213 Miles From Shea

With the MLB Draft tomorrow, it is interesting to see what MLB is framing as the situation for each team. Every team has a preview article, and while parts remain the same (like look at a few moments of our history where we did really well in the draft) they do a somewhat good job framing the mindset for each team going into tonight. The following is each team with their matching headline.

Baltimore Orioles: Tough Decisions Loom For O's

Toronto Blue Jays: Blue Jays To Be Aggressive at Draft

Tampa Bay Rays: Plethora of Picks has Rays Pumped

Boston Red Sox: Sox Out To Make Early Draft Impact

New York Yankees: Draft Day Most Important to Yanks

Chicago White Sox: Picking Late, Sox Seek Pitching

Cleveland Indians: Tribe Considering All Pick Angles

Detroit Tigers: Picking 73rd, Tigers Will Stay Alert

Kansas City Royals: Royals Have a Knack for Draft

Minnesota Twins: Twins Have History of Draft Success

Los Angeles Angels: Angels On The Look Out For Left Handers

Seattle Mariners: Mariners in Catbird Seat with #2

Oakland Athletics: A's Won't Limit Themselves In The Draft

Texas Rangers: Sign of the Times, Rangers Set For Draft

Atlanta Braves: Braves Know the Values of Drafting Arms

Florida Marlins: Marlins Focus on Quality Over Need In the Draft

Washington Nationals: Nats Entering Draft From Different Vantage Point

Philadelphia Phillies: Lee Deal Leaves Phils Without First Round Picks

Chicago Cubs: Cubs to Use '11 Draft to Refill Farm System

Pittsburgh Pirates: As Draft Approaches, Pirates Keep Options OPen

Cincinnati Reds: With the 27th Pick, Reds will keep Eyes Wide Open

Milwaukee Brewers: Brewers Aim To Replenish Farm System in Draft

Houston Astros: Mills to Keep Close Eye On Draft

St. Louis Cardinals: Cardinals May Shy Away from Risky Draft Picks

Los Angeles Dodgers: High School Power Arms on Dodgers List

San Francisco Giants: Giants Expect Quality Late Pick on Draft's First Day

San Diego Padres: Padres Plan To Take Advantage of Extra Picks

Arizona Diamondbacks: D-backs Will Load Up On Two Early Picks

Colorado Rockies: Rockies Aim To Fortify Already Strong Farm System

New York Mets: DePosta Hard At Work Preparing Mets For Draft

Live coverage starts at 6 PM tonight. However, I can't make it through 2 minutes of the NFL draft, and although I like baseball a hell of a lot more, I don't think I can sit through the draft.

The Mets and the Braves play the rubber game of their set tonight in front of the nation on ESPN. Friday night's game featured the Mets bullpen fluttering leading to a loss. Yesterday's game was awesome as the Mets rode a great start from Dillon Gee, a seventh inning offense rally and a strong pen performance for a win. Tonight R.A. Dickey of the Mets and Tim Hudson of the Braves.

Dickey is 2-6 on the season with a 4.36 ERA. He had a strong outing last time out but the pen crumbled around him erasing his 7.2 innings of work where he allowed 3 earned runs, in his last three outings he has pitched 16.1 innings (remember, one start was 2.2 innings), with an ERA of 2.20. His only outing against the Braves this year was an relief outing where he had a scoreless inning of work. In 2010 he had a 4.34 ERA over 18.2 innings against the Braves. The Braves have the following numbers on Robert Allen:

Hinske 2-16

Uggla 0-10

McCann 1-7

Prado 0-8

The Mets will get a go against Tim Hudson tonight who is 4-4 this season with a 3.75 ERA. His last start was good as he logged 6.0 innings allowing 1 ER, which was a good rebound from his previous start where he allowed 8 earned runs over 3.2 innings. Last season he was 3-1 with a 2.00 ERA against the Mets in 4 starts. The Mets have the following numbers on Tim:

Beltran 25-70, 3 2B, 3B, 4 HR

Reyes 16-60, 2 2B, 2 HR

Bay 5-15, 2B, HR

Pagan 8-15, 2B

Let's Go Mets!

