213 Miles From Shea

It was barely a week ago when we had a discussion here about how the Mets management had some serious issues regarding playing rookies like Fmart and Tejada. Well, once again we have to have this discussion. The Mets activated Barajas to the roster, however they are keeping Blanco (makes sense) and Thole (who should be starting) so thats a bench spot that is being occupied by a third catcher.

Essentially what this means is the Mets have two dead roster spots. We have Oliver Perez who is in exile right now, which is just as good as being in the minors and now this offense which is really struggling has two spots being held up by Barajas and Blanco.

The icing on the cake for this move is Fmart had to be moved back to the minors. There is a good side and a very bad side of this move. The good side is that Fmart will get to play everyday, which is what he should be. The bad news of course is that Fmart will have the very tough job to get better at hitting against Major League pitching…..in the minors. That doesn't make much sense, does it?

All of this leads up to one point. Management, Front Office Ownership, listen up. Mets fans, as a whole, are well informed fans. We know that the season is over when one roster spot is held up by Oliver Perez. A hitting spot on the bench is being held up by Rod Barajas (or Blanco) neither of whom can provide this team with the offense it needs. The Mets NEED to start preparing for 2011. Which means Fmart needs to be playing everyday.

This is why being a Mets fan is frustrating.

The Mets and Astros play the last game of their four game set and if the Mets can get a win tonight, then they will actually win a National League Series on the road. Last night was a thrilling, but late night, game as the Mets beat the Astros in 14 innings by the score of 3-2 with a 4-5, BB, R, 2 SB (both third base!) performance from Jose Reyes. Tonight's starters feature Misch against Norris.

Misch was the hard luck loser in his first start of the season as he allowed only 1 ER over 6 innings however defensive miscues behind him allowed a total of 4 runs to cross the plate as the Phillies beat the Mets. Last season Pat faced Houston once as he picked up the win in 5 inning, 1 ER outing where he didn't walk anyone, struck out one and allowed 5 hits. The Astros have these numbers against Misch:

The Mets bats, who have now scored 3 runs in 3 consecutive games, draw Norris for the series concluder. He is 5-7 on the season with a 5.42 ERA this season and in his last three games he has pitched 19.2 innings with a 4.58 ERA. Playing only two seasons in the majors, Bud has never faced the Mets as a team and has never faced any Mets players on the roster. Advantage Bud? Advantage Mets? Who knows.

Lets Go Mets!

This is generally the time of the year where you start to see which players that were drafted in the previous year have a good shot of being a prospect. For the most part, the 2009 draft picks have been pretty stale, not much to be excited about. Darrell Ceciliana is looking to reverse that thinking as he stands as one of the best players in the New York Penn League this year and is one of the Brooklyn Cyclones selected for the NYPL 2010 All-Star Game.

Ceciliana is young, only 20 years of age, which is what you look for in a player that is having success at the low minors (if he was older and still at this level, this article probably wouldn't exist). The outfielder was drafted in the 4th round of the 2009 draft and he was born in Oregon in the year of 1990 (yessir, he's a 90's kid). So far Darrell has played in two seasons in the minors:

From a purely statistical perspective, you can see why he wasn't talked about too much after his 2009 campaign. His power was fairly low, and he was getting a lot of hits. Fast foward a season and he is one of the best hitters in the league. He has a very high batting average and he has a combination of decent power and decent speed.

The next step for Darrell of course is to see if this can continue at the higher levels of play. If he can do this against better pitchers, then we could be hearing about him a lot next season. I'm curious to see what happens to his average and his extra base hits at a higher level. He is another player we will be following here at 213 throughout the September call-up season (where he may be moved to higher level of minor league play) and if he gets selected to play in a Fall or Winter League.

The Mets won the third game of a three game set last night, guaranteeing that they will at least split the set against the Astros. It was a long one last night as well where the Mets and the Astros had one of those “Hey the first 9 innings went really fast because R.A. Dickey is awesome, so let's play 6 more!”.

R.A. was fantastic as always as he lasted 8.1 innings with 2 ER. He didn't allow a run until the 8th inning and he allowed the game to be tied in the 9th inning, but since he only allowed 2 runs in the game, this can be thrown back to the offense not scoring runs to help him out. Anyway the Mets bullpen was fanstastic last night as they kept the Astros off the scoreboard for the rest of the night and Acosta got a save for the first time this season.

The Mets offense wasn't all bad last night. They had a lot of hits (11) the problem was they just couldn't get any in scoring position. During the game Dickey and Pagan picked up the early RBI's and then Ike Davis hit the go ahead sacrifice fly to help the Mets put it in the books. The best player of the night in terms of his bat was easily Jose Reyes who was 4-5, with 2 SB, and the go ahead run. Several Mets also broke key slumps last night as Tejada, Davis and Pagan all got hits.

It was a good game and for another day, the Mets still have a shred of hope for this season.

The Mets and the Astros play the rubber game of the series tonight as the Mets still seek their first National League Road Series Win. The Mets took the first game by scoring 3 runs to 1 and lost a close one last night by 4-3 (so the amazing stat of course is the Mets have managed to score 3 runs in two straight games). Also last night David Wright hit a solo homer which was his first RBI in the month of August. Tonight the Mets will send out R.A. Dickey vs Brett Myers.

Dickey has been fantastic this season. In his last start he pitched a complete game one hitter (one of 35 in Mets history) in a complete game shutout. That game put him at 8-5 on the season with a 2.43 ERA. The Astros have these numbers against Robert Allen (or in other words, be careful with Lee night):

The Mets will get to face an old foe, in a new uniform, tonight as they take on Brett Myers. Brett is 8-7 on the season with a 3.13 for his new team. His last three games have been a pretty good example of his entire season where he has pitched 19 innings with an 3.32 ERA. Last season he faced the Mets for a grand total of 1.1 innings in which he got shelled allowing 3 ER. The Mets have these numbers on Myers:

Lets Go Mets!

Nothing is as depressing as killing the optimism for 2011 before it even starts:

Full Article can be found here.

K-rod had the surgery on his ligament yesterday and the Mets promptly placed him on the DQ list, not the DL list, as we all expected. The main difference, as you probably can guess, of being on the disqualified list is that you do not get paid while you are on it, and it looks like, at least for now, Krod will be on this list until he can play again. There are also loud whispers that the Mets will push beyond the DQ list and try to void his entire contract.

As you can imagine, the Players Union would object to both of these situations. Sherman has already suggested via Twitter that the Union has already objected to the Mets placing Krod on the DQ list for the rest of the season.

Here's the kicker for what will make this a complicated fight. Since Krod was used in Saturday's game and since Krod was fairly effective, the Union will hook to that as the main issue for why placing Krod on the DQ lis isn't fair. They will attempt to show that it is inconclusive, since he pitched that outing, that his ligament injury was due to his punch in the locker room.

There is of course, another issue the Mets are looking out for. In order to void his contract, the Mets will need to deal with Krod's agent. Now we have to hope to assume that people in the Mets front office, and sports agents are professsionals, but you wouldn't want a process like this to ruin a relationship with a particular agent.

That being said, I'm gonna make a stand here and say that I am all for trimming the payroll next season, but Krod is the wrong money to shed. If the Mets shed the money that Krod is owed, it will most certainly have to be spend on signing another closer. It wouldn't get help with our other problems. Unless if the bullpen is determined to be the target to be fixed, then I'm indifferent to cutting Krod.

The Mets look to win two in a row tonight as they take on the Astros in Houston. The Mets should get a change of pace in terms of story line tonight as it probably won't be about K-rod or batting woes but rather it will be about the opposing starting pitcher Nelson Figueroa, his comments against his former team, and his journey through several clubs since departing from the Mets.

The Mets are looking for another Santana start of Santana who is 10-6 with a 2.89 on the year. He is coming off of a tremendous complete game shutout at Citi Field and since the beginning of July he is 5-1 over 9 games with a 1.88 ERA where he really has made only one bad start in that stretch. Last season he wasn't so good in his one start against the Astros as he allowed 5 ER over 6.2 innings in a losing effort. The Astros have these numbers against Johan:

The Mets get to see an old friend who had some parting words for the Mets this year in Nelson Figueroa. He then signed with the Phillies before being DFA'd and then signing with the Astros. He is 1-0 over 8 games with a 3.18 ERA for Houston this year and tonight will be his first start of the season. He pitched two innings of relief against the Mets this year. In his first inning he allowed 3 ER over 4 hits and his second inning (second apparence) was a clean one. The Mets have these numbers on Nelson:

Lets Go Mets!