213 Miles From Shea

In a change of pace, I wanted to focus on a throwback game from a few days ago where the Orioles and the Rays played in old uniforms. Both teams featured unusual uniforms. First up lets look at the Orioles:

(via Uni Watch Blog)

Look unusual? Well the Orioles actually only wore these uniforms twice in the 70's before they realized how, well, bad they look. Actually, I think my negative opinion about them comes from people telling me I should have a negative opinion about them. I actually, like them. This is also explains why the Orioles were selling a pin that had the orange top jersey on it.

As interesting as the orange uniforms are, the Tampa Bay Rays looked awesome in their old Tapons uniforms:

(via Uni Watch Blog)

I feel like the Tarpon's uni has so many nice pieces from that time period.

….or technically Front Page:

(NY Post)

And cue jokes about K-rod who usually KO's batters being KO'ed from his own KO.

Got your winter coat out of the closet? Good. The Mets won a road opener tonight for the first time since the played the Yankees on the road back in June. There were two main stories coming into this game, and they both played role in tonight's game. The first was of course the struggling offense and the other was Krod.

The starting pitching was amazing again as for a third straight start Jon Niese pitched 7 innings allowing only one ER. Of course, because someone must hate Niese, he got his third straight no decision as Pedro Feliciano recieved the win for pitching a third of an inning. Takahashi came in and picked up the save, answering the question if the Mets were going to be able save games without Krod.

Of course the big story for the Mets has been the offense. It wasn't great tonight, as it scrapped together 3 runs, but three runs is twice what they averaged over the last 6 games. The big contributors for the Mets tonight were (finally) Beltran and Wright. Wright had 3 hit night, scoring a run and Beltran had a two hit night as he scored two runs, hit a homer and had a walk.

Tonight was a step forward for the Mets. They have a long road ahead of them if they want to make the playoffs. At least they were respectable, and fun to root for tonight (not saying they have to win, but they have to perform well to be fun to root for, which is not the same as winning)

The woes continue for the Mets as Krod is out due to injury. Fantastic. He tore a thumb ligament in his throwing hand. Fantastic.

Icing on the cake? Team officials are speculating that it was due to his altercation last Wednesday.

This puts the Mets in a huge bind. The Mets are on a road trip right that will basically decide whether there is a shred of hope left for this season, and probably the best piece of the bullpen is gone. This is a huge hole to fill and the will mean that the Mets might have to revert to one of the pitchers in the minors that failed at the majors this year.

Next up for the front office will probably be figuring out a way to get K-rod not paid while he is on the DL. If they can prove, and it will be tough because the Players Union is strong, that this injury was not a baseball injury, then the Mets will at least get a benefit via a slightly ligher pay roll. Of course another option would be to get his contract voided for this seaosn and next, but that is probably next to impossible.

Ugh, this mess is depressing.

The Mets continue their search for a road series victory in the National League, bringing their pursuit down to Houston. Despite scoring on average 1.5 runs per game over their six game homestand, the Mets managed to post a 3-3 record over that stretch, thanks almost entirely to their starting pitching. Today Jon Niese will go toe to toe with Wandy Rodriguez.

Niese hopes to continue his find season in which he is 7-5 with a 3.50 ERA. He has had horrible luck in his last two starts. In both starts he has gone 7 innings while allowing only 1 ER. The pen has come in to finish the game in both situations and self-destrcuted causing him to recieve no decisions for both starts. Jon has made one career start against the Astros where he pitched 7 great innings of one run ball. The Astros have these numbers on the young pitcher:

Wandy Rodriguez gets the nod for the Astros and he boasts a 9-11 record this season with a 4.18 ERA. Last season he picked up the loss against the Mets as he posted a quality start of 6 innings with 3 ER. In his last 4 starts though he has been a very different pitcher as he has pitched 28.1 innings with an ERA of 0.64. Scary good and not what the Mets bas want to see. The Mets have these numbers against Wandy:

Lets Go Mets!

An all too common event with the Mets over the last several seasons is this ability to take a fantastic step forward. A step forward that is long over do. They make that step and celebrate. Then they make a big deal about making that step. Then we the fans celebrate that the team was finally competent enough to make that step. All is good. Then generally immediately the Mets take two steps backwards and stumble backwards on a staircase, roll and crash into the kitchen sink.

This time around its managing young talent, again.