Tomorrow night is the MLB Draft where the first round and the supplemental round will happen in prime time. The following is the draft order:

1. Pirates

2. Mariners

3. Diamondbacks

4. Orioles

5. Royals

6. Nationals

7. Diamondbacks (Unsigned Pick)

8. Indians

9. Cubs

10. Padres (Unsigned Pick)

11. Astros

12. Brewers

13. NEW YORK METS

14. Marlins

15. Brewers (Unsigned Pick)

16. Dodgers

17. Angels

18. Athletics

19. Red Sox (From Tigers)

20. Rockies

21. Blue Jays

22. Cardinals

23. Nationals (From White Sox)

24. Rays (From Red Sox)

25. Padres

26. Red Sox (From Rangers)

27. Reds

28. Braves

29. Giants

30. Twins

31. Rays (From Yankees)

32. Rays

33. Rangers (From Phillies)

Supplemental Round A (“From's” here are really more like “due to”)

34. Nationals (From White Sox)

35. Blue Jays (From Angels)

36. Red Sox (From Detroit)

37. Rangers (From Phillies)

38. Rays (From Yankees)

39. Phillies (From Nationals)

40. Red Sox (From Texas)

41. Rays (From Boston)

42. Rays (From Oakland)

43. Diamondbacks (From Nationals)

44. NEW YORK METS (From Yankees)

45. Rockies (From Blue Jays)

46. Blue Jays (From Marlins)

47. White Sox (From Arizona)

48. Padres (From Dodgers)

49. Giants (From Dodgers)

50. Twins (From Padres)

51. Yankees (From Marlins)

52. Rays (From Padres)

53. Blue Jays (From Orioles)

54. Padres (From Rangers)

55. Twins (From White Sox)

56. Rays (From Detroit)

57. Blue Jays (From Mariners)

58. Padres (From Pirates)

59. Rays (From Marlins)

60. Rays (From Padres)

Whew. That's a really long supplemental round. After the first supplemental round there will be the second round, which has some substitutions, the third round, and another supplemental round. All following rounds from two on have the same order:

Second Round:

1. Pirates

2. Mariners

3. Diamondbacks

4. Orioles

5. Royals

6. Nationals

7. Indians

8. Cubs

9. Astros

10. Brewers

11. NEW YORK METS

12. Marlins

13. Dodgers

14. Angels

15. Athletics

16. Tigers

17. Rockies

18. Blue Jays

19. Cardinals

20. White Sox

21. Red Sox

22. Padres

23. Rangers

24. Reds

25. Braves

26. Giants

27. Twins

28. Yankees

29. Rays

30. Phillies

Yesterday we looked at the less than stellar batting practice jerseys for this year's All Star game, and we knew they were going to be bad mainly because the Diamondbacks already have a struggling jersey, and the BP jerseys are generally very gimmicky in the first place, a combination that leads to bad results. The Caps are generally bad anyway, and are made for a quick buck so here are the pics for this year's model:

The hat's aren't that bad. I like that they make use of the Arizona font, symbol and All Star game logo, however they were all sub par to begin with, so the result is sub par. But, once again, they did a good job with what they had to work with.

The Mets try to bounce back from yesterday's game with a win tonight against Atlanta. As you probably know, the Mets were in a position to win again last night and the bullpen just fell apart, again. I don't believe in curses, but the Mets pen just hasn't been good since Fox Sports called it one of the best in the game during a broadcast a couple of weeks ago. The Mets will send out Dillon Gee to take the mound for the Mets to go against Jair Jurrjens, who has been excellent this season.

Dillon Gee is 5-0 this season with a 3.83 ERA. In his last start, he allowed 3 ER in 7 innings of work. His command on the mound is really starting to turn a corner and although he doesn't feel like an ace, he feels like a pitcher that will keep the Mets in the game every time he is on the mound. His first start this season was against the Braves where he allowed 1 ER in 5.2 innings of work. The Braves have the following numbers against Dillon:

McCann 2-6, 2B

Prado 1-6

Gonzalez 2-4, 2B

Uggla 1-3, 3B

The Mets will have to deal with Jair Jurrjens tonight who is leading the league in ERA at 15.1 over 9 starts where he has a 7-1 record (which is also a league leading win percentage). His first start of the season was against the Mets where he tossed 7 innings in shutout ball in the night cap of a doubleheader. From there he has pretty much been consistently great all season. The Mets have the following numbers on Jair:

Pagan 2-24, 2B

Reyes 3-17, 2B

Beltran 2-16

Murphy 6-18, 2 2B, 3B

Harris 7-14, 2B, 3B

Bay 3-12, 2B

Let's Go Mets!

Monday is the day for the MLB 2011 Draft and like every sport these days, the draft is turning into more of a show. I remember a few years ago when they televised it for the first time, it was an absolute joke. There were barely any prospects there, and they tried to have famous for each team sitting at a table as a figure head while the teams were each in their war rooms. Anyway, this season the draft is being broken up over several days, with a prime time spot on Monday with the first round and the supplemental first round, and the next rounds on the following days.

Anyway so the question is what do the Mets do in the draft?

