213 Miles From Shea

Francisco Rodriguez is in police custody according the NY Daily News after an apparent assault on his father-in-law. The story, as it stands right now, is that he got into an argument with his father-in-law was there, there was at least one punch thrown.

What is known is that:

This is essentially what the Mets needed right now. Another off-field issue (please sense the sarcasm). More on this when more is known. 

Poor Jon Niese.

Really I now feel bad for him.

Jon had another great outing last night, actually nearly identical to his previous outing where he allowed only 1 ER (1 R total) over 7 innings of work and left with the 2-1 lead.

And then, not to go into too much detail, the bullpen promptly came in and blew up his lead and put the game way out of reach for the offense, with the final score being 6-2.

To be fair, the game could have been 3-2 in favor of the Rockies, and the game would have been out of reach for the Mets. At some point the problem in games like this is beyond the bullpen's talent and becomes, similar to the starters, a mental situation where the pitchers right now feel they need to be perfect, because they are not going to get run support. Last night the Mets only got a two run jack in the first inning by Pagan, and the bats fell silent from that point on. In the last two wins the Mets have had they have scored a combined 2 runs, one from a solo shot, the other from a bases loaded sacrifice fly.

Hopefully the Mets will be able to reverse their fortunes later today at Citi Field and buy a cake or something for Niese, I really feel bad for him.

The Mets try to make it two in a row tonight as they take on the Rockies for game two of this series. Game one featured the 16th time this season that the Mets have won a game thanks to a shutout (another way to think of that is that 16/56 victories have been shutouts or about 29% of wins and about 14.5% of total games) anyway this shutout, the second win for the Mets in the last few days by the score of 1-0, buts another notch in the statement “our bats are slumping!” which maybe they will stop tonight as the bats get to take on Francis and the Rockies get a crack at Niese.

Niese was an innocent victim in his last outing where he rebounded from a bad start to go seven strong innings and only allow one earned run over four hits….and then he got the no decision as the offense fell short of backing him up and then there was this issue with the pen exploding in the 8th inning. Anyway Niese struggled agaisnt the Rockies in his first outing against them allowing 5 ER over 5 innings of work, but that was a very long time ago, his second start of the year, and Niese was a different pitcher back then. The Rockies have these numbers on Jon Niese:

The Mets bats will try to continue to their journey back to relevancy against Francis tonight who is 4-4 on the year with a 4.67 ERA. He is 1-2 in his last three starts with a 4.86 ERA (or essentially in his three games he has been right around his season average in terms of performance). He hasn't seen the Mets since 2008 because he wasn't playing in April this year and he was out all of 2009. In 2008 he picked up the loss as the Mets tagged him for 6 earned over 6 innings. The Mets have these numbers on Jeff:

Lets Go Mets!

Eight Brooklyn Cyclones have made the All-Star team for the New York Penn League which is the most by far than any other NYPL team. This of course, shouldn't be surprising because the Cyclones are by far the best team in the league, and generally speaking (on average) the best team in any given league has the best shot of having the most amount of All-Stars.

What is intriguing about this is that a Mets farm system which for the last several years has been under a lot of scrutiny, could have a lot of low-level prospects. The merits of this are yet to be determined but this is something that is generally a good sign for making trades. As we know, once you remove Davis, Niese and Meijia from the conversation, there are no players in the system that relate to a Hewyard, Carlos Santana, Mike Stanton because the majority of the Mets big noise makers are either too young (Flores) or injuried/overhyped (Havens, Fmart). So while these 8 players could become big names, maybe, we have to remember to keep our hopes low, and understand if trading them will make sense for the future. Anyway here are the 8 players (facts were found here):

It will be interesting to follow these players in the years to come. The advantage for most of them is that they are young, but they still have a while to go if they are going to make an impact because they are playing Short Season Ball. I'm hopefull, but I'm always hopefull which usually leaves me disapointed. If I had to pick though a few players that really intrigue me from this list I would say Ceciliani, Almonte, Vaugn and Fraser (and maybe Cuan).

I finally got my act together and uploaded about 49 pictures on the web in order to create a multi-part photo essay here to explain what it was like to be at the National Sports Collectors Convention. If you want to just see the pictures without all the commentary, click on the 213 Miles From Shea Facebook Fan page (right column of the web page) and look at the photo album with the Convention title (also while you are at it, become a fan!).

