213 Miles From Shea

The Mets won consecutive games for the first time this season as they beat the Cubs 4-0. The big story of the game was Mike Pelfrey. Big Pelf had another outstanding outing as he pitched 7 innings of 3 hit ball. Pelfrey's outing has helped him stack some fantastic numbers. First off, he now has 3 wins on the season (which is a lot when you consider the Mets only have 6 as a team) and of course the best number of all is his ERA. The Mets as a team lead the National League in ERA and Pelfrey has an amazing 0.86 ERA. He is pitching now with so much confidence and its starting to rub off on other players.

On the offense side of the ball, Reyes had a great game going 4-5 with a stolen base and a 2-RBI triple that intially gave the Mets the lead in the game. If he can turn it on, this team will fly. Another impressive performance came from Tatis who hit a pinch hit homer off the bench.

With as good as Reyes has been, Wright and Francoeur have really slowed down. Their averages are droping and they are not getting hits. Both of them just need to regroup and get back on that good hitting streak that they started the season on. If they can start hitting again, and Reyes keeps this up, and the pitching does what it does, this team will be special.

The win also guranteed that the Mets will not lose this series (the worst they can do now is tie it) and don't look now, but the Mets have won 3 of their last 4 games. Lets Go Mets!

The Mets and Cubs play game two tonight at Citi Field. Last night was all around great night for the Mets as Ike Davis made a very impressive debut. Common with other Mets wins so far this season, the Mets won last night by 5 runs (before last night, the average margin of victory was 4.5). Hopefully the Mets will be able to do that again tonight against Zambrano.

Pelfrey gets the start for the Mets a few days after pitching his first career save ever. So far this season Pelfrey is 2-0 over 14 innings pitched with an ERA of 1.29. He faced the Cubs once in 2009 and it was a great game as Pelfrey went 8 innings allowing only 5 hits and one earned run. The Cubs have been able to put up these numbes on Pelfrey:

Starting pitching has been key for the Mets over the last few days and hopefully Pelfrey can continue that trend. Last time out Pelfrey got the shut out win, and a good amount of offense from the Mets bats.

The Mets will get to deal with Zambrano who is off to a rough start again this year. He has pitched 13.1 innings so far and has allowed 14 runs over three games. He was able to rebound from a terrible debut at the start of the season but struggled again in his third game pitched. Zambrano had alright numbers against the Mets last year. He pitched in two games with a 3.86 ERA over 9.1 innings (0-1). The Mets have been able to compile these numbers against Zambrano:

The key for the Mets bats tonight is to score early and disrupt Zambrano. If they can catch him on a bad outing, the Mets can then get to the Chicago bullpen, which has struggled to close out games this season. Lets Go Mets! Take game 2!

The Sporscenter commercials are always fantastic. There are also a good amount of them that are about Mr. Met. While searching for Mets videos, I ran across one that I never saw before, and it was pretty good:

With joy in Metsville actually comes (wait for it) positive back pages about the Mets! Here is the Daily News:

(Daily News)

And of course the NY Post:
(NY Post)

And the winner goes to the New York Post. “Ike Takes Office” is fantastic (playing off of the “We Like Ike”). Also the “cream come true” is very typical, expected, and appreciated.

The Mets won a good game last night as just about everything went right last night. Let's start with the biggest story of the night, the debut of Ike Davis. Davis had a very impressive game. He went 2-4 with an RBI and just looked good out there. He seemed calm (although I doubt that was true in reality) and he seemed locked in. He also brought hope and fun with him. At the end of the game Francoeur gave him a shaving cream pie to the face, which just shows that the team is getting loose (isn't that great to see?).

His RBI leads into a discussion about hitting last night. The Mets had a 2 out ralley early that lead to one run. It was started by the 8th and 9th hitters and continued with Castillo getting the RBI. Sadly Wright wasn't able to add to the 1-0 lead as he left the bases loaded. The Mets then put together a great 5 run inning. It started off with a 2 run bomb by Pagan. Then later had an RBI hit by Bay. That then led to an RBI hit by Davis. This was the type of hitting the Mets have needed all season, and it was great to see.

The pitching was obvisously good last night (the Mets held the Cubs to one run). The only bad part of the night was Nieve allowing an inheritanted runner to score which then led to what I still believe to be a very stupid rule in the majors. That run then meant that Niese's win bid was over and Nieve got the blown save. However the Mets then took the lead, so Nieve got the win. I just hate that. Anyway Niese really had his pitches moving tonight. He was able to get out of trouble several times last night as he gave the Mets another quality start. Things are starting to come together and things are starting to look up.

Other Notes:

The Mets start another road series tonight against the 5-7 Cubs. The Mets are coming off of a series where they won a game by a run, lost one by a run and then lost another one by two runs. The Cubs are also coming off of a losing series against the Astros (3-9) where they lost two games in a row at home by one run. Both of these teams “need” to win this series. The Mets will be sending out Niese to the hill tonight while the Cubs will be sending out Randy Wellls.