Personally, I think the Mets should take safe route with the draft, meaning they should go with a pitcher in the first round. The Mets could use an impact position player, but where? The outfield is rather crowded with a lot of players coming down the pipe. Catcher could be useful, but there aren't any first rounders in the draft. First base is covered, second base is a mystery which depends on a combination of Turner's trajectory, Tejada and Reyes, shortstop maybe/hopefully covered and so is thirdbase.

Really what that leaves is a pitcher, and you can never have enough pitchers. So I think the first priority for the Mets should be the catcher, for no good reason other than that is where the Mets can get the biggest return in this draft.

There are some names that are being tossed around a lot throughout the internets like Taylor Jungmann and Jed Bradley. Both pitchers are projected as top of the rotation starters, and they are both coming from College, so it will take less time for them to make it to the majors. I'll reserve a full blown preview until the Mets actually make their pick.

This morning when I went to look up the start of tonight's Mets game, I noticed there was a new advertisement on the MLB web page for 2011 All Star Batting Practice Jerseys:

The positives are that both the American and National Jersey are very similar to each other. The font on the front match and the colors are a perfect inverse of each other, so at least they match. For the Diamondback theme, they did a very good job. The problem in terms of aesthetics is this that the Dbacks don't have the best looking uniforms in the first place, so what they had to work with it, to make it look Arizona, was limited from the start. However, they did the best they could and it came out well.

The only part of the jersey I am on the fence about is the blue star on both jerseys. I don't know if I like it because it brings out the star in All-Star, or hate it because it doesn't go with the rest of the uniform.

Tomorrow, we'll look at the Batting Practice Caps.

The Mets and the Braves open up a weekend series tonight, with Jon Niese getting the start for the Mets as he goes up against Derek Lowe. Yesterday was a great game for the Mets as they rallied from being down 7-0 to win the game by the score of 9-8. It was a reverse of the last couple of days where the starting pitching wasn't so sharp last night but the bullpen and the hitting came back for the Mets.

Jon Niese is 4-5 on the season with a 3.92 ERA over 66.2 innings pitched. The youngster has pitched 18.1 innings in his last three starts where he has struck out 18 batters with a 0.98 ERA. Nice. He has not faced the Braves yet this season, but last season he was 0-2 against Atlanta where he logged 14.0 innings of work with a 2.57 ERA. The Braves have the following numbers on Jon:

Prado 3-13, 2 2B

Uggla 6-13, 3 2B

Ross 3-8, HR

Gonzalez 1-5

Jones 2-4, 2 2B

The Mets batters will get a familiar foe tonight in Derek Lowe, who is 3-4 with a 4.03 ERA this season. In his last four starts he has pitched 22.1 innings with a 5.64 ERA in that stretch. He faced the Mets once back in April where he allowed 2 earned runs in 6 innings of work over 5 hits and 4 strikeouts. The Mets have the following numbers on Lowe:

Beltran 8-39

Pagan 5-21, 3B

Bay 0-15

Murphy 4-12, 2 2B, HR

Thole 5-11

Hariston 4-10, 2B, 3B

Let's Go Mets!

While the Post decided to cover the NBA finals on the back page instead of one the best comebacks in team history by one of the city's team, the Daily News failed to disappoint:

The Mets and Pirates finish up their four game set this afternoon, as the Mets look to split the series. Yesterday was a now familiar story for the Mets where a late inning meltdown costs the Mets the win. As typical in (Mets) baseball, when one gear starts to work (here: starting pitching) another gear that was working well (here: bullpen) starts to fail. Anyway, this afternoon Pelfrey gets the nod against Maholm.

Pelfrey responded nicely from his previous meltdown with a great start his last time out where he pitched 7.2 innings allowing only 2 ER. It should have been a win but the pen fell apart behind him. In five games, his ERA in the month of May has been 3.09, and would probably be a lot lower without that destruction in the Bronx. Last season he was 2-0 in as many starts against the Pirates over 15.0 innings with a 1.80 ERA. The Pirates have the following numbers against Pelfrey:

McCutchen 4-9

Snyder 3-8

Diaz 2-8

Tabata 0-7

Walkder 1-8, 2B

The Mets yesterday faced the league leader in wins, today they face the league leader in losses, who has a better ERA. Maholm is 2-7 this season with a 3.18 ERA. In five starts in May, he has pitched 33.2 innings with a 2.14 ERA. Last season he picked up the loss in one start against the Mets where he allowed 7 runs, 2 earned, over 3.2 innings of work. The Mets have the following numbers against him:

Beltran 6-14, 2B, HR

Pagan 5-12, 2B, HR

Evans 4-7, 2 2B

Paulino 3-6

Let's Go Mets!