213 Miles From Shea

I love looking at the marketing that teams use to get fans to come into the stadium* and I realized that I completley forgot to preview May promotions around the Majors. So, two-thirds of the way through the month, here's a look of the interesting promotions around the majors. Sadly the Mets didn't make it on this list because their promotions lack the wow factor for this month (very few teams made the list this month):

The Rays this month have two pieces that are bizarre. The first is a flying Carl Crawford. It's literally a Crawford figurine attached to a parachute. The other piece is a Carlos Pena Toothbrush holder. Tampa, your creativity never ceases to amaze me:

(From the Tampa Bay Rays Site)

The Twins this month are giving out Span Replica Road Jerseys, and they look nice.

The Angels are giving out an inflatable pool toy.

The Rangers are also getting in on the free Jersey giveaway train:

(Texas Rangers)

I really do not know why I found this so funny, but the imagery merging of the Cubs and Dora the Explorer just struck my corporate cynicism funny bone:

(Chicago Cubs Site)

The Reds gave out fantastic jerseys at the Civil Rights game this past weekend:

(Reds Website)

The Astros (main the NL Central is on the ball this month) has an action bobblehead of Bourn making a great catch. This bobblehead makes the list because they included the hill in the base:

(Astrons Site)

Next week, June!

*In my freshman and sophomore years of college, I spent two years looking at the culture of baseball, and this was one of the more interesting topics that I had the opportunity of covering. Yes, I know a two year project on the culture of baseball and how it develops communities is not related to my majors (Physics and Astrophysics) but whatever.

Some quick hits to go with your Thursday morning Vanilla Yogurt:

The Mets continue their road trip tonight in Washington. Tonight is an interesting juncture for the Mets where they will be officially be skipping Perez's start in the rotation in favor of R.A. Dickey, who will be making his National League debut tonight. This will be Dickey's 8th major league season where he has spent the majority of his time in Texas with stops in Seatle and Minnesota. His career numbers are 22-28, 442 innings, and a 5.43 ERA. Last year he was 1-1 with an ERA of 4.62. He has been impressive this season in the minors with a 4-2 record and an ERA of 2.23 ERA. Some players on the Nationals have seen him before:

The Mets batters tonight will have to deal with one of the most surprising pitchers of the season, Livan Hernandez who is 4-2 with a 1.46 ERA. In his last three starts, his ERA is about 2.45, which well above 1.46, but still very good and he handled the Mets very well to start the season going 7 innings and allowing 0 runs. The Mets batters have these numbers on Livan:

Lets Go Mets!

Growing up in Baltimore during the Angelos Era, I am often really surprised when the Orioles do something right. However, their marketing team might have done it this year. When I was younger, the Orioles struggled making worthwhile promotions but starting in the mid 2000's, the promotions started to really pick up. One of the more novel ideas they pursued at the time (2006) was making interlocking bobbleheads that produced an image. The Orioles decided to exploit the famous long high five gesture of Brian Roberts and Melvin Mora by making two bobbleheads that when put toghether, look like they are interacting:

(The Baltimore Sun, 2006)

It was a great idea at the time, and was really popular that year. Well the Orioles are trying something similar this year. Next week they are starting a three month promotion where they will give away Reimold, Jones, and Markakis bobbleheads that when put together create the Orioles outfield. Now they don't interact like the Roberts/Mora, but it still looks pretty cool:

(The Orioles Website)

Sorry the image is so small, I have had a hard time finding a larger image.

Some quick hits to go with your Wednesday morning Diet Coke*:

The Mets can win/sweep their first road series of the season tonight (albeit a two game set, but baby steps) by beating the Braves. The Mets will send out their ace tonight in Johan Santana to follow up on Pelfrey's beautiful game while the Braves will have Medlen make his second start of the season (6th of his career).

Santana (3-2, 3.88) will look to build off of his last start which was very Johan Santana like. He pitched 7.0 innings and allowed 0 ER against the fish while dropping his season ERA from 4.54 down to 3.88. Tonight will also be his first game pitched against the Braves this season. Last year he pitched against them in 3 games, and despite a losing record (1-2) he was very effective going 20.1 innings and allowing only 3 ER (1.33 ERA). The Braves have been able to put these numbers up on Santana over the years:

The Mets batters will get a crack at Kris Medlin tonight. He has been in 14 games so far this season but only 1 start having a 1-1 record with a 2.53 ERA. His one start was back on May 8th against the Phillies where he allowed only 1 earned run over 4.1 innings, but gave up a lot of hits (9). When the Mets and Braves played earlier this season he was called on one inning where he allowed one hit and struck one batter out. Over the first two years of his career, the Mets have these numbers on him:

Everybody else on the Mets who has seen him, has only one AB against him, so he is still fairly new to facing the Mets. Lets Go Mets! Beat the Braves!

Do we have what it takes to be champions?

If you look at championship teams, overall, they succeed in two areas. First they have talent and talent in depth. If a player or two goes down, they have a slew of players to rise up and take that athlete's place. Those replacements have enough talent to keep the team on track. Of course, this statement is greatly over generalizing what it means to have talent and talent in depth. The other factor a championship team needs is that X factor. The drive to win. The drive to never lay down.

Going into the season from Spring, especially with the injuries to Beltran, Reyes, and Murphy, it looked like the answers to both of these questions was no. There were no replacements for the rotation, and the replacement for position players were far from ideal. This rippled to a weak bench that made our pinch hitters late in games look like no threat.

Also going into Spring, there was question about the intangibles of this team. After two years of collapses, and last year's debauchery, the drive of this team was (maybe rightfully so) in question. Did this team have strong leaders? Would the team meld together?

The 2010 season is about a quarter of the way through and the latter question has been answered. This team has the drive and the will to win. Although they don't always hit, and don't always pitch, the amount of close games the Mets find themselves in is evidence enough of this team yearning to win. For example, last year's team would not have lost 10-8 to the Marlins this week. They would not have scored those 8 runs late in the game to make it competitive.

The problem arrow is pointing at the depth of this team now, especially the rotation. The rotation had questionable talent to begin with, and now with one pitcher (Perez) in the pen and another (Niese) down on injury, the Mets find themselves at a pivotal juncture. Takahashi will get his chance to start this week, and we'll get to see how he fares facing batters a third and a forth time in the same game and Dickey will also get shot this week. But outside of these options, the only other available option is Gee.

If any team needs to make a midseason move, it might be these Mets. An additional pitcher (whether its Pedro via free agency or a play for high caliber pitcher on another team) could add that final spark this squad needs to succeed. The hardest quality to get on a championship team is drive. Having all the talent in the world doesn't necessarily work if the talent cannot work together and bond over a similar goal. This squad has that drive, it just needs another leader in that rotation to take work off of the bullpen staff and allow the offense to score runs that keep the Mets in the lead. 

Some quick hits to go with your Tuesday morning Belgium Waffels:

The Mets start another series tonight as they take on the Braves in Atlanta. Over the last two games, the Mets lineup has started to hit and score runs but sadly the pitching has fallen apart (metaphorically and literally) so the Mets are looking to have a big night tonight to get the train back on track.

The Mets will call on Mike Pelfrey tonight (4-1, 3.14 ERA) and he is looking to rebound from his last start where he pitched 5.2 innings and allowed 4 ER. Two of Pelfrey's last three starts have been rough but hopefully he can channel in the same Mike that pitched against the Braves at the end of April. In that rain shortened game, Mike through a lot of pitches but he pitched 5 scoreless innings as he led the Mets to a sweep of the Braves. Anyway the Braves have these numbers on Mike (whose's initials are MAP, who knew?):

The Braves will seond out Lowe tonight (5-3, 5.37). His last three game stats are similar to his season stats, mainly due to a 5 inning start (two outings ago) where he allowed 7 ER. Last year he faced the Mets 5 times last season with a 2-1 record and over that time he pitched only 23.1 innings against the Mets and allowed 18 earned runs. The Mets have these career numbers on Lowe:

Lets Go Mets! Beat the Braves!

Some quick hits to go with your Monday morning Frosted Cheerios: