213 Miles From Shea

The Mets and Phillies open up a series tonight that does not mean anything (barring a miracle) for the Mets but means a lot for the Phillies. In case you have been shying away from the NL East standings to ward off depression, the Braves and the Phillies are separated by one game, with the Phillies in the lead. The Mets now have the opportunity to play spoiler. Anyway Roy Halladay will get the start tonight for the Phils as young Jenry Mejia will try to trip the Phils up.

Jenry Mejia was shakey in his first Major League start as he allowed 4 ER over 5 innings against the Cubs, and he looks to rebound tonight against the Phillies. On the season now he has thrown 32.2 innings with a 3.86 ERA. He has pitched 2 innings against the Phillies this year where he has allowed 0 ER, 0 R and only allowed 2 hits. The Phillies have these limited numbers against Jenry:

The Mets draw the Phillies ace for the first game of the set tonight. Halladay (who has already thrown 221 innings this year) has thrown 21 over his last three games and has an ERA of 4.29. He is 3-0 against the Mets this season in as many games as he has pitched 24 innings while allowing only 5 ER. The Mets have these numbers on Roy:

Lets Go Mets!

The animal! Chris Carter's ability to hit, and his attitude about hitting is what got him on the team. This is a video from April 30th where Chris just crushed one:

Well if you are tired of watching the Mets not make the playoffs, you should check out the Brooklyn Cyclones. Last night they clinched a spot in the NYPL Championship Series by beating Jamestown in the Semi-Final's round.

The Cyclones will now take on the Tri-City Valley Cats.

(Brooklyn Cyclones.com)

For more information, check out the official write up.

Captain Kirk! A player who has been rising all year for his bat also
has a glove as this video shows. Watch it and check out his great glove
on this great play (8/25):

Back in March of 2009, during Spring Training, here at 213 we took a look at Dillon Gee as a prospect. A couple of nights ago he continued his journey by making his Major League debut pitching 7 innings allowing one ER, two hits and getting an RBI hit in his first Major League AB.

How well did we predict his future? What else could be coming his way?

Well let's take a look:

A lot going on in the above quote. Things that were correct. Pelfrey was highly touted. Another item that was hinted at that remained correct (and was not a bold prediction) was that Niese would remain higher on the depth chart than Niese. Things that were not correct were Brad Holt (as he has started to fall off, but the book isn't closed on him yet). Let's take a look at more:

Well when that article was written, his ERA's remained fairly good, and it was before he had the injury in 2009 that caused things to go off for a period of time. His WHIP got a lot worst this year as it jumped from barely above 1, to up to 1.303 this past season. One thing that hasn't changed, which is why he got attention in the first place was his BB to K ratio as this year he walked 41 while striking out 165, which led the International League.

What we have learned about Gee is that he is a pitcher. I hope he gets to start again this season (which is up in the air) because it is fun to watch him mix his pitches. His ability to do that looks well beyond his 24 year old age as he has no problem throwing any of his offspeed stuff at any point in the count. Where he fits next year is still up in the air, but he's lookin pretty good right now, especially when so many other things around the team look so bad.

There's a party on top of the NL East and, barring some sort of winning streak till the end of the season, we are not invited.

It's time to crash this party.

The Phillies and Braves are in a close one on top of the division with the Phillies leading the Braves by a half a game, and the Giants are trailing (essentially) both teams by two games. The only thing that is worse than the Phillies or Braves making the playoffs is if they both make the playoffs (increasing the chances for another terrible to watch Yankee/Phillies or Yankee/Braves ala the 90's  World Series).

So Amazin's, starting tomorrow night, it is time to play spoiler. Win a couple from the Phils, get the Braves to take the lead and then hope that the Phils fall back in the Wild Card race.

The fuel for this fire of course is that the Mets are supposed to really not like these guys. Remember these are the guys who accused us of cheating at the beginning of the year because of our home record. Why? They were caught cheating.

Lets Go Mets. Try as you can to at least get one of these teams out of the playoff picture.

Not Much has changed in the world of elimination so at the end of this article, we will be taking a look at the “reverse” standings, or teams with the worst records gunning for that number one pick (which I'm not sure If I want the Mets to be involved with, but I'll explain later).

Anyway your completely eliminated teams:

One foot out the door:

About to be tossed:

Rotting, but not quite there yet:

Its fairly obvious from this point that even the Mets went on a tremendous slide, they probably won't catch up to be the worst team n the league. Now I really want the Mets to finish at .500 or better but there is one case I don't want them to. If they are going to sign a type A free agent (something that is never ruled out) they have to give up their #1 draft pick, unless they are in the bottom 15 in the league, which they currently are, in which that pick is protected. This is not an issue right now, but might be later on as the Mets tend to look right on the line.

Let's take a look at the catcher of our future, Josh Thole. Thole as a hitter is known is for using the entire field as he slaps hits all over the field. One thing he hasn't really been known for is knocking homers out of the ball park. Here's a video of a homer he hit on 6/14 (same game that F-Mart crushed a game winning grand slam). Check it out: