213 Miles From Shea

Dillon Gee looked really good tonight, looking like the prospect we here at 213 thought he could be back in 2009 (check our Get To Know a Prospect on Gee from March 2009). Anyway he was phenomenal in his debut as he allowed only 1 ER over 7 innings of work while allowing 2 hits and striking out 4. You may or may not have heard that he had a no hitter going through the first five innings of tonight's game. All in all, I don't want to read too much into this because it is just one start, but its is promising because his pitches looked so good tonight.

Oh, and not to be outdone with his arm, in his first major league AB, he got an RBI. Nice.

In other Mets news from this game, Ike Davis continued his recent late season surge as he hit his 18th homer of the season as he knocked in 3 RBI's on that jack with 64 on the season.

My one complaint about the game goes back to Jerry. Why Jerry, Why? Why use Parnell for one batter in the 8th, and not give him the save situation, but give the save situation to Takahashi. That doesn't make sense man. Bobby has to be tried as the closer and he needs to pitch in save situations. 

Major League Debut Derby.

The Mets and the Nationals play game two tonight after last night's romp via young prospect Espinosa who exploded at the plate vs the Mets. Tonight will feature the Major League debut for both starting pitchers. On the Amazin's side, 24-year old Dillon Gee gets a shot to show if he has the goods to be a starter in the Majors and for the Nationals, they will show off their recent acquisition from Cuba, Yuneski Maya.

Dillon Gee has been a talked about prospect for a while now, because its hard to see on the surface whether he has the ability to be a star, or whether he is just not going to pan out (obvisously this is the discussion for every prospect, but the consensus on Gee ranges). Anyway he has had a good comeback year (only pitched 48 innings last season due to innings). This year he is 13-8 with a 4.96 ERA in AAA with 165 strikeouts to only 41 BB. Yes, that is a 4 to 1 strikeout ratio. That is where he makes noise as a prospect. It will be interesting to see what he does tonight.

Maya was a player that I really wanted the Mets to get at the start of this season, so now I'm hoping I was wrong about him. If you thought that Mejia was rocketed through his system, wait to you see how Maya (who is an accomplished Cuban pitcher) moved through the Nationals system. He made 2 starts in the Rookie League (with a 1.29 ERA), made one start in Advanced Single A (6 ER in 4 IP) then two starts in AAA with one earned run in 10.1 innings. Essentially he traveled like a pitcher on rehab.

Lets Go Mets!

Bisons week continues as we take another look at Fernando Martinez. Yesterday we saw his quick bat with a grand slam. Today we will see his glove. The play may not look so amazing on first glance, so make sure you listen to the announcers. They will talk about how he had a bad back before making the play, which makes the play that much better. Check it out:

It is no secret that the Mets offense is bad, and they are pretty safe from being the worst however they are danger of finishing the season in the bottom 5 in runs scored:

If the Mets want to participate in this race for pride, they still have a change, albeit and outside chance, to leap frog the Nationals, Padres and Dodgers to get out of the bottom part of the division in runs scored (and they will really need to be terrible, and the Astros/Pirates amazing, to fall all the way down to the bottom of the league).

Even though this is a race for pride, it will probably be discussed this offseason as the offense was supposed to be the strength of this team coming into 2010.

I know this is a baseball site.

I know this weekly column is supposed to highlight bizarre baseball uniforms.

But this was too much last night to ignore:

(via Gator Country)

Warning: This article was written DURING last night's game, so in this universe, the fate of the game is unknown

Boise State and Virginia Tech played the most anticipated game of the weekend last night and they both wore Nike's Pro Combat Uniforms. If you know about Pro Combat, you probably can guess my stance on them. If not here you go: Essentially Nike wants to be a team, so they made special uniforms for a handful of the better programs that wear their uniforms. The uniforms are all about Nike. Its the type of corporate branding that if you follow this site, you know I am very much against. Anyway back to discussion of the uniform.

If this uniform was for a special night, like for example “Computer Engineering Night” then I would probably be writing a positive review about this uniform. This uniform though was really a “Hey Look at Team Nike” situation, and that is why it is getting a negative review. The design of this uniform plays on the “Tech” in VT's name.

That and the color of the numbers are the only connection to the school.

In a uniform, a basic uniform, especially in College, the uniform needs to represent the school, the school's history, and the school's ideology as much as possible.

That being said, you as a reader have a very good idea on where I stand with this uniform design.

Also, here is another great article about the whole Nike thing from someone I respect a lot, and who is the authority on Uniform Situations, Paul Lukas.

More continue to fall as we are nearing the approach of when a large group of teams will fall around the same time. Anyway here are your teams that are far and away gone:

Teams that are soon about to join that list:

September is the month for young talent to come up to the majors and show the Mets brass the skills they have and what role they should have with the team going forward. This week we are going to feature some video's here of young Mets making great plays this season. Today we will see Fernando Martinez hit a walk off Grand Slam from June 14th via Bisons TV:

In what feels like a streak of 10 day games in a row, the Mets and Nationals play a 1:00 game in beautiful (and it really is beautiful here today) DC. The Mets are coming off another series where they needed to win the last game in order to avoid the sweep, however, yesterday the Mets, for whatever reason, were able to score 18 runs off of the Cubs. Anyway today they will get behind Mike Pelfrey as they try to take down Jordan Zimmermann and the Nationals.

Pelfrey is coming off of his first weak start (5 IP, 4 ER) in a while, so its important for him to get back on the right track today against a team he is 1-0 against this season with a 4.63 ERA while allowing 6 ER in 11 innings of work. (Or in other words, one good start against the Nats and one bad start). The Nationals have these numbers on Mike:

The Mets will get a crack today at Zimmermann who is not related to Ryan Zimmerman (notice that they have two different spellings of their last name, yet they are still confused as relatives). Jordan has been very average in both starts he has made this season where he has pitched 10 innings allowing 5 ER (4.50 ERA). Last season he was 1-1 in as many games against the Mets with an ERA above 5. The Mets have these numbers against him:

Lets Go Mets!

I literally didn't believe the score at first today. Earlier today it was a beautiful day in DC, and the Mets were trailing at that moment 3-2 and I decided that, well, I should probably go outside and enjoy the day. It was a really nice day and I do not regret that decision. When I checked the score when I got back home, well, what a surprise. Seriously, I didn't believe mlb.com when it said 18-5, especially for a day without David Wright in the lineup.

However, it actually happened. Even Tejada hit a homer. Just check out a few of the lines from the box score:

Overall the Mets only hit two homers in today's game, but scored 18 runs meaning they did the impossible. They had to string together hits and get those RISP in. The Mets, in fact, had 13 hits with runners in scoring position in 25 opportunities. Crazy. Especially for the team that seems to have like negative 7 hits in 39390 chances this season.

Obvisously this game, even in a fantastic season, is a statistical outlier. Today's results though show some hope as the Mets young players have talent and possibility.

While looking for random video's, I found this 30 second gem. If you look at in a critical way, I think you can extract what makes the minor leagues so much fun. The video is a little goofy, colorful and just seems fun, like the minors. Anyway, check it out: