213 Miles From Shea

Some quick hits to go with your Yummy Mummy Cereal:

(via sodahead.com)*

The Mets brought the home show on the road again tonight as they won their sixth game in a row and their second road series on the road (making 4 series now in a row?). Oh, and that is 10 wins in our last 11 games. While we are talking about streaks, this is the third straight game the Mets have had a 5 run inning in a game. Honestly, there is a reason why teams win games when they score 5 runs in a bunch. The mental ramifcations of one team scoring that many runs in an inning ripples through the rest of the game. It gives that team swagger for the rest of the night.

The star of the night was Angel Pagan. He was 3-5, 2B, SB, R, 3 RBI. But after Pagan the rest of the lineup was great. All of the Mets starters had at least one hit while 4 batters had a multi-hit game. In total, the Mets offense had 14 hits. This also means that in the last three games the Mets have scored 26 runs.

The pitching wasn't half bad either. Niese won his third start in a row while he pitched 7 innings and allowed only 3 runs. Meija then came on, and didn't so well (seriously, it might be time to send him down, stretch out his arm, and get him ready to start either late this season or next season). Dessens then came out for 2 innings and was brilliant. He's been amazing this season, which really surprised me.

The Mets now go for the sweep tomorrow and try to make it 7 in a row. Looking back 5 games ago, it was said for the Mets to be successful this road trip they would need to go 5-1 against the Indians and the Orioles. They now will have at least that and now they can go 6-0. The steam will be necessary as they will go into the Bronx Friday against a very good Yankee squad.

*I have no idea why I picked that picture to lead off this article. Oh well.

The Mets won their fifth game in a row last night and they try to make it six tonight as they take on the Cleveland Indians for game two of the three game set. Last night's game featured some “interesting” pitching but (thankfully) also had some timely hitting. In fact, the Mets have now scored 18 runs over their last two games while hitting 8 homers in their last 4 games. The Mets sound out Niese to the rubber tonight to go toe to toe with Mitch Talbot.

Niese (3-2, 3.61 ERA) is coming off two very good starts since coming off of the disable list. He has picked up winning decisions in each of his last two starts piching 16 innings while allowing 1 ER and 1 BB while striking out 12 batters. What has made Niese effective since coming off of the DL is that he is throwing his curveball for strikes and he is throwing it in a deceptive armslot. At the start of the season, he was effective because of his curve but when he couldn't throw it for strikes, the wheels started to fall off. Niese, being young, has not faced any of the Indians' bats.

The Mets bats will try to continue their recent trends against Mitch Talbot (7-4, 3.69 ERA) tonight. He is 1-1 over his last three starts while pitching 17.0 innings with a 3.12 ERA. The only Mets player who seen Talbot has been Jason Bay. Bay has 2 AB against Mitch with no hits. For the Mets, it will be second game in a row that they have had a limited exposure to the starting pitcher on the opposing team, and hopefully the Mets will be able to get the same result.

Lets Go Mets!

The NFL nicknames the last pick in their draft “Mr. Irrelevant” so this got me thinking about possible successes in the last round of the MLB draft. Who was picked down there and actually made it? Who was drafted, decided to go to college, and really increase their stock (Buster Posey). Here was what I was able to find:

2005: In pick 22 of 27 in the 50th round, the Angels selected Buster Posey. Confused? Well that was before college and Posey would later go on to be drafted by the Giants in the 2008 draft. In that later draft, Posey was drafted 5th overall. In other words he went from pick 1492 to 5. Posey was recently called up to the majors to inject some life into that Giant offense.

2004: He may not be a big name, but a decent major leaguer in Chris Davis was orginally drafted by the Yankees in the 50th round of the 2004 draft. In 2006 the Rangers selected him in the 5th round of the draft. Since then he has played in 3 MLB seasons and so far is a career .250 hitter.

2000: David Murphy was originally drafted by the Angels in the 50th round. In 2003 he was drafted 17 overall by the Red Sox. He has gone on to have a successful career in Texas (since being traded there).

This was as far as I went back because of a pattern that started to form. The only people that really made it to the majors being drafted in the 50th round were the players that were in high school, went to college, and then came back and were drafted high. While some of these names are big, it really shows that although you can find real talent in the later rounds (Piazza round 62), it is very difficult to do so.

The above graph really shows the story of the season. It represents the games over or under .500 the Mets found themselves after each game this season (thus at game 1, they were 1 game above .500). Looking at this graph you really can see the moments of pain and the moments of joy for this season.

You also see how streaky this team is. There are a lot of straight lines, whether they be going up or going down, all over this graph.

