213 Miles From Shea

The Mets play the second game of the series tonight after losing to Arizona again this season last night. It was bizarre and stressful game last night as the strike zone was about the size of an apple, the Mets had power to rally (early), Valdes self-destructed, and Citi-Field continued to fall apart. The Mets look to turn this around tonight as Takahashi takes on Enright.

Takahashi is 7-5 on the season with a 4.47 ERA. He rebounded in his last start allowing only 2 earned runs in 7 innings of work against the Dodgers, but the Mets couldn't get anything done offensively so he got saddled with the loss. He also pitched a scorless inning of relief against the Cards in the Mets during that 13 inning game. Takahashi missed the Dbacks last week, and since he is a rookie, the he has not seen any of the Dbacks in his career.

Enright is having a very good rookie season as he is 2-2 with a 2.73 ERA over 29.2 innings of work. He was terrific against the Mets (just what you wanted to hear, right) in his first start against us this season as he allowed only one earned run in 8 innings of work while striking out 8 batters. The only Met who had succes against him was Thole who hit his first homer of the year against him.

Lets Go Mets!

In the last two days it hasn't been our emotions that have been taking a beating at home, its our home that has been taking a beating.

On Thursday Cardinals pitcher MacDougal threw a wild pitch that sailed over his catcher's head and straight into the advertisement behind home plate. A combination of the speed of the undisturbed ball plus angle of entry caused the ball to rip though the advertisement and leave a huge gash:

The destruction of our new ballpark in its sophomore year continued last night as Angel Pagan took his frustration of how bad the game was going last night in the late innings on a glass shield. Ok, so it wasn't intentional but a foul ball by Pagan went straight into a glass panel cause it to crack (but not break, sorta like a car window in a reasonable impact). Picture below:

The Mets and the Diamondbacks open up a series tonight in Citi. The Mets are coming off of their first series win since they faced the Twins in interleague play and it couldn't have come at a more critical time for the Mets this season (although this season it seems like we are having critical moments every two weeks). Anyway the Mets will get to take on Kennedy again while the Pelfrey will be heading out for the Amazins.

Mike is trying to turn it around. On the season he is 10-5 with a 4.00 ERA and in his last start he picked up a no decision against the Dodgers as he allowed 2 ER over 5 innings, while walking 2 and striking out 2. He did face the Diamondbacks earlier this month in an abysmal start where he lasted 1.1 innings letting in 6 ER. Arizona has these numbers on Big Pelf:

Kennedy gets to try his hands at the Mets again and last time he was succesful as he picked up the win in 5 innings of work allowing one run. On the season he is 5-8, with a 4.10 ERA. He struggled in his last outing he picked up the loss allowing 4 ER in 6.2 innings. The Mets have these numbers on Ian:

Lets Go Mets!

There is a player the Mets need to get rid of. It is one of the few times in the history of the Mets that pretty much the entire fan base is behind this movement. Oliver Perez  shows how money and ownership can tie the hands of the manager and almost force an organization to have to make bad decisions. Anyway here's Perez:

Now I wrote this article about 9 PM on Thursday night. Here's hoping by Saturday that he is either traded, cut, or just somehow removed from the team so the Mets can signal to the team that they are as serious as R.A. Dickey about winning and not giving up.

Some quick hits to go with your Friday morning scrambled eggs:

The Nationals have had a very formidable bullpen this year thanks to Matt Capps, who has had a turn-around season. We all know the market for relievers has been crazy for this deadline as the Blue Jays are requiring a Flores type player for Down. So what did the Twins have to give up in order to get Capps? Well the Twins had to give up 22 year old catcher Wilson Rasmos.

Rasmos is already hitting .296 in the majors and is making the Nationals looking like a talent gold mind. They can now add Rasmos to Strasburg, Harper, Desmond and Morgan.

Out of all the trades today, this one intrigues me the most.

It's a busy Thursday in the baseball world as there have been several key trades.

