213 Miles From Shea

The Mets play two games today astarting at 4 as part of a day-night, single-admission doubleheader. Last night's game was actually really exciting as there were some great defensive plays for both teams, and a come from behind, walk off win for the Mets via a two run double from Tejada. Anyway the first game today will feature Gallardo vs Niese as the second game will feature Bush vs Dickey.

Niese is looking to wrap up what has been a very successful season. September however has not been a fantastic month for him as he has been having a few struggles. In the past he has made one start against the Brewers and it wasn't good as he pitched 3 innings and allowed 5 ER. The Brewers have the following numbers against Niese:

The Mets in the first game will get a chance to try to crack Gallardo.  He is 14-7 on the season with a 3.57 ERA. In the month of September he is 3-1 with a 1.95 ERA and his only start against the Mets this year was a gem as he pitched a complete game shutout. The Mets have the following numbers on Gallardo:

In the second game, the Mets will be starting Dickey who looks to continue his Amazin' season. He needed to rebound in his last start and he was able to do it as he pitched 6 innings allowing only 2 ER. His second win of the season was against the Brewers as he pitched 7 innings allowing 4 ER. The Brewers have the following numbers on Robert Allen:

The Mets bats will get a look at Bush today who is 7-13 with a 4.70 ERA
on the season. In the month of September he has made 4 starts with 21.1
innings with an ERA of 4.64 (or in another words, his September is a
good example of his season). Bush didn't play against the Mets yet this
season, but last season he made one start where he pitched 6 innings,
allowed 3 ER and got a no decision. The Mets have these numbers on Dave:

Lets Go Mets!

The Mets and Brewers start a series tonight as the Mets will try to
avoid a losing season after the opener was rained out last night. The Amazin's are coming off of a series win in
Philly where they at least blocked the Phillies from celebrating their
division championship in Philly. The Brewers are coming off a series
win against the Marlins where they clinched a losing season.

Pelfrey
gets the start for the Mets and he's looking to build off of three
consecutive good starts. In those three starts he has pitched 21.1
innings with a 2.11 ERA while walking 4 and striking out 13. The last
time Pelfrey faced the Brewers was in 2009 where he pitched 7 shutout
innings for the win. The Brewers have these numbers on Big Pelf:

The Mets will now face Randy Wolf in the opener who is 13-11 this season and a 4.24 ERA. He has been very good in the month of September with a 1.21 ERA over 29.2 innings in four starts. He was the losing pitcher against the Mets earlier this season as he picked up the loss in 5 innings of work where he allowed 2 ER. The Mets have the following numbers on Randy:

Lets Go Mets!

The Mets and Brewers start a series tonight as the Mets will try to avoid a losing season. The Amazin's are coming off of a series win in Philly where they at least blocked the Phillies from celebrating their division championship in Philly. The Brewers are coming off a series win against the Marlins where they clinched a losing season.

Pelfrey gets the start for the Mets and he's looking to build off of three consecutive good starts. In those three starts he has pitched 21.1 innings with a 2.11 ERA while walking 4 and striking out 13. The last time Pelfrey faced the Brewers was in 2009 where he pitched 7 shutout innings for the win. The Brewers have these numbers on Big Pelf:

The Mets bats will get a look at Bush today who is 7-13 with a 4.70 ERA on the season. In the month of September he has made 4 starts with 21.1 innings with an ERA of 4.64 (or in another words, his September is a good example of his season). Bush didn't play against the Mets yet this season, but last season he made one start where he pitched 6 innings, allowed 3 ER and got a no decision. The Mets have these numbers on Dave:

Lets Go Mets!

All signs are already pointing to another crowded outfield next season. If you recall, one major issue going into last spring was a large group of players descending to the OF, fighting essentially for one spot. The Mets will most likely have the same problem this upcoming season as Jason Bay holds down Left Field (and with his contract, you can pretty much ink him in as the starter, and I'm sure he'll be better next season, but that is another topic), and Pagan's play this season should land him a job in center.

