designed to answer. For example, we would consider a team that gets a lot of runners on every game, and scores enough runs, as a good team, however teams like that could be burned in this stat if they leave runners on. Leaving runners on base drops this stat significantly. Also, if a team is just a slugging team, but has a low OBP, this stat makes the team look better than what they actually are. For example, if we make up a team that would only hit homers, then they would have a 1.000 ratio here, obviously be the best, but it doesn't really speak at all to the offense of the team.

However this stat answers the question. It is a perception that the Mets leave a proportionally high amount of runners on base, when compared runs scored. According to the ratios, they are forth in the league of runs to runners scored. So out of 16 teams, when we get runners on base, we are also bringing them home. The question is then how often are we getting runners on base, and then getting them home. (I admit there are some issues with this statistical calculation, which is why I am not using it to make any strong statements about the team).

The Mets look to continue their hitting and pitching ways tonight as they start a six game road trip in DC. The last time these two teams met in New York, the Nationals were able to squeak out 2 of 3, and then things started to fall apart for the Amazins. The Mets look to get some revenge behind the first start Young will have off of the disabled list, as he goes against Jordan Zimmerman.

Young was one of the better starters in the Mets rotation before he went down. He has pitched 12.1 innings this season with a 1.46 ERA. One of those gems came against the Nationals as Young pitched 7 innings of one run ball with 5 strikeouts. In his career against the Nationals he is 3-1 over 5 starts with a 2.18 ERA in 33 innings of work. The Nationals have the following numbers against Young:

LaRoche 3-20, 2B, HR

Pudge 0-8

Werth 0-7

Ankiel 0-6

Desmond 0-3

Espinosa 0-2

The Mets will get another crack at Zimmermann tonight, who is 1-3 on the season despite his nice 3.70 ERA. His one win this season was against the Mets as he pitched 5.1 innings allowing 6 hits and 2 earned runs. Last season he was great against the Mets as he posted a 1.80 ERA in 10 innings of work. The Mets have the following numbers against Jordan:

Wright 2-10, 2B

Reyes 2-8

Beltran 2-6, 2B

Davis 1-3, HR

Murphy 2-6, HR

Thole 3-5

Bay 1-3

Let's Go Mets!

Yesterday we took a look at the American League Promotions coming up in May, now it's the National League's turn (except for the Mets who get an entire article for themselves tomorrow).

Chicago Cubs – A Cereal Bowl. No photo though.

Cincinnati Reds – A really nice Bronze Statue of Sparky Anderson.

Houston Astros – It seems a lot of teams are adding creative touches to bobbleheads this month. On Mothers Day, the Astros will be giving out Chris Johnson bobbles, where his the bat is pink! (It's also a day when they play the Mets)

Milwaukee Brewers – I'm only including this bobblehead because of the base. It's sponsored by a cheese company, so the base is a cheese wheel. Fun Fact about myself: the only place I love corporate logos is on bobblehead bases, when given the opportunity to inspect them through post modernism.

San Francisco Giants – Mays is turning 80! So here's a giveaway. Oh they are also still giving away World Champs stuff including a print, tote bag, cap and pennant.

Arizona Diamondbacks – All Star Game Garden Gnomes

Los Angels Dodgers – Get an automatic shout out for a James Loney Jersey.