213 Miles From Shea

The Mets try to avoid the sweep tonight in Philly as they take on Cliff Lee for the Series concluder. Yesterday the Mets were locked in a pitching duel where they lost to Roy Halladay by the score of 2-1. For the Mets right now, they are on a three game slide after winning 6 games straight, so hopefully they can take a step in the right direction tonight (and go 3-3 on the road trip).

The Mets will be sending out Chris Young tonight who is 1-0 this season with a 2.65 ERA over 17 innings and three games. His last start was his first after coming off of his injury and he struggled, giving up 3 homers in 4.2 innings of work. One of his best starts this season was against the Phillies when he pitched 7 innings allowing only one earned run while he struck out 5 batters and walked only two. The Phillies have the following numbers against Chris:

Ibanez 9-29, 2B, 3B

Howard 2-11, 2B, HR

Rollins 2-11

Victorino 3-12, 2B

Francisco 0-3

The offense this night will get their first 2011 look at Cliff Lee. Lee this season has a 4.18 ERA over 5 starts and a 2-2 record over 32.1 innings of work. The last time he faced the Mets was in 2009 when he went 7 scoreless innings against the Mets while striking out 5 batters. The Mets have the following numbers on Cliff, which are limited because of all the injuries back in 2009:

Bay 3-7

Beltran 0-4

Hairston 0-6

Murphy 1-3, 2B

Let's Go Mets!

The Mets dropped the opener against the Phillies last night, and look to bounce back tonight. The only positive thing the Mets were able to do last night was muscle up on the ball (two homers), but one solo shot and one two run shot is not enough when the pitching falls apart. Hopefully the Mets will be able to get back on the right track today as they look for Niese to go toe to toe with Roy Halladay.

Jon Niese is 1-3 on the season with a 5.10 ERA over 30 innings of work. In his last two starts, he has pitched a combined 13 innings of work with an ERA of 2.77, which is what we expect from Jon. In his last start he really looked like a different pitcher due to how he was confident with his fastball, worked in a nice changeup and then effectively used his curve the second time through the lineup. He already faced the Phillies once this season and it was not pretty as he allowed 6 ER over 4 innings of work. The Phillies have the following numbers on Niese:

Polanco 4-13, 3 2B

Ibanez 2-10, HR

Victorino 3-9

Howard 1-7

Rollins 0-6

The Mets draw the top of the rotation in this game with Halladay who is 3-1 on the season with a 2.41 ERA over 37.1 innings of work. Last year he was 4-0 against the Mets in 4 games as he posted an ERA of 2.56 over 31.2 innings of work. The Mets have the following numbers against Roy:

Beltran 12-38, 2B, 2 HR

Bay 6-21, 2B, 2 HR

Reyes 10-22, 3 2B, 2 3B

Wright 2-18, 2B, 3B

Thole 7-12, 2B

Let's Go Mets!

While the starting pitching in the major league continues to sway from amazing to horrible, there are a few players in the minors that have gotten the 2011 season off to a strong start, and could provide some interesting internal solutions either this season or next season, depending on the age or experience of the player. Here are some interesting stats to look at:

Jenry Mejia (Buffalo): 1-2, 5 G, 28.1 IP, 2.86 ERA, 14 BB, 21 K

Matthew (Matt) Harvey (St. Lucie): 4-1, 5 G, 26.1 IP, 1.37 ERA, 9 BB, 30 K

Mark Cohoon (Binghamton): 1-1, 4 G, 25.0 IP, 1.44 ERA, 5 BB, 25 K

Chris Schwinden (Buffalo): 1-0, 3 G, 15.2 IP, 1.15 ERA, 6 BB, 17 K

Out of the above list, the only pitcher I would consider moving up this season would be Schwinden, only due to his age. He was born in 1986, and since the others are more serious prospects that need to be groomed, I think we could roll the dice with Chris if necessary. He started the season in AA where he was a relief pitcher and has gotten off to a strong start in AAA if he continues, he could be an interesting option to turn to down the road.

The other three pitchers are looking for rolls with the Mets in 2012 and with their numbers, they will be a hard to ignore. They all have been stellar early in 2011 with fantastic BB to K ratios. Harvey is probably the biggest surprise out of the group since it is his first season with the Mets, and a lot of people, or at least myself, didin't expect the Mets first round draft pick from last season to get off to such a strong start, striking out 30 batters over 26.1 innings. Cohoon started to become a name people spread around last season, and the talk around the Mets pundits (that is exactly how I picture all of us if we sat around a table with cameras pointed at us) basically all said the same thing that he would be a serious contender for 2012 if he had a strong 2011 campaign, and it looks like he is off to that right now.

Lot's to be excited about.

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.