213 Miles From Shea

The Mets and the Cards went 20 innings last night, with the Mets eventually edging out the Cards with 2-1 win. The only part of the game I caught was the 6th to the 7th inning, after that I was at Relay For Life. At around 7:15 I was wondering “Hm, did the Mets win? Did anyone score?” So I checked the game and heard it was 0-0 in the 10th. By the time it hit the 13th, my friends started sending me messages about the game (remember I grew up in Baltimore, so my friends like to poke at the Mets). By the 17th inning, people were finding me on campus to poke fun. When the Mets went scoreless against Felipe Lopez, my phone started to blow up. When Krod blew the save in 19th, my phone really started to blow up. When the Mets finally won in the 20th, my phone was silent, with th exception of a friend who is also a Mets fan who sent “Finally”.

A game like thsi adds some good stats and some bad stats. On the good side, our ERA's are starting to look pretty good. Santana had a great start going 7 innings stiking out 9 and dropping his ERA to 3.00. Mejia recovered from his loss a few days ago and pitched a nice two innings. Pelfrey got the save. Yes, Pelfrey, now has a career save, and his ERA for the season is now 1.29.

There are also some bad stats. Francoeur, in 7 AB, lost his 10 game hitting streak. Reyes, going 0-7, dropped his BA to .171. The difference between Francoeur's 0-7, Reyes 0-7 from Bay's 0-7 is that Francoeur and Reyes both had sacrifice flys to bring in RBI's for the win. Back to Francoeur. How good has he been? Going 0-7 dropped his BA to .381.

Now stats for both teams. The Cards were able to strike out 16 Mets. The Mets were able to strikeout 19 Cards. The Game lasted 6 hours and 53 minutes and had 652 pitches. 46 of 50 players were in the game. The Mets used everyone but Perez. All in all this was a crazy game.

If you look at the Mets in the dugout, this was a bonding experience for them. Its possible that this game could be a turning point for this club. Lets hope that it is for a positive direction because honestly, I can't imagine the reaction this morning if the Mets lost this game while facing position players on the mound for 3 innings. Lets Go Mets!

After that heart-breaking loss (yes, I'm calling last night heart-breaking), the Mets try again this afternoon against the Cards. The pitching match up should be pretty interesting today as Santana goes against a young (23) prospect making just his 3 MLB start (12th appearance). Santana will be making his 3rd start of the season today. His first start was fantastic, his second start was not (11.0 innings, 4.91 ERA, 5 BB, 8 K). These are the numbers that the Cards have put up against Santana throughout his career:

In his last outing, Santana just got off to a bad start. If he can get off to a good start, locate his pitches (be Johan Santana, etc etc) then he should be fine today.

The Mets batters get to face Garcia today, a pitcher that only one player on the Mets has seen (Jason Bay, 0-1, K). In his first start of the season, Garcia pitched 6 innings allowing 4 hits and 1 earned run in a winning effort. He pitched 16 innings for the Cards in 2008 (at the age of 21) where he had one start over 10 games with an ERA of 5.63. One player to look out for today is Francoeur. He seems to be a different player so far this season because he is looking for pitchers, taking pitches, and is controlling his swing. The result has been fantastic, and he has been a great surprise. If Bay can start to be more like Jason Bay, the two of them together (with Wright) can make this a really strong lineup. Lets Go Mets! Beat the Cards!

The Mets open up another road series tonight in St. Louis. The Mets are fresh off a win ending a four game slide and the Cards are coming off a winning series against Houston. For the Mets, this will be a challenging series overall as they will face Carpenter, Garcia and Wainwright.

The Mets will send out Perez tonight, who is looking to rebound from his last start where he allowed 4 ER over 5.2 inning while walking 4 and striking out 6. His last start was typical Perez where he looked different AB to AB (at moments he looked brilliant and at some points just terrible). Perez faced the Cards once last season and he allowed 4 ER over 4.2 innings in a No Decision. Here are stats the Cards have against Perez:

Yeeeeeeeeesh. Those numbers do not look so good. However, the Rockies had good numbers against Perez yesterday (and the Mets terrible numbers against De La Rosa), so numbers are not everything. That being said, this is a dangerous lineup and Perez will need to be on for this game. He will benefit from the Mets scoring runs.

The Mets will be facing off against Carpenter who struggled in his first two outing of the season. In total he has pitched 11 innings with a 5.73 ERA thanks to 7 ER, and a league leading 5 ER. Last year Chris got the loss against the Mets in a good 4 hit, 3 ER, 7.0 inning effort. The Mets over time have been able to record these numbers against Carpenter:

The Mets continued to show some power in Colorado and will benefit if they can do it again in St. Louis. Carpenter's numbers this season are uncharacteristic for him. If the Mets can catch him while he is still struggling, that would be fantastic. Lets Go Mets! Beat the Cards!

