213 Miles From Shea

Some quick hits to go with your Tuesday morning Tang:

In a continuing look at the far reaching obscurity of the MLB Product pushing empire, today we will take a look into what the Twin players “created” as part of the Players Choice Signature Series. Majestic chose four poor souls from the Twins roster to be part of this uniform set: Punto, Slowey, Hardy and Morneau.  Brace yourself, it is as ridiculous as every other team. [All Images are via MLB.com, and they can be found here, along with other images not included in this article]

The Good: Kevin Slowey. I'm impressed, his design is normal, and actually resembles something that normal people would wear:

The Canandian: For some reason, this series of uniform designs loves Canada. While Morneau's isn't as bad as Bay's its still pretty Canada:

Notice on the above T-shirt, there is a hockey goalie on the back. As if it wasn't Canada-themed enough.

The “UGHKDJIEKSIE”: Hardy and Punto had to go with the extra graphic on the back of the jersey. Hardy went with the ball park, so it wasn't too bad but Punto had to go with an image of himself:

There have been several players over the last few years that have been fairly vocal about their opinions about the New York Mets, their attitude, and organization. The short list includes Jimmy Rollins, Cole Hamels, Nelson Figueroa and Heath Bell. Bell felt like he was tossed away from the Mets, that he was never really given a chance. That being said, he has also gone on record saying that he gets extra fired up playing his former team. This passionate hatred to the Mets has been, at least, my perception of Heath Bell.

That was until I read this interview posted at New York Baseball Digest.

I feel like I understand Bell so much better now. Its not really that he holds a grudge against the Mets organization as that he is angry he didn't get a full opportunity to pitch here. From the way he was talking about the city, its obvious that he cares about New York. This respect comes up all over the place in the interview. His favorite place to visit is New York City. Two of the four toughest batters he has faced are Mets (Reyes and Wright). Talent he wish he had? He wish he was David Wright (seriously, its actually reall funny, go read it). He also wants to know what it would be like to hit a homer for the Mets.

The most interesting part of the interview was when he was describing the circles in his career, I'll led you read that. He also talks about returning to the Mets. He is actually very open to it and would love to return to New York. He says if he has to go in a different direction wth the Padres, New York would be where he would want to end up. Well current and futrue Mets GM's, I hope you hear that. If Bell goes on the market in free agency, he should be very courtable.

Today's Oriole Bird Comic From the Baltimore Sun:

(via The Baltimore Sun)

Some quick hits to go with your Monday morning Life Cereal:

(via Mets Merized Online)

18 hits and 11 runs later the Mets came out of Baltimore with a 3 game road series sweep. Before starting this series the Mets had only 8 wins on the road, now they have 11 as they accomplished a sweep which should boost their confidence on the road. To see a Baltimore Cartoon about how the game went down, click here.

Looking at the game before it started, it looked like this would have been a low scoring affair for the Orioles. Pelfrey didn't come out with his best stuff, but thats OK. The Mets don't need dominant starting pitching every night, just most nights. Today it was tolerable because the offense was explosive. Anyway, Pelfrey still gave the Mets a quality start and the Mets bats were able to do the rest.

The game felt like it was decided in the top of the first as David Wright hit a two run homer, and then Chris Carter hit a 3 run homer. Later the Mets would get a third homer as Jason Bay hit a solo shot followed by another two run homer for David Wright. So the power was there for the Mets this afternoon. On top of the homers, all of the Mets starters at least got one hit in today's rout. The other key number of the day would be 4. David Wright had 4 RBI's. Jason Bay had 4 hits (in 4 AB). Jason Bay scored 4 runs.

Overall it was a good game for the Mets, and it was real statistical boosting day for the Mets. It was nice to see David Wright hit two jacks and it was nice to see Jason Bay break his 0-16 slump. The Mets get the travel day tomorrow as they go to Cleveland and look to extend their winning streak to 5 games in Jacob Progressive field.

The local paper in Baltimore, the Baltimore Sun, has a comic every morning generally referring to the game from the previous day. Here's the one explaining last night's 3-1 Mets win:

(via the Baltimore Sun)

The Mets try to sweep the Baltimore Orioles on the road today as they wrap of their series in charm city this afternoon. The story for the Mets so far this series has been pitching, and key homers providing small cushions for the lead. Today the Mets will send out Big Pelf to handout some Pelf-Control as the Amazin's will see possible trade canindate Kevin Millwood.

Pelfrey (8-1, 2.23) will try to continue being Mike Pelfrey today. In his last 4 starts he is 3-0 with a 0.90 ERA while he has pitched 30.0 innings. Also an interesting trend in his last four starts: 4 starts ago he pitched 6 innings, 3 starts ago 7 innings, 2 starts ago 8 innings and in his last start he pitched 9 innings. Big Pelf pitched agaisnt the Orioles last season as he posted 5.2 innings of work, 3 BB, 2 K, and 2 ER on his way to a win. The Orioles have the following numbers on Pelf:

On the other side of the rubber is the hard luck Millwood. He was statistically the ace of the team early on, but he got no run support leading him to an 0-7 record. He has also had some average to below average outings as of late, which has bumped up his ERA to 4.64. In his last three starts he has recieved three losing decisions as he has pitched 17.1 innings and allowed 16 ER, 17 runs total. He is looking to rebound this afternoon. The Mets have these numbers on Kevin:

Lets Go Mets! Get that Sweep!

Some quick hits to go with your Sunday morning Grand Slam*:

*This was the most American Breakfast I could think of to celebrate the accomplishments of the USA team.

For a long time tonight, the only two hits the Mets had were via Jose Reyes. The 1-1 tie was broken when the Orioles failed to turn a double play, and a run came in. The final insurance run came off a solo shot by Frenchy.

When the score of the game is 3-1, the story is pitching. Takahashi bounced back by pitching 7 innings allowing 1 run. What was impressive but stressful to watch is he constantly let the lead off runner on. So it is surprising that he only gave up one run, but he was able to pitch out of the stretch effectively as he struck out 3 and only walked 1. Honestly, I'm sure how he was able to pitch out of these jams, but I am so happy that he was able to.

The ball was then put in the bullpen hands and Pedro did a fantastic job and then Krod saved another game as the Mets went on to get the victory. This means the Mets will now get a chance to sweep a road series and continue building their cushion above .500 as they still chase the Braves, whom they trail by 1.5 games.