213 Miles From Shea

Some quick hits to go with your Tuesday Morning Clementine:

The Mets go to Arizona, home of the 2011 All-Star game, to start a road series with the Diamondbacks tonight as the Mets try to build off of yesterdays win. This is a big game for the Mets as Mike Pelfrey makes his return from the All-Star break where he hopefully was able to rest up and get over his case of dead arm, so he can return to the ace that he was at the beginning of the season. Anyway Pelf is 10-4 with a 3.58 ERA on the season. His struggles can really be seen in his last three games as he has allowed 15 ER over 13.1 innings pitched. Last year he was 0-2 against the Diamondbacks in as many games as he allowed 8 ER over 11 innings. The Diamonbacks have these numbers against Big Pelf:

The Mets bats will get to deal with former Yankee prospect and former teamate of David Price (on Team USA), Ian Kennedy tonight. Kennedy on the season is 4-7 with a 4.12 ERA. He has also struggled over his last three games as he has allowed 13 ER over 16.1 innings. Ian will have the element of surprise tonight as not only as he not faced the Mets in his career, he has not faced any Mets batters.

Lets Go Mets!

It seems like everyone is thinking about the 2013 All-Star game and what the logo would look like (I mean seriously, between the All-Star break and the Mets opening up on a three game slide, what else will Mets bloggers do? We have to do something to stay positive). Anyway first up is Metsmerized Online who, if you don't know, make incredible Mets graphics (that are sometimes linked here because they are generally so good and originial). Anyway MMO made a few 2013 All-Star game logos, and they are worth a look.

Mets Police was thinking about this a few days ago, and their commenters have been imagining some logos and what the jersey will look like.

And of course, in cased you missed it, there was a discussion here on Saturday about what the jerseys will look like (my prediction is that one jersey, probably the American League, will be orange, and the National League will be Blue, or vice versa, and similar to some previous BP jerseys).

I'm not sure what the year it was but at some point in the history of Budweiser/Miller Lite at the ballpark, the metal cans started to sport the logos of the home team. In 2008 the Mets did something very clever (or not, open to interpretation) by putting the very classy 2008 Final Season at Shea logo on the bottle. This of course made the bottle a collector's item of sort. Now I am lucky enough to have a regular and a light version of this bottle as part of my Shea Stadium collection. One of the bottles can be seen below:

(via Loge13)

Now I thought these bottles were pretty worthless. Really I* picked them up just to add some diversity to a shelf I was planning on making for the final season at Shea that includes a brick, patches, and free models of both stadiums, however I recently learned that they are being sold. In fact, I went to one website recently, MtSheaStadium.com, who is selling each bottle for $15. Really? Really? That is like basically double the price of the bottle when it had beer in it.

*I was underage at the time, so my Mom felt more comfortable (and I did too) if she actually picked up the bottles.

The New York Post has it right from yesterday:

(NY Post)

Some quick hits to go with your Monday morning bagel with lox cream cheese spread:

Mets Links:

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Under Construction: So whats up with this article? I am currently rebuilding portions of the website and this is one of the ways I am rebuilding the blogroll list. In about a week this article will descend into the depths of the archives (and at that time I'll remove this note).

After three very frustrating losses, the Mets finally recorded their first win of the second half as they beat the Giants in a 10 inning game with the final score of 4-3. The Mets were down 1-0 early but after 3rd inning RBI by Pagan and a 4th inning solo homer from David Wright, the Mets had the lead at 2-1. In the 8th inning Ike Davis added in a crucial RBI to make the score 3-1. The Giants responded with two runs in the bottom in the ninth making the score 3-3. The Mets following Ike Davis, got a two out RBI (his second of the game) to take the lead. Krod couldn't make it easy again as he allowed a 2-out double.

Before we get into the hitting stats, its time for another “I Sometimes Really Hate How Pitching Stats Work” rant. Santana pitched brilliantly allowing only one run in 8 innings (lowering his ERA to 2.89), however he gets a no decision as Krod recieved his 5th blownsave of the year. After pitching not effectively, Krod endded up being the pitcher of record in the 10th, so he also gets the win, his 3rd of the year. Ugh, thats just really frustrating.

Anyway the Mets had two hitters with 3-hit games today, Ike and Bay and they both needed it. Ike Davis has been struggling as of late and well we know how Jason Bay works. To see them both racking in the hits today has to bring some good feelings about the lineup. Wright also really needed the Power today as he hasn't shown that in a good minute.

Next up for the Mets will be the struggling Diamonbacks, and the Mets can not afford to struggle against them.

Sometimes a misnomer, this series of articles takes a look at Mets prospects and prospects of other players that could be coming up through the system at anytime. I say it can be a misnomer, because of these players were never actually prospects, they were just young players in the minors that were putting up good numbers, so it seemed only fair to take an in-depth look into them:

Yohan Almonte
Eric Brown
Corey Coles
Zach Cox
Yu Darvish
Ike Davis
Lucas Duda
Juan Feliciano
Dillon Gee
Reese Haven
Brad Holt
Bryce Harper
Matt Harvey
Jason Heyward
Jason Jacobs
Deck McGuire
Scott Moviel
Daniel Murphy
Daniel Murphy (Update)
Jon Niese
Jon Niese (Update)
Rob Parnel
Francisco Pena
Argenis Reyes
Brant Rustich
Josh Satin
Jake Smolinsky
Tobi Stoner
Ruben Tejada
Karsten Whitson

Past Facial Hair Friday Entries:

Angel Pagan
Bobby Valentine
Carl Pavano
Jerry Manuel
Johan Santana
Jose Valetin
K – Rod
Matt Harvey
Oliver Perez
R.A. Dickey
Ronny Cedeno
Wally Backmam
Willie Randolph