Still feeling good from yesterdays win? I am. Anyway here are some other notes from around the majors (that I forgot to write about yesterday).

Yesterday was Jackie Robinson day and this year everyone wore 42. It was a nice touch as always (and fun to listen to announcers struggle when players on the other teams got up in the pen to warm up, and the announcers of course have no clue who that player is). For the Mets, the uniform changes are a reminder of what the uni's used to look like without names on the back, and they look really nice, clean, and professional.

The Astros got their first win yesterday after starting the season 0-8. The win also takes away their status as worst team in the league as their 1-8 record is very slightly better than the Orioles 1-9 record.

Speaking of records, the Mets are one of three teams with a 3-6 record. The other two being Cleveland and San Diego. There is also one team with a 3-7 record (surprisingly), the LA Angels.

Finally, with most teams about 9 or 10 games into the season, hitting stats are becoming a little more reliable (in other words, amazing stats are now coming from an extended hot streak). There are nine players right now in the majors that are still hitting about .400 and two players that tied for the lead in RBI's with 15. Cruz (Texas) leads the league with homers at 6. What about Mets leading stats? David Wright leads the league now with 13 walks (which really helps out his OBP which is .512).

The Mets stopped their four game losing streak today as they beat the Rockies and avoided being swept. The Mets did everything right today. They had starting pitching. They had timely hitting. They had relief. They took advantage of mistakes.

Pelfrey looked really sharp today. He pitched 7 innings of shutout ball (the best by any Mets starter this season) and scattered strikeouts throughout his outing. He located his pitches and stayed calm with runners on. A huge moment for Pelfrey was when he got called for a balk. Last season, this destroyed him, made him lose his concentration. He would then balk two more times and just had a horrible outing. Today he balked, and then got out of the inning, keeping his cool. In previous successful years for Pelfrey, he would build off of good starts creating confidence. He now has two good starts behind him and hopefully will be able to keep that confidence coming.

The next major aspect of today's game was the hitting. The Mets were getting on base a lot today and at times it felt like the same old story, not getting hits with RISP, but there were key moments today when the Mets did get hits with RISP. The one aspect the Mets still need to improve though is scoring with two outs. Only one RBI today was with Two outs, and that was by Pelfrey (which makes it more awesome).

If the Mets can play like they played today more often, this season would go a lot better. Lets hope they can keep it up against the Cards! Lets Go Mets!

The Mets try to avoid being swept today in an afternoon day game against the Rockies. Last night, the Mets couldn't take advantage of RISP opportunities as they fell in extra innings to the Rockies. Today, Pelfrey gets the nod to go against De La Rosa. Pelfrey had a good start to the season where he pitched 6 innings, allowed 2 runs on his way to getting a Mets win. Against the Rockies last year he was 1-1 in as many games with a 5.23 ERA. The Rockies were able to put up these numbers against him:

The Mets really need Pelfrey to repeat his last performance today. A strong start from a starter will do the Mets a lot of good in their campaign to not be swept. Pelfrey would benefit though from the Mets bats clicking against De La Rosa.

In De La Rosa's first start of the season, he pitched 7 innings of 1 hit ball (got the win, allowed no runs, etc etc etc). He also has a good history against the Mets, going 2-0 in two games last year with a 2.19 ERA. The Mets have been able to record these numbers against him:

Last night the Mets left runners on third a few  times, which is a trend that has to stop. When they get on base today, they need to start hitting and move those runners over and home (of course that is a lot easier said than done). Lets Go Mets!

For Patriotic holidays the last two seasons, MLB teams have been wearing “stars and stripes” hats. Two seasons ago they were blue:
(Football Fanatics)

And then last season they were red:
(Football Fanatics)

Personally last year I had problems with these hats. I love the idea of them, and for BP they are fine but they have some problems during game time. I was at an Oriole game last year where they were wearing them, the opponents were wearing them, and the Umpires were wearing them. Sitting in the upper deck, looking down on this during a day game, It was actually hard to watch because everyone wearing the same hat was really distracting.

Anyway, because MLB is all about making money about patriotism, they have to have a new version for this upcoming season. Uni Watch Blog, a few days ago was able to find a leaked version of the Nationals version:
(Uni Watch)

Uh oh. Does this look familiar to anyone. I