Niese has allowed 8 runs in 11 innings this year which isn't as bad as it reads. He had a quality start in his first outing (6 IP, 3 ER) and then struggled in Colorado with his curveball (5 IP, 5 ER). He will benefit greatly tonight if he can find his curveball (which he lost due to the conditions in Colorado, etc etc). The last time Niese faced the Cubs was in 2008 where he allowed 6 runs over 3 innings. In limited exposure, the Cubs have these numbers against Niese:

In the last several games the Mets have recieved quality starts from Pelfrey, Santana and Perez, it would be great if Niese could get up and give the Mets another one. It would also be great if Niese could get some run support.

Randy Wells has been effective in his first two starts of the year building a 1-0 record over 12.1 innings and only 4 ER. Last year Wells had a 3.05 ERA over 165 innings. He was also effective against the Mets year going 6 innings while only allowing one earned run. The Mets have been able to put up these numbers over Wells' career:

The Mets bats have had some good times in Wrigley before (like when they hit two grand slams in the same inning in 2006). Lets hope they can do it again! Lets Go Mets!

UPDATE: We Like Ike.

It looks like Ike Davis will be promoted today. He has been removed from the roster from today's AAA game and is supposed to arrive before today's game.

Flash Back Time! Check out this video advertising the Mets on channel 9:

Being 4-8 without being swept in a season is bad. It means the Mets have lost 2 out of every three games four times this season. Generally those numbers suggest that this team is following apart.

However it doesn't feel like that.

The reason the Mets seem to be a better team than their record lets on is because they are. Look at the losses. The Mets have lost 8 games by a combined 19 runs, or 2.375 runs. Now remove that 8 run loss from Colorado. The Mets have now lost 7 games by 11 runs, or 1.57 runs a game. These scores are so close because the Mets are not giving up. When you look at games, the Mets are hanging in there until the end. If they are not scoring, they at least have runners on. With the exception of a few, and I mean few, occasions, the pen the has been strong and has kept the Mets in games as well, something has been different than in the past.

Lets look at Mets wins. They have won 4 games by a combined 18 runs which means they are winning by 4.5 runs on average. Normally when a team is winning by a lot of runs, but losing by a few, it is the pen's fault. However, in the majority of the losses, the Mets starting pitching put the Mets bats in a hole to climb out of. In the last week we have seen the starting pitching starting to turn around. If the starters completely turn around, and parts of the Mets lineup get out of this slump, the numbers presented here suggest that the eventually the Mets will be winning more games.

The Mets play game four game three of the series tonight against the Cardinals after playing a 20 inning marathon yesterday. In yesterday's game, the Mets' pitchers were on for 20 innings but sadly the hitters were not as they racked up only 9 hits (and 16 strikeouts). The good news is the same can be said for the Cardinals hitters who had moe hits (15) but also striked out more (19) and left more runners on base (22 where as the Mets left 13). Anyway, time to focus on tonight. This is a big game tonight. The Mets will be sending out John Maine who is practically at the point that he has to prove the Mets brass that he can pitch. The Mets will be facing a good pitcher tonight in Adam Wainwright.

John Maine has struggled so far this season ( 2 Games, 0-1, 8.0 innings pitched, 12 earned runs) and he faced the Cards once last season and also struggled (0-1, 5.2 innings, 5 ER). The key for Maine today will be getting behind his fastball. When Maine was good with the Mets, his fastball had life, and at times was unhittable up in the zone. If he can get his velocity back then hopefully he will be fine. If not, it can be another long outing for Maine. Here are the numbers the Cards have on him:

The Mets so far have handled this lineup pretty well so far and they just need to do it for one more game. Rumor has it as well that the Mets are bringing in Stoner as fresh arm. The Mets pitchers will benefit from Mets hitters actually scoring runs tonight.

In order to do that, the Mets will have to get by Wainwright (2-0, 15.0 Innings Pitched, 2 ER) who has been good this season but has very little experience against the Mets. In the regular season he has faced the Mets for 2.0 innings and allowed 4 earned runs. That being said he also struck out Carlos Beltran looking to end the NLCS and eliminate the Mets from the playoffs (like I need to remind you). Anyway, the Mets have these numbers against him:

This should be an interesting game tonight. Lets Go Mets! Take the Series! Please don't play another 20 inning game!

If you go to Uni Watch Blog, you can find an audio clip where McCarver referred to Johan Santana as Carlos Santana. This is once again why I really do not like listening to announcers that are not part of the Mets. However, Santana is one of the best pitchers in the league, and this was in the beginning of the game. Inexcusable.

Also the Daily News Cover:

NY Daily News Back Cover: