213 Miles From Shea

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.

May is here with winter becoming a distant memory and Summer coming up fast. May is traditionally a month where we start to see more Summer themed giveaways and a lot of Mother Day items. In this article we will take a tour of the best the American League has to offer this month in terms of promotions:

New York Yankees – This is an odd one. The Yankees will be giving a way a Grass Seed Planter. I just have never merged planters with baseball. I mean grass makes sense, but still.

Tampa Bay Rays – You can almost always count on the Rays to come up with some odd, strange promotions. This month they will be giving out a rather creepy bank, a pillow case and a cape. Wow.

Cleveland Indians – “Weather Education Day with Weather Curriculum Book” I fully support education at the ballpark.

Kansas City Royals – This hat is awesome.

Los Angeles Angels – LA is doing it big this month. Instead of just having a normal bobblehead day, they are giving out two different Morales bobbleheads (one per entry) because he's a switch hitter. So there's a left handed one, and a right handed one, both wearing different jerseys. They also are giving out troll and a wrestling mask.

Seattle Mariners – Great Idea! Instead of just a normal Ichiro bobblehead, this one has a hit counter on its base. They always seem to do something great.

(Side Note: Yes, I am aware I could have titled this article with a cheesy pun)

When things go right, good things happen and it tends to be contagious. The old saying in baseball, rightfully so, is that it all depends on your starting pitching. Everything else can be built off of that. During this last homestand where the Mets went 4-2, the starters averaged 7 innings a start with and opponents batting average of .243 and an ERA of 2.63.

After the first two games, the rest of the Mets responded to the new found success of the starting pitching with hitting and bullpen pitching. Specifically, the Mets batters on Thursday night went on a home run tear and a hitting tear. In the past four games we have seen Davis go deep three times, Wright do the same, Bay hit is first homer of the season and Pridie and Nickeas both hit their first major league homers. In total the Mets have had over 50 hits in their last five games.

With good starting pitching, we finally saw a consistent basis the back end of the bullpen in their well defined roles. There is Beato as the amazing surprise, Izzy with the veteran set-up and Krod, back to his normal chaotically in control.

I guess the point of this is, that this is all a cause/effect with the starting pitching. Their success paves the way for everyone else. When they pick up the load, the pressure is off everyone else, which then circles back to the starters getting the pressure off of them. When it rains it pours, and the opposite is true as well. Probably the most important observation is the feeling of winning now. It looks like the players are going out expecting to win, and that started on Friday when Ike hit the go ahead two run homer.

Let's keep this going, and Let's Go Mets!

The Mets go for the sweep this afternoon in Citi Field against the Diamondbacks. Yesterday, we saw the continuation of the power surge the Mets are in right now as both Bay and Davis powered long balls out of the park. For Bay it was the first of this year (already 17% of the way there to last year's total!) and for Davis it was his third in as many days. It was also the second time in as many days the Mets showed fight. Yesterday they took an early 4-1 lead, let it slip back to 4-4, then immediately responded with a run, and than insurance run later to go up for good. Jon Niese will get the start for the Mets today as he faces Galarraga.

Niese is still looking for win number 1 this year with his 0-3 record over 4 starts, 23 innings of work and a 5.87 ERA. Last season he struggled against the Diamondbacks logging in 9.1 innings of work over two games allowing 8 ER during that stretch. Arizona has the following numbers on Jon Niese:

Johnson 3-6, 2B

Nady 1-6

Upton 4-6, 2B

Young 1-5, HR

Montero 0-3

Drew 0-2

The Mets will get a shot at Galarraga, who on the season has pitched three games over 18 innings of work with a 3-0 record and a 6.00 ERA. Armando actually faced the Mets last year where he picked up the win in 6 innings of work while allowing 4 earned runs. The Mets have the following numbers on him:

Bay 1-4

Wright 2-3, 2B

Davis 0-3

Reyes 0-1, 2 BB

Let's Go Mets!

The Mets and the Rockies will try to play a game this afternoon in Flushing with the threat of heavy showers throughout the day. The Mets are coming off of back to back wins including a come from behind victory last night thanks to some muscle by Ike and then insurance runs in the 8th inning. They will be looking to win three straight for the second time this season, and win their first home series. Taking the ball for the Amazin's is Dillon Gee and Barry Enright gets the honors for the Diamondbacks.

