213 Miles From Shea

The time of mathematical reckoning is nigh. Teams that have played deplorable baseball this year quiver at late August as the worst of the worst look at to be eliminated completely from all hope.

Alright, that was overly dramatic. There are a lot of teams that no that their playoff chances ended a long time ago, but there are some teams that know that time of no mathematical hope is upon them and they are:

Racing mascots around stadiums has Minor League written all over it and one of the best at this would be the Brooklyn Cyclones which has 5 (3 are selected for each race) hot dogs race from Nathans into the park (so they actually start in the park though) and then down the baseball diamond. The following video was for their Jersey? Sure! Night therefore the hot dogs start to do the fistpump dance move that the Jersey Shore made so popular.

The Mets took the opener tonight from the Marlins by the score of 6-5 with a walk-off single in the ninth inning via (believe it or not) Luis Castillo. With this win the Mets were able to re-take the third place spot in the NL East division and are now only 9.5 games back from the first place.

Anyway R.A. Dickey wasn't his best tonight as he allowed 5 ER over 7 innings of work. This isn't too surprising because, although he has been great this season, he just hasn't been able to figure out the Marlins bats. After his outing, Parnell and Takahashi both posted scorelss innings of work, with Takahashi picking up the win.

The story for the Mets was the bats. The bats were able to stay in the game the entire night and were able to make a comeback when it counted. In other words, the pitching didn't need to be perfect tonight. When the offense does well, there are a few players to thank. Obviously Castillo gets a mention because he had the winning RBI but there are a few other players that need credit. They include Beltran who had the game tying RBI in the 8th and overal went 2-3 with a run, and 2 RBI's. Wright had a nice night as he went 2-5, R, with a 3B.

The best performance goes to Pagan who was 4-5 tonight with 2 doubles, a stolen base and three runs on the night.

It was good to see the Mets play with fight, and to see them win again. Lets Go Mets!

The Mets are fresh off of a road series victory and hope to continue their winning ways back in Queens tonight as they take on NL East division rivals, the Florida Marlins. The Marlins and the Mets are essentially tied for third and forth place in the division, and both teams, if for nothing else than pride, would like to finish higher than the other. Also, both teams, still have slim mathematical hopes for making it to the playoffs this year. Tonight the Mets get to face the ace of the staff in Josh Johnson and the Marlins will have to deal with Robert Allen Dickey.

Dickey continues to be a nice surprise on the season as he brings his 8-5 record and 2.41 ERA in Citi tonight. Dickey had an impressive start his last time out as he pitched 8.1 innings while allowing only 2 ER. In his last two starts he has allowed 2 ER over 17.1 innings, or has an ERA of 1.04. The Marlins however are a team he hasn't been exactly stellar against as he has allowed 8 ER over 11.1 innings. The Marlins have these numbers against Robert Allen:

The Mets bats, who have appeared in two of the last three games, look to fight back against Josh Johnson who is 11-5 this season with a 2.27 ERA and is a Cy Young canidate. He is 1-2 over 25.1 innings and four games this month while sporting a 5.33 ERA. Josh has an 0-1 record against the Mets this season with a 3.75 ERA over two games. The Mets have these numbers against Johnson:

Lets Go Mets!

I am almost always critical of the Nationals ballpark. However, there is one event that I really enjoy at the ballpark: they have a fantastic mascot race. Only at National Park you can see George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abe Lincoln, and Teddy race against each other with a Geico Lizard at the finish line. The punchline of course is that Teddy Never wins.

Once again this week, I'm going to break the norm of what is usually shown in this article. Generally I focus on one time uniforms for special events (like Star Wars Night, odd Throwbacks, etc) but tonight I want to highlight a team's actual uniform set. For the Flying Squirrels of Richmond, it isn't really the uniforms that are strange, but their moniker. And by strange I mean really totally awesome. I would love to root for the Flying Squirrels.

Generally when I discuss uniforms I like, I focus on uniforms that are clean cut, serious looking, and have a strong classic feel to them. I generally don't like things that feel gimicky. Well throw that out the window. The reason that these somewhat goofy uniforms actually look good is because if your moniker is “Flying Squirrels” then your uniforms should have the same amount of personality. (In other words, if the Mets were to do something really non-Traditional it would feel gimicky and awful because the look would not fit the moniker). Anyway here are some highlights, all from their official shop:

(via Richmond Flying Squirrels Official Shop)

(via Richmond Flying Squirrels Official Shop)

Above are the two alternate jerseys. The one of the left features the same patch the squirrel on that hat is wearing and I included the one on the right because I wanted to highlight how they write the “R”. If you look closely, the diagonal line out of the “R” is actually a squirrel tail. Nice touch because it goes along with and matches (please note the subtle difference in those statements) the team moniker.

(via Richmond Flying Squirrels Official Shop)

Normally I would hate the typeface of the above jerseys. However I feel that typface matches the persona of the team and is indeed a nice touch.

This week in Daily Baseball video will focus on the always fun race at the stadium but not that crappy computer generated figures racing against each other. I'm talking about the mascot type, the good kind. First up this week is probably the most famous out of all Stadium Races: The Brewers' Racing Sausages.

You're driving on Major Deegan or on the NJ Turnpike and you are following a van. From a far away distance it looks like they have a bunch of stick figures on the back of their car. As you get closer, you realize that the stick figures represent each member, including pets, of their family. As you pass that vehicle you leave knowing a little information about the lives of the people inside. How about learning their preference for sports teams…..

Oh, yes. That was inevitable. Over at Sports Family Stickers, there are stickers for every member of the family to show pride for their team, whatever that team may be. Seriously I think they have every team. When I say every member of the family they male and female adults, young adults, children, toddlers, babies, dogs and cats. At first I laughed at this, but looking back at it now I think its oddly nice. I guess in dual team families the members can pick and match what teams they represent (but I feel bad for the young kids who the parents will probably argue about which way the child will get grouped). If you have a minute I would check the link above to just browse through stickers.

After two breakout games for the offense, the Mets bats went back to the hole they have been hiding in today, spoiling Santana's complete game performance. This makes three straight complete game efforts by Santana in a row and he has now lost the last two of them. Last time out he allowed 4 ER over 8 innings this time he allowed only 2 ER over 8 innings as he received only one run of support.

For the most part today the Mets offense just wasn't there. Runners would get on, and then the Mets would do nothing with it. The ninth inning is a great example. Ike Davis got a lead off single, and he never moved off of first base. Not only did no one else get hits, no one else was even able to move him into a scoring position. Ike gave the Mets a chance but the bats couldn't do anything with that chance.

This was of course frustrating for the same reason all month. As a fan, you cannot ask for better pitching than the Mets have recieved this month. If this pitching was around in the latter half of 2007 or 2008, with the offense those years, you could argue that the collapse wouldn't happen. Also adding to the frustration is at the start of the season, it was the bats that was supposed to be the nonissue with the pitching to be the main worry.

Well frustrartions mount while the season slips away. The 2010 Mets.