The Mets, once it seemed that things were going so poorly they needed Tejada back and to bring up Fmart, there was much celebrating. Tejada and Fmart were given starting jobs (with Tejada getting the public go ahead and Fmart given a murky go ahead).

Of course, the Mets didn't think things completely through and had to do deal with Castillo and Francoeur who made enought noise for well, Francoeur to work himself into some sort of odd three or four person platooning situation and Castillo into a total headache.

This was of course compacted by Tejada being a non-factor since his call up and Fmart going 2-13 (honestly I'm surprised he has be given that many AB's).

The obvious problem is that now as both of them look to head into platoon world, the entire puprose of their call-up is loss. Young talent cannot sit around on the bench. They need to play everyday somewhere (minors or majors). This hit a peak last night when Jerry said he needs to put together the best lineup with what he has. Thats fine. Thats a strategy with a team. However, the GM then needs to realize if that is the strategy, then the future pieces of the team, need to be back in the minors. It is somewhat ok for veterans and young players that don't look like they will pan out, to be in this sort of cloudy “We Have No Idea Who Is Going To Play Land” but it is not ok for higher level prospects.

For example, if you want to go with a Carter/Pagan/Francoeur/Beltran rotation in the OF, then Fmart needs to go back to the minors.

With second base, its a different story. Since we got rid of Cora (right move) and benched Castillo (right move) now you HAVE to go with Tejada everyday.

Let's hope for some common sense soon.  

Easily one of the best things about the 2010 Mets season (all jokes aside of lack of positives on the field) has been Joe Petruccio. Joe has been making fantastic pieces of art after every single Mets game this year and each work really captures the essence of the game in the sense of what actually happened on the diamond and what happened in our heads/hearts as Mets fans. One of his running jokes for the majority of the season has been the “Ollie Box”. It is literally what it sounds like where Jerry Manuel put Oliver Perez in a box during his first stint of the DL this season. It now has evolved into placing all of our headache's in boxes.

Anyway there has been a public outcry for merchandise with the Ollie Box so Joe delievered with the Ollie Box store where you can get Oliver Perez in a box items on everything. The logo looks like this:

Without a doubt this falls in the clever T-shirts by fans category. His shop can be found here. Check it out!

Players and fans have been looking towards the MLB to make a stand against the SB 1070 bill in Arizona by revoking the All-Star game from the state, who will host in 2011 (not all players and fans support action from the MLB). Major League Baseball has yet to do something (and honestly I will be very surprised if they do anything). For the most part this issue, in the world of baseball, has taken a back seat since the 2010 All-Star game but came back with a roar yesterday at Nationals Ballpark after a very elaborate protest.

The protest started before the game with a group outside of the park displaying a sign/banner over the parking garage, which as you can imagine was removed fairly quickly (because Major League stadiums are generally inclined to keep any sort of human rights controversy out of the ball park).

The actual event though took place in the fifth inning. First one person ran out on the field. Then another person ran out on the field, and they met in the center. As the cops/security captured them, another pair of people ran out on the field with a banner. As they were being tackled by the police/security, another banner was rolled out over the batter's eye asking for the All-Star game to be moved.

Without getting into the politics, they thought this through. That was pretty good thinking to have people run on the field first in order to distract security so more people can run out there with banners.

Entertainment aside, this brings the Arizona Law and MLB issue back again to the forefront of conversations. The immigration issue in America in general is a conversation that needs to happen and is pretty long over due and although sports should stay away from politics, they will not be able to on this one. Players are going to voice their opinions, in both directions, about the law as the All-Star game rolls around next year and there will almost definitely be players who skip the game to show their feeling against merits of the law as there will also be players who will take offense to actions of the former.

The Mets try to take the rubber game and the series tonight as they play the Sunday Night game against the Phillies. The first game featured fantastic pitching for the Amazin's as the edged the Phillies by the score 1-0 (continuing to frustrate Hammels). Then last night's game was overshadowed by defensive miscues and the continued anemic offense. The Mets send out Pelfrey in the hope that he battles back Kendrick and the Phils.

Pelfrey made a fine start last time out as he picked up his 11th win of the season after tossing 7 scoreless, 4 hit innings against the Rockies. He is 1-1 against the Phillies this year as he has allowed 6 ER and 11 hits over 11 innings against the Phillies. The Phillies have these numbers lifetime against Big Pelf: