213 Miles From Shea

This was inevitable. Really.

I didn't write this when he I heard he was effectively released earlier last week but I had a feeling the Mets would sign Cordero to a minor league deal. He fits the description of the pitchers that we (and basically a good amount of teams) use when signing relievers to minor league deals midseason. 1) He used to be really effective (In 2005 he had a 1.82 ERA and 47 saves). 2) He's not now. 3) He's really cheap. And that is all there is to it.

Cynicism aside, I'm actually happy about this move, partially because I've been brain-washed living in the DC area thinking that Cordero was a better pitcher than he actually is. For a while he was one of the main T-Shirts you would see around RFK (behind Zimmerman, Guzman, and Mets Suck Deez Nats). He was a very popular player with DC and even got his own nickname (The Chief). Actually, my freshman year at the University of Maryland my floormates (who admittedly for the most part did not follow baseball) would try (jokingly) to make fun of me and the Mets by talking about how when we come to DC we need to deal with Cordero.

Actually on that topic, its probably a really good thing that the Mets have Cordero because when Chad faced the Mets (30.2 career innings) he has a fantastic 1.72 ERA, 13 Saves and 28 strikeouts.

The Mets were off on all every account of the game last night. Their starting pitching was destructive. The bullpen was destructive (Nieve). The offense never really got going (only 2 runs scored). The Mets are looking to completely rebound in every aspect of the game tonight against the Diamondbacks. For the Mets, since 1998 they have been very successful playing in Arizona, it is only recently, since last year, that they have struggled. Both teams in this game will have a common theme (which makes this preview very short) in that neither tean has any major experience against the starting pitcher. 

Dickey will go for the Mets and he will try to get a win (something he really deserves). On the season he is 6-3 with a 2.63 ERA and in his last outing he got the loss in 7 innings of work as he allowed only one earned run. As what will be a theme tonight, hitters have had little experience with the starters. Only two batters have faced R.A. (Johnson and LaRoche) are hitless in two AB's. Barry Enright gets the start for the Diamondbacks and it will be his fourth start of the year for this rookie. In his first three games this season, Barry is 1-2 with a 3.45 ERA. Right Handed batters are hitting a nice .286 off of Enright, a right handed pitcher, while lefties are hitting a cold .176. There is really not much more to say about him. He's logged 15.2 innings and has 13 K's with only 6 BB.

Lets Go Mets!

Without trying to sound too melodramatic, we, as a culture, are at a junction when it comes to reporting the news and we have been at this junction for about two years. In my personal opinion, the Presidential Election of 2008 really cemented a new way to report news and now two years later, it has trickled to every type of news. I am, of course, referring to Twitter and all forms of microblogging and the misrepresentation of public thought via incomplete statistics.

The internet age with a combination of the cable news network age has made it completely acceptable to post and share stories without all the facts and without balanced reporting. This leads to slanted opinions, wrongful dissemination of information and an ill-informed public. The 2008 Presidential Election really helped usher in two more characteristics to cable news networks, that are now starting to infiltrate sports and other corners of everyday life. The first was Twitter which allowed for legitimate “news” to be a blurb under 140 characters. In this sense, it is almost impossible to separate rumor from fact. The second was collecting information from a small portion of the public, and suggesting that it represents everyone. In the 2008 election this would be any of the 382849284823 polls that were shown everyday and only every news network and is now continued on today. [Political Aside Coming Up, Sorry] This allows ignorant, racist, and incorrect views to be broadcast as news and then allows for some people to interpret these thoughts as the real deal.

What does this have to do with MLB.com? They have rolled out recently their MLB.com Pulse which is included at the bottom of every game recap. It's a timeline that shows runs, highlights, tweets and tweet volume. Despite how generally awful Twitter is in the news (see previous paragraph), it is actually a really interesting new dimension to baseball. In a way, since people are tweeting exactly what they are feeling (and it is not always arranged in a correct mannor), it feels like you are actually at that game when you read them. Hopefully though, this will stay to just tweets during the game, and being reposted at the end. In this use, Twitter is just a side of the article meal, rather than being the entire entre. Hopefully MLB will not go the ESPN way with this over using of online voting (see my rant on the ESPY's) because thats when Twitter, and statistics in sports become useless.

To be more clear, when Twitter and all of this new technology is being used, like MLB.com's Pulse, then its useful because it is being advetrised as being the public opinion and public reaction to events. When these opinions are given too much power though, and get blended in with facts as story filler, they start to become detrimental to society actually learning the facts in a story. Oddly enough, Fox News, CNN and MSNBC could all learn a thing or two about how to use their internet polling and twitter reactions from MLB.com (with of course, decency censors).

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)