Then there is right field. The Mets still have Beltran, who is coming around all of sudden, they also will need to carry Evans next season since he is out of options and finally the Mets will have young players in Duda and F-Mart.

Duda was pretty far down the depth chart at the start of 2010, but amoung some circles, his 2009 campaign was starting to cause some whispers. His strong start to 2010 then made him a household name coming into September. Once he finally got the Queens, he was awful at first. He was the victim of bad luck on some plays and just not being able to get the job done. In his first 33 AB's he had one hit, a double, and an RBI. Duda was quickly fading in an impatient city.

Of late though, he is back in the conversation across dinner tables (ok so probably not, but you get the mental image idea) as he has really turned up his play. In his last 21 AB's he has had 9 hits (.429 BA) with 4 doubles and two homers (.905 SLG) and has posted 9 RBI's. He was the hero in Saturday's game as he knocked in a huge three run double against the Phillies.

The question is now what to do with Duda. It is really hard to extrapolate too much from his numbers, both good and bad, because play in September sometimes resembles a glorified Spring Training game. As good as he has been at times this season, would he really be better than a Bay/Pagan/Beltran/Evans outfield? Can he match Fmart? Is he good enough to trade?

These are the questions that will have to be answered over the next few months leading up to Openning Day 2011.

The Mets and the Phillies play the rubber game of their three game set today as the Mets try to take the series from the Phils. The first game on Friday night was gritty and ended up being a loss for the Mets. Last night wasn't looking much better for the Mets until the seventh inning. First, Beltran had the hard slide, which was awesome. Then the Mets put up a five spot, which was even more awesome. Today the Mets will throw Misch to counter Hamels.

Misch is 0-4 on the season with 9 games and 4 starts in the books totaling 24.1 innings pitched with an ERA of 4.44. The last time he pitched was on the 19th against the Braves where he had a scoreless outing and the last time he started was at the end of August and it was a pretty ugly start. So far against the Phillies this year he has made a relief outing and a start where he has totaled 6.1 innings pitched and one earned run. The Phils have these numbers on Pat:

The Mets will have to deal with Cole Hamels today who is 12-10 on the season with a 2.93 ERA. He has been very good in the month of September with a 28.2 innings pitched posting a 0.63 ERA over that time. This season he has also been fantastic against the Mets in terms of ERA where he has posted a 1.69 ERA over 21.1 innings in three games. However every time he pitches against the Mets, the Mets pitchers seem to be near perfect, so Cole's record against the Mets this season is 0-3. The Mets have these numbers on Hamels:

Lets Go Mets!

Over the last few days there have been reports from several different sources noting that some of the fan favorite individuals to be considered for the GM position here in New York are probably or are definitely off the table. The first person to fall was Kevin Towers, the 48 year old GM of the Padres. Kevin would have been a great mix of experience and energy (leaning way more to the experience side) but has agreed to become the GM of the Diamondbacks.

Originally, this looked like good news for the Mets as the other person they were looking at was the exciting interim GM of the Diamondbacks, Jerry Dipoto. He was cited as stating that he would probably be leaving the organization now that Towers is at the helm. However, MLBtraderumors has found out that may not be true. Jerry and Kevin had a talk the other day and now Jerry is really leaning towards staying with Diamondbacks as the Vice President.

Finally, another canidate that a group of Mets fans have been hoping for, Josh Daniels the GM of the Rangers, is probably staying put. Metsmerized Online wonders if it is that he would rather work Nolan Ryan over the Wilpons, and I have to agree with Joe over at Metsmerized that who wouldn't prefer working with Ryan over the Wilpons?

So where does this leave the Mets?

Out of these three, the only one they probably still have a strong shot of snagging away would Dipoto. However, it would really have to be a bold offer, since it looks like he would be comfortable staying in Arizona now. There are other names out there (and I'm not going to pretend that I understand who they are, because I really haven't looked into them since I was really hoping for Towers).

In the end, what I care about is the Mets making a move. I want it to be bold, and I really would prefer a clean house (no more Minaya) . I just hope they big wigs in the Mets organization are not bluffing.