Anyway big barely begins to scratch the surface of the size of this convention. The reason that it is usually held in the midwest (and for a change in Baltimore) is that there are very few venues that can support the convention. Overall, there are over 22 aisles of stuff to look through and at some points it is even hard to find a table you want to revisit because you can get lost in the sheer magnitude of the convention floor.

Essentially what you see from the front gate. See that far wall, beyond the black curtain, towards the center of the image, a larger secondary room beyond that. On the left of the image, you see the beginning of another area that is not pictured. Below is my attempt of trying to picture about half of that back room:

The problem in the above image is the height of some of the booths actually block youfrom seeing how far back the covention goes. Also if you see that wall that looks like a bunch of circles just above the man in the orange shirt — thats not a wall. Its a bunch of baseballs. A very common site at this convention is just stacks and stacks of autographs.

People will probably tell you that the one day you would not want to attend this convention is on the last day and I would have to agree with those people because starting midway through the day you will start to see this:

The convention in terms of venders starts to clear early on the last day (luckily I went on the last day and another day as well in order to max the convention experience). Out of all the Photo-Essays this one will probably be the worst, since there are only three photos. However over the next few days there are going to be themed ones talking about baseball's, baseball cards, plaques and strange items to see at these conventions!

Some quick hits to go with your Wednesday morning Cinnabon Original Flavor Bar:

In a crucial outing for Pelfrey, our savior from the first half of the season returns as the Mets defeated the Rockies tonight by the score of 1-0. It was the second win in the last several days for the Mets by that score (as Santana did it last weekend). Anyway the Mets, who now have 16 shutout vicotires on the year, really have to thank Pelfrey, Takahashi and Krod for this win as the offense struggled again. Pelfrey was dominent the entire night as he allowed only 4 hits, allowed only one walk and struck out 4. He threw his sinker more effectively and kept the ball in the park which kept the Rockies off the board.

The Mets offense though was another story. Once again they really struggled to get anything going. Several times in the night they had runners in scoring position and the only time they were able to score was when Reyes got to the plate with the bases loaded and hit a sacrifice fly. Once again Wright and Davis went hitless as Pagan did as well. In fact the one of the best players at the plate tonight was Fmart as he went 1-2 with a walk although he had an out where it would have been nice to get some runs. But just like the last win when the Mets won 1-0, the offense woes are forgotten when the result is in the win column.

Lets Go Mets! We are back at .500!

The Mets come home to try to salvage their last chance of post season hopes tonight as they take on Jimenez and the Rockies at Citi Field. The Mets will be hoping tonight that Mike Pelfrey returns to his early 2010 form as he had another bad outing his last time out. On the season he is 10-6 with a 4.16 ERA. Pelfrey pitched a crucial game earlier this season as the Mets really needed him to beat the Rockies as the early part of the season was starting to spiral out of control. In that game Pelfrey pitched 7 shutout innings allowing only 5 hits and striking out 6. The Rockies have these numbers on Mike:

The Mets will have to face one of the most dangerous pitchers this year, Ulbado Jimenez who is starting to come back down to earth in terms of his ERA (now 2.61) but not in his record which is a staggering 17-2. After a very shaky majority of July, he has returned to his normal form in his last two starts allowing 1 ER over 7 innings in each start. He faced the Mets twice last year with a 1-0 record over 15.0 innings allowing 5 ER (3.00 ERA). The Mets have these numbers on Ulbado:

Lets Go Mets!

Over the last several days this site has practically became a site about the Sports Collectors Convention and the Mets, and while that will end soon (I promise, but material is material) I wanted to let you all know about an opportunity to be a part of what we were just greeted with in Baltimore. While the National Sports Collectors Convention is unlike any other convention, there is a big one that will be happening later this month in White Plains, New York: The East Coast National #6.

On August 19th – 22nd, the convention will take place at Westchester County Center. The Convention will be about half the size of the of National, being about 300 booths, but will pretty much be geared towards New York Sports, meaning although the quantitiy is less, the quality should be more up Mets fans direction (aka, I probably would have spent more money at this one coming up rather than the one that just passed). Several Mets will be there signing autographs including Gary Carter, Orosco, Sid Fernandez, Kiner and Dr. K.

Now I really know nothing about this convention other than what I've read at the site linked above, so if any one is going and wants to send me a review of it, or send photos of it (and get credit for it, of course) please shoot me an email at elliotteichman@gmail.com