213 Miles From Shea

The past two days have been miserable for the Mets who have had pretty poor starting pitching, poor hitting and defensive miscues. The Mets look to avoid the sweep tonight in Atlanta as Mike Pelfrey looks to play stopper against Tommy Hanson. Pelfrey has been on a very successful tear of late where he is 3-1 in his last four starts with 30 innings of work logged and an ERA of 1.20. Against the Braves this season he is 2-2 in as many starts where has put in 21.1 innings pitched wtih an ERA of 3.80. The Braves have the following numbers on Big Pelf:

The Mets will get another crack at Tommy Hanson who is 8-10 with a 3.76 ERA this season. In two starts against the Mets this season he has had pretty bad luck as he is 0-1 despite pitching 10.1 innings of 2 ER run ball. The Mets have these numbers on Tommy:

Lets Go Mets!

In today's entry of this six part series, we will see how Mr. Met occupies his time using the teams baseball bats as the 2005 Mets are away from the friendly grounds of Shea Stadium:

With the calendar flipping from August to September brought the Mets a trade and the normal expanded rosters and prospects making their way to the big league club. The first major move that happened yesterday was the Mets finalized a trade that sent Francoeur to the Rangers for Joaquin Arias. For the most part, Francoeur is excited about this trade because he gets to go to a club making the playoffs, but he'll miss his teammates here (normal cliche sayings, etc, etc). In the long run what this means for the Mets is that this is one issue, albeit minor, the Mets do not have to deal with this winter. Later at 213 we will look at Francoeur's brief (but feels like a century) stint with the Mets.

In return for Jeff, the Mets get 25-year old infielder Joaquin Arias. Essentially, he is very good at somethings, and very bad at others. He is a very fast player (is small bursts) which allows him to make great plays in the field and cause trouble on the basepaths. This fits into the Mets game. The problem is in 101 AB's, although he has a nice .276 BA, he has only 6 extra bases, 2 walks. The Rangers were really done with him, which is why we have him. We could use another infielder though, and I'm interested to see how he works out. He will be profiled for tomorrow's “Get To Know A Prospect” entry.

The last two moves are about call-ups. We all had a feeling that Mejia was going to be rejoining the team. I am in the group that is a little shocked that it will be so soon (next start on Saturday) since he had only one start at AAA (albeit an incredible start). Let's see what he can do as a starter. Duda really surprised me. I know we as Mets fans have been calling him to come up for a while, and now he is here. I hope he becomes a starting OF'er otherwise his callup will be studpid and very a la Nick Evans.

The Mets dropped the opener of the season last night in a game that was the exact opposite of Sunday where the Mets last night did not get good starting pitching and the bats were not able to move runners from base to across the plate. The Mets look to reverse that tonight as they take on the Braves from game 2 behind Jon Niese as the Braves will counter with Mike Minor.

After a fantastic string of starts, Jon Niese finds himself needing to rebound from a terrible start in his last outing where he allowed 7 ER over 5.2 innings of work. Before that game he had 4 consecutive starts were he allowed 1 ER pitching a total of 26 innings (one game was the 5 inning complete game). Niese has pitched one game this year against the Braves where he has a no decision in 5.1 innings of work where he allowed only one earned run. The Braves have these numbers on Niese:

The Mets tonight get to face the young 22-year old pitcher, Mike Minor in Atlanta tonight who has pitched 3 Major League games so far this season with a 2-0 record and a 4.00 ERA. He has pitched 6 innings in each start and has given up 5, 5 and 7 hits respectively, combined with 1, 2 and 1 walks. In those games he has allowed 3, 2, and 3 earned runs. What is important to note from these numbers is that runs are being scored on him and that he hasn't been completely shutdown yet, however he has been good. Hopefully the Mets can figure him, and themselves, out tonight.

Lets Go Mets!

Continuing our week long journey into the fun of Mr. Met, today's commercial has two variants (with the other variant being posted on Thursday). In this advertisement we see Mr. Met utilizing all of Shea Stadium as his personal driving range:

Classic Rock and Baseball seemed to be blended often and generally in the form of Minor League Baseball jerseys. We already saw an example earlier this year of the Blue Claws becoming the BruceClaws (Bruce Springsteen). This time around, the West Michigan Whitecaps send a tip of their hats to Led Zeppelin with this awesome jersey depicting an iconic Led Zeppelin pop culture image:

(Whitecaps Website)

You can also check this site which has an example of the uni's in action!.

Just like the American League yesterday, today we take a look at the National League promotions for the month of September. The American League had some good promotions, but it wasn't the best month ever. Can the National League make up for the American League this month? Let's find out: (All images from their respective mlb.com websites)

Chicago Cubs: This is a great one, obviously planned before the season started. They are having an education day featuring an Soccer Playing Carlos Zambrano Bobblehead.

Florida Marlins: This is a new one for me. I have never seen a player Poncho.

Atlanta Braves: Well I'll be. They are doing the silly bandz thing too:

Pittsburgh Pirates: Roberto Clemente Bust? It's unusual and nice:

Arizona Diamondbacks: I haven't seen too many catcher bobbleheads that actually have the catcher in a catching position:

The Mets, fresh off of a series win against the Astros, head back on the road, this time to Atlanta. On their last road trip, the Mets finally won their first National League Road Series of 2010 (although it was against the Pirates) and now they try to make sure they win one against a team in their own division. The Mets look to get behind Misch who will battle with Jair.

Pat Misch has an 0-3 record this year over 4 starts, and he has pitched a lot better than that. He has an ERA of 3.50 over that time period, and although he deserves at least one of those losses, there are some (like his 6 inning, one run ball against the Phillies) that he doesn't deserve, but that has been the life of Mets starters in the month of August. The Braves were a team that Misch really struggled against last season as he allowed 14 ER over 9.1 innings of work. The Braves have these numbers on Misch:

The Mets will get to tak on Jair Jurrjens again and his 5-4 record with a 4.36 ERA. He was really doing well in every start in August until his last outing where he allowed 7 ER in 5.1 innings of work. He faced the Mets once this season as he picked up the loss in a 6.2 inning outing where he allowed 3 ER. The Mets have these numbers on Jair over his career:

Lets Go Mets!

This week we will be looking at a 6 part commercial series from 2005 (or as far as I can tell from 2005 or directly around that) where the Mets made a series of short commercials about what Mr. Met does at Shea Stadium when the team isn't there, how bored Mr. Met is and how he gets into trouble.

The result? Easily one of the best series of baseball commercials produced featuring a Team Mascot. The commercials didn't throw the fact that you needed to buy tickets and just let the persona of Mr. Met carry on the advertisement.