The Mets should really want to win tonight.

Like really really want to win.

Tonight they should want to win not just because the Phillies are a rival team, that Utley destroyed Tejada on a slide. The Amazin's should want to win tonight because if they don't, they will have a first row seat to watching the Phillies clinch the division. Anyway last night was a real, physical tough game that the Mets were on the losing side of. Tonight they look at awesome surprise, Dillon Gee, to get the Mets back on track. Gee is 1-1 this season over three games with a 1.80 ERA over 20 innings pitched. In those three starts he has faced the Nationals, Pirates and the Braves.

The Mets will get another crack at Kendrick this season who is 10-9 with a 4.78 ERA. In his last three games he has allowed 9 ER over 15 innings this season with a 5.40 ERA. In three starts against the Mets this season, Kyle is 1-2 with a 3.78 ERA. The Mets have the following numbers on Kendrick:

Lets Go Mets!

The Mets return to Philly tonight into probably the loudest environment they have played in, in a long time. Tonight's game will feature R.A. Dickey for the Amazins as he tries to push back Blanton and the Phillies. Dickey will attempting to bounce back from his last start where he allowed 4 ER over 6 innings to the Braves as he picked up the loss. In the start before that, Dickey was amazing as he pitched a one run complete game. Against the Phillies this year he has a 2-1 record over three starts with a 2.00 ERA over 18 innings of work. The Phillies have these numbers against Robert Allen:

The Mets bats will try to crack Joe Blanton tonight, who is 7-6 on the season with a 5.04 ERA. He is looking to bounce back from a start with similar numbers as Dickey. Blanton in his last start allowed 4 ER over 6 innings of work. This season he is 0-1 against the Mets while allowing 7 ER over 12 innings of work. so the Mets are going to try to repeat that tonight. The Mets have these numbers on Joe the pitcher:

Lets Go Mets!

Quasi Positive news in Metsville today. Well, not really positive as its just nice to not have to hear about criminal cases and mediocre play on the field. The word on the street is, via Adam Rubin of ESPNEWYORK, is that Dan Murphy is still working on playing second base. Furthermore, he will play second in the Arizona Fall League and in the Dominican League this winter (giving us something to watch, I hope).

This is great news for the Mets because now the Mets have a slew of options at second base for next season, barring something stupid (ie, trying to acquire Chrone Figgins, keeping Luis Castillo, etc). I'm generally happy about the Murphy situation for another reason because now I can wear my Murphy shirt in public in DC and instead of giving a long complicated story of who he is, I can just say, “Oh, he's on the bench”.

Essentially going into next season these are the Mets options at second base:

At this moment in time, if I was forced to make a decision right now, I would go with Tejada. He is young, great defensively and his bat might come around. It's worth giving Turner another look and then I guess we will see what happens.

Without thinking too much, the person who should be most worried in this situation is Chris Carter. He already is the bat off the bench and not really a defensive replacement. Murphy probably provides a similar offense off the bench but Murphy can play corner OF (like Carter), second, and first.

This will probably a topic of conversation all winter again, like last offseason with Murphy at first base.

The Mets and the Marlins play game two tonight, a night after the Mets were officially mathematically eliminated from all post season play in 2010. The Mets look for Niese to bounce back from his last outing tonight as last time he allowed 6 runs over 4 innings of work. It is worth to note, however, that he allowed 0 ER, and defensive miscues around him were just killer. The Marlins have been terrible for Niese this year as he has a 1-3 record over 4 games and a 5.66 ERA against them. Hopefully he will be able to turn it around today. Anyway here are the Marlins numbers against Niese:

The Mets will get their third look at Sanabia tonight. In June they saw him in relief where allowed 1 ER, 2 runs total over 2 innings of work and then saw him as a starter in August where he picked up the win in 6.1 innings of work allowing 2 ER, 3 total against the Amazin's. Overall on the season Sanabia is 4-3 with a 3.88 with about 60 innings of work. The Mets have these numbers on Alex:

Lets Go Mets!