213 Miles From Shea

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.

UPDATE:
Game Called Due To Rain.
Day Night Doubleheader Tomorrow.

The Mets and Padres play game two of the series tonight. Last night was 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 tonight 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!

The Mets are making a trip to Baltimore this weekend and I figure that means a lot of Mets fans will also be making that trek down down to Charm City. Also, I was raised in the fascinating city that is Bmore so I know a lot about what you can do while you're down in my neck of the woods. In this first installment, we will look at some places to go in the city to kill some time, the next installment will cover baseball stadium itself.

In terms of history, like most cities on the East Coast, there are some key historical places you will want to check out. Two that immediately come to mind are Shot Tower and Fort McHenry. The latter of course is important because of the war of 1812 and played a key role in our national anthem. The former is an example of an old way to form bullets by dropping/free-falling molten lead.

Baltimore has a ton of museums that are worth checking out. The Maryland Science museum is a great place for kids and its huge, ie a fantastic place to spend an afternoon. Another great place to spend the entire afternoon is the National Aquarium. It's located on the harbor and is also huge. It features a dolphin show, a large rainforest exhibit, a fantastic Jellyfish display, huge shark tanks and a brand new addition for the Outback. In fact, I'm gonna go ahead and recommend the National Aquarium as one of the best places to check out in Baltimore City. Other museums that are worth checking include the Baltimore Sports Museum, Museum of Industry, and all of the great displays on the historic ships in the harbor.

I'm not going to pretend like I know where to eat in Baltimore but I do know three things you need tho have. First are Maryland Blue Crabs with Old Bay. It will be messy and you will need a hammer and such, but its worth it. The next thing is Maryland Crab Cakes. Nobody makes these first two products like Maryland and Baltimore City. The second thing is a style of BBQ that is very popular in Baltimore called Pit Beef. I've had it at several places and its amazing. I hear the best place in the city is Chaps.

Some quick hits to go with your Wednesday morning Raisin Brain Cereal:

Well in a story that was just made for writers. movies, sports pages, etc, Strasburg made his highly anticipated debut tonight and he was pretty much exactly as as advertised. Before we get into the numbers, we have to talk about the atmosphere. Currently living in DC, I was watching the evening news, which was pretty much all Strasburg coverage and one fan quoted on our local Channel 9 said this “We got Strasburg, John Wall, Ovie and McNabb baby! DC Sports!” Thats when it hit me, one aspect of Strasburg's start that hasn't really been looked at is that it really marks a revival in not just Washington Baseball but all of Washington Sports. The fan atmosphere overall tonight was really unlike anything I have ever seen in DC. The only thing that comes close is the first game at Nationals Park, but even that still fails in comparison to the fans tonight. As jealous as I am, and I am pretty jealous, I'm glad for the Nationals fanbase because it is good for baseball and its good for our division.

Enough with the psychological stuff though, lets get into the numbers:

When you look at the first few numbers, the intial reaction is 2 ER over 7, thats great, but not amazing. Then you get to the last two numbers, 0 BB and 14 K. Granted he was facing the Pirates, but he fell behind hitters a lot early, and not walking them, but instead striking them out, thats a big deal. Those K numbers are something else, and will probably be the legacy of tonight. It is also worthwhile to note that his first major league strikeout was Lasting Milledge, who if you think Mets fans boo him, you should have heard Nats fans. (Actually, it was amazing to actually hear Nats fans).

A good night for Strasburg, now I start to pray he doesn't do this against the Mets.

The Mets may have gotten a steal with the 89th pick in the draft of Blake Forsythe, but more on that later. Forsythe is a junior out of the University of Tennessee and, when he's going, he is an offensive player, playing backstop (a combination that every team hopes to find). Forsythe graduated high school in 2007 and he was not drafted out of high school. In his senior year he hit a school record 13 homers, and also had 53 RBI's while batting .443. He put up good stats in his junior year posting a .385 BA, 42 RBI's and 10 homers. In college his numbers were trending towards a great junior year, but he trailed off:

The above table is from here.  The following is his 2010 batting line:

A lot of scouting reports say that he just wasn't “right” this past year. He was swinging at missing at a lot of stuff, and looked like he was trying to drive up his power numbers. If that is the case then the Mets might have a steal here. If this problem is him lengthening out his swing, then Mets coaches can get him back to a shorter, sweeter swing. I'm not saying that Forsythe will be a star, but his struggles this season is what kept him out of the first round, and I feel that, or maybe more hopeful, that he can be coached out of this and become that first round type of player he was orginally projected to be.