The first move we woke up to this morning, and it with a combination of losing last night's heartbreaker, was a shot to the stomach. The Phillies were able to acquire Roy Oswalt for Happ and two minor league prospects. Further more, they were able to do it with the Astros taking a nice size (or bigger than expected) part of the money on the contract as well AND the Phillies do not have to gurantee Oswalt his 2012 option. Ugh…. It's just hard to digest all of that. Essentially Happ is Niese except Niese is better than Happ. So why couldn't the Mets get this done? Well mainly, they never really were considering it, and even with Happ having a decent upside, he has not been an integral part of the Phillies team this year. For the Mets two of their most talented rookies Niese and Davis are having a huge impact on the team, and their removal could do a lot of damage. I just hope Oswalt doesn't cause trouble with the Mets.

The second big move today really surprised me, Tejada to the Padres. It doesn't really make sense from the Padres perspective, I just didn't expect that to actually happen. The Orioles will recieve Wynn Pelzer, a talented pitcher (7th overall in the Padres system). The Orioles need pitching, terribly, and they don't need an underperforming thirdbasemen, so for them this makes sense for the birds, they can at least lose with a younger team getting experience. The problem for the Padres is that Tejada really is a shadow of his former self. I guess they are hoping, and I hopy for Miggy, that he can turn it on in San Diego and help out the team with his bat.

Other Moves so far today:

In the second installment for the Major Leagues best promotions. Today we look at the National League, which on the whole, will be much more interesting in August 2010 than the American League. There has been one common theme between the two leagues, the catcher bags for kids. I guess all the teams were pitched this last offseason and a lot of them said yes? I'm not sure, but there are a lot of them.

Atlanta: The Braves will be having a very special Hall of Fame Induction this year where they will be inducting, now legendary, Tom Glavine into their hall of fame. It is beyond special because the Braves will also be raising up the #47 as the retire the number.

Florida: Seriously what is up with all of the Catcher style bookbags this month? Well the Marlins will have their Baker bag:

Washington: Fans are getting DVD's in the District this month. DVD's of Strasburg's debut. Even if he was a New York Met, I would think this promotion is a little much, but whatever:

Cinncy: Yep, another team with the catcher's bag:

Houston: Also has to join in the catcher bag fad:

Brewers: Some great bobbles this month out of one of the more creative franchises. First up they have one of the racing sausages in a bobble. Next, they celebrate the decades with a rental player, CC. Yeah, they are really doing that:

Pittsburgh: A bobble with attitude. Oh, and they have a bag as well:

Arizona: This is a first, they will be giving a replica of not their actual stadium, but their Spring Stadium. Bizarre.

LA Dodgers: Sometimes you see a bobblehead that makes you go “wow”. This is one of those:

I have always found All-Star teams intriguing in the sense that how does one expect to put together tons of talent from across the league, give them a day or so to work together, and then expect them to be a great team. It just doesn't quite gel (this is where those who really believe in team chemistry rejoice). The problem is that there aren't many sports that this can be proven in because you have to assemble a team of all-stars that are close in talent to a team for another league. For example, MLB All-Stars against teams in Japan is not a fair assessment because the play level is completely different. You can't take an MLB team and play them against MLB All-Stars because players should be on both teams.

However, for those of us who are interested in this really bizarre and unimportant topic, there is a league who has to rely on this: MLS. Because of the MLS development, there is not enough All-Star talent yet to field two teams in the MLB so they decide to do something much more interesting, bring in a big name team (For the record, they can do tradtional East West games, but it is not as interesting). This year it was Manchester United. While the players in the EPL (English Premier League) are better than those in the MLS, the MLS All-Stars should be on par with Manchester United. So here the difference is how the team works.

MLS has used this system since 2003 till now (with the exception of 2004) and in each of those games so far, the All-Stars have lost. Its starting to be clear that either our All-Stars suck, or their really is something to concept of a team. Just food for thought I guess.