The final observation from this graph, it really seems like a roller coaster. It's very interesting to see a visual of the Mets win/loss record because of the story it tells.

Some quick hits to go with your Wednesday morning acai bowl*:

*A Healthy Brazilian Breakfast

(via Mets Merized Online)

This was not exactly a well pitched game for the Mets, but the offense showed its head again putting up 7 runs a game after scoring 11 runs. But before we get into the bats big night, lets go over the pitching performance. Santana flew through the first inning but then ran into some trouble in the 2nd, 3rd and 4th inning. However after the Mets bats gave him a boost, Santana being an ace knew what to do with a lead and was able to handle the Indians through the 7th inning. Feliciano then came on to throw a mostly clean 8th and then came Krod. Krod allowed a lead off single, then go two quick outs. However with those two outs Duncan hit a blast out of the park making the game 7-6. Krod would bounce back and get the Mets the save and the win. Lets chalk this up to Krod wanting to make the Mets 1-run game recond better, or K-rod just wanting to add some drama….or something.

The real story of the Mets was the bats. For a 4th straight game the Mets scored a run in the first inning, however that wouldn't be enough. The Mets found themselves at one point down by a score of 4-1 but (for a second straight game) put up 5 runs in one inning which led to the Mets lead. At that point the Mets would never look back as they eventually won the game 7-6. David Wright helped tie the game adding RBI's 2 and 3 on the night (more on him later) however the hero was Ike Davis who hit the go-ahead two-run homer, for his 8th jack on the season.

David Wright struck out twice tonight, but he also scored a run, collected 3 hits in his other 3 AB's and (most importantly) collected 3 RBI's. In his last two games, Wright has knocked in 7 RBI's. That means he has 50 on the season. In an 162 game season, he would have 126 RBI's at this rate. So he continues his statistical strange season as he has some amazing good stats and some amazing bad stats.

Coming off of a three game sweep of the Orioles on the road, the Mets come into Cleveland riding a 4 game winning streak and winners of 8 of their last 10. The Indians, who have been a struggling ball club this year, will come into the series after taking 2 of 3 from the Nationals and winning 4 of the their last 5 (the other two wins were against the Red Sox). For the Indians, many have linked their (very) recent resurgence to their call up of prospect Carlos Santana. Well Santana will have to deal with Santana tonight.

Johan Santana (4-3, 2.96 ERA) will get a chance to bounce back from his last start where allowed 4 runs and 4 BB over 6.2 innings in a loss to the Padres. Even taking that outing into account, in his last 6 starts he has an ERA of 1.45 over 43.1 innings pitched. Over Santana's career, the Indians have posted these numbers:

The Mets haven't seen much of Masterson in his career. Pagan has one hit in as many AB's, Barajas is 0-2, Wright is 0-1, etc. Masterson this season he is 2-5 with a 4.74 ERA over 68.1 innings. He is coming off of his best start of the year where he pitched a complete game shutout against the Red Sox. Actually, the Mets are catching him at the wrong time this season. His last three starts really have been his best. If you use the definition that a quality start is 6 innings and 3 ER, he has had 4 of those in his last 10 appearances, and 3 of those 4 have been his last three games. Hopefully the Mets will be able to get Materson to revert to his less effective side.

Lets Go Mets!

Before I get into my actual opinion about the All-Star game, I wanted to first present the views of the two camps of thinking where one camp is for fan voting, one camp is not. The idea for fan voting connects with the idea that the All-Star game is the “fan's game” that the lineup doesn't necessarily need reflect the best current players in the majors but should replicate the lineup made up of players that the fans want to see play with each other. In that school of thought, the popular players “need” to play because that would create a popular team.

The other side is that the fans should not vote, because they are not going to select the best players. We do see this actually happening. The popular players win out, large market teams that play well “enough” are represented the most on the starting lineup. The ripples from this mean that its not really an All-Star game because not all these players are All-Stars. The bench ends up carrying the actual All-Stars, but this also means that actual All-Star slots are taken away so players that deserve the honor do not get it.

The challenge (thus the opinion part here) is reconciling these two camps of thought. One idea that has become increasingly popular in bar room conversations might be the solution. MLB (whether its managers, GM's, players, whatever) pick the All-Star team. After that happens (meaning, hopefully, the team actually has All-Stars on it) the fans then get to vote from that team who gets to start. This won't make everyone happy, but it seems to be a good balance. As good of an idea as this is it probably won't happen due to money. There's a lot money in it for major league baseball to have the most popular players possible out on that diamond, because that means ratings.

Even if the system doesn't get fixed (and I really don't expect that it ever will) baseball still has the best All-Star game out of every other professional sport.