Dillon Gee played the role of stopper in his last outing as he logged in 5.2 innings of work with a 1.59 ERA.That game brought his career totals to a 2.09 ERA in 38.2 innings of work. In his short career, he has never faced the Diamondbacks nor does he have any actual statistics against any Diamondback hitters. Young could be nearing a return, so the best thing that Gee can do right now is force a difficult decision on the Mets by performing really well today.

On the other side of the field, Barry Enright will be trying to get his season on track. This season he has pitched 17.2 innings with a 6.23 ERA while walking 6 and striking out 12. In his rookie season he was effective against the Mets as he pitched against us twice, totaling 14.0 innings of work with a 1.93 ERA. The Mets have the following numbers against Barry:

Reyes 3-7

Beltran 0-5

Davis 1-5

Thole 1-6, HR

Wright 1-6

Bay 0-3

Let's Go Mets!

The Mets look for back to back wins for the first time since the start of the season tonight as they take on the Arizona Diamondbacks in Queens. Last night the Mets had strong starting pitching, relieving relief, and a whole lotta offense (more runs than their previous 5 games combine). Mike Pelfrey looks to show his ace stuff tonight against Joe Saunders.

Mike Pelfrey has had a rough season so far with an 0-2 record over 4 starts with a 9.72 ERA over 16.2 innings of work. Last season he struggled against the Diamondbacks pitching in two games against them with a 12.86 ERA over 7 innings of work. The Dbacks have the following numbers on Big Pelf:

Johnson 6-24, 2B, HR

Drew 5-19, 2B

Young 6-15, 2B

Montero 7-12, 4 2B

Upton 2-7, 2B

The Mets will get a shot at Joe Saunders tonight who is 0-2 this season with a 6.32 ERA, a far cry of what he has been in the past. Not surprisingly, since he started his career with the Angels and this is his first season with the Diamondbacks, he has never faced the Mets in his career before. There are three Mets that have logged AB's against him:

Bay 4-10, 2 HR

Hairston 2-8, 2B

Hu 0-3

Lets Go Mets!

It's too early to panic.

The Mets are off to a very rough start to the 2011 season with a 6-13 record, currently the worst in the majors, however it is too early to panic. During this time time, there have been a lot of calls to start to dismantle to the team while the value for Reyes is at its highest, and I think we all need to take a deep breath and take a step back for a second.

What we have is a 19 game sample, from 162 game season, and it is way too early to start extrapolating numbers from it. Before we look at the Mets as a team. Let's look at the 2007 Mets. They had a phenomenal April, however once Mary rolled around, they went on cruise control for the rest of the season. That ended with their cushion being dismantled in a terrible collapse at the end of the season. However, if we went just by their April numbers, they were above and beyond the best team and baseball.

Let's focus on this 2011 squad. These first 19 games have featured two statistical anomalies for the Amazin's which have had a devastating negative impact. Pagan is batting around .150 and Wright is batting around .240. I'm not saying that we expect both of them to have career years, but it is safe to assume that on a conservative estimate, Wright should be hitting .290 and Pagan at least .280. A combination of them returning to their average numbers, plus the return of Jason Bay, which we saw last night, should bring this offense around to at least being competitive.

The starting pitching has to come around as well. Over the last week it started to flash potential, but with 0 bats behind it, it just fell apart.

What I'm saying is, there is too much talent on this team to assume that we are going to continue with this 6-13 record, and it is way to early to start thinking of blowing this team up.

The Mets lost the second game of the series last night in a way that could only be described as 1962-esque. If it was any other team, it would be funny how the Mets find these odd, unlucky situations to lose games, but its our team, so its just hard to watch. Anyway, the Mets will try to stop the bleeding again tonight against J.A. Happ and the Astros with Chris Capuano.

Chris Capuano has pitched in four games with two starts and a 1-1 record with a 8.53 ERA over 12.2 innings of work. In 10.2 innings of work against the Astros last season he posted a nice ERA of 2.53. The Astros have these numbers against Chris:

Lee 2-9

Bourn 1-6

Johnson 1-3, HR

Pence 0-4

Sanchez 0-3

The Mets bats will get a shot of a familiar foe in J.A. Happ who is 1-2 on the season over 18.2 innings pitched with a 5.79 ERA. He didn't face the Mets in 2010 but in 2009 he faced the Mets 4 times, including 2 starts totaling 18.0 innings with a 2.50 ERA. The Mets have these numbers against J.A.:

Beltran 3-11, 2 HR

Wright 4-8, 2B, 2 HR

Murphy 1-4, 2B

Pagan 2-4, 2B

Let's Go Mets!