213 Miles From Shea

Interleague play returns tonight as the Mets travel down to Baltimore to start a three game set. The Mets are coming off of a 5-1 homestand while the Orioles are coming off of a series against the other team from New York (whom they barely escaped being swept by). If you don't by now, the Orioles have been abysmal this season so this is a series on the road that the Mets need to win.

The Mets will be starting off with R.A. Dickey tonight. Jerry has a plan. His plan this time is to have Dickey start the series because a knuckleballer can have ripple effect on a batting order for the entire series. Anyway Dickey (3-0, 3.20 ERA) has been great for the Mets this year as he has delivered every time he's gone out to the rubber. Even though Dickey was in the American League last year, he didn't face the Orioles. The Orioles batters (well three of them) have these numbers against Dickey:

The Mets for the opener will draw the Orioles ace, Guthrie (3-6, 3.71 ERA). In his 12 starts this season 9 of them have been quality starts. He is 1-2 in his last three games with a 3.26 ERA. Last year he picked up the loss against the Mets as he pitched 6.1 innings allowing 5 runs, 3 earned. The Mets have these numbers on Guthrie:

Lets Go Mets!

The Orioles play in probably one of the most important ball parks in the history of the MLB from an architectural standpoint. Right before Camden Yards was built aprox 20 years ago (jeez that long already?), all new stadiums were Cookie Cutters. They were all either circular or nearly circular, many were multipurpose, and for the most part they all looked identical. That makes sense because they were all “stadiums”. Oriole Park ushered in a new era of Ball Parks.

That being said here is a quick list of things you need to see at Camden Yards this weekend:

What about the food?

Quick Reminder:

Some quick hits to go with your Friday morning Israeli Vegetable Salad*:

*I've been to Israel, this is in fact breakfast, and its quite good

The Mets finish the series against the Padres with the night cap of a day night double header. The night game will feature Jon Garland, another Padres pitcher who didn't see the Mets last week and for the Mets will feature Niese who made some positive noise in his last outing over the weekend.

Niese (2-2, 4.28 ERA) will be making his second start since returning from the DL tonight. Before going on the DL, Niese was one a roll for multiple starts, then stuttered (and then he got injured). On the fifth Niese went 7 innings and allowed only one earned run, allowed 6 hits, walked 1 and struck out 6. In Niese's limited Major League career he has never faced the Padres. In fact the only player he has faced on the Padres is Torrealba and he is 1-2 against Jon.

On the other side of the rubber is Jon Garland (6-3, 2.68 ERA). In his last four starts, Garland is 2-1 pitching 26.0 innings posting a 4.15 ERA. He pitched two games against the Mets last year going 1-0 over 15.0 innings with a 2.40 ERA (4 ER). The Mets have these numbers against Garland:

Lets Go Mets!

Originally I was going to do the Phillies and the Yankees first, but I just logged on to MLB.com, and saw the inevitable, the Mets have joined the party and released their line, and folks, its just as crazy as the Yanks and Phils and sadly more insane than last years experiment. In fact its so ridiculous that I'm going to share the Jerseys here in this post. Without further ado, here are all of the images, all from MLB.com:

Seriously? What is up with the obsession of putting player images below the numbers. They look ridiculous. Or putting things in the numbers, even more ridiculous. And then there is Jason Bay's. He might get some sales from Canada but I can't imagine that selling. Its like a WBC jersey that got caught in a Canada pride parade on the way to the ballpark. Side note, Frenchy looks like he took the Mets current stripe jersey smashed it into 80's racing stripe jersey, and then he took that design, which would have been ok, and had some animals walk on it.

The Mets and Padres play game two of the series and game one of the doubleheader this afternoon. Two nights ago featured
a real thrilling game that featured a great pitching matchup, and a
couple of jacks that sealed the deal for the Mets. The Amazin's hope to
continue their four game streak this afternoon as they send Santana tonight to
get the win and to clinch the series victory.

Santana (4-2,
2.76 ERA) has really been dominant as of late. In his last 5 games he
has pitched 36.2 innings and has an ERA of .074. Last week against the
Padres Santana pitched 7.0 innings allowing 5 BB, 3 K's and no runs.
His biggest enemy in that game was again the Mets offense who gave him
no run support and prevented him from getting a win. The Padres have
been able to scratch together these numbers on our Ace:

Latos
(5-4, 3.26 ERA) faces the Mets for the first time this season as he was
able to avoid the boys from Queens last week in San Diego. In his last
4 games he has pitched 23.0 innings with an ERA 3.13. Last season he
made one start against the Mets posting 6 innings, allowing 4 hits and
1 ER. The Mets have the following numbers on Latos:

Lets Go Mets!

Some quick hits to go with your Thursday morning Apple:

Mets Draft picks, Picking up from yesterday:

Also with the last pick in the draft, the Yankees selected (1525th overall) James Rice out of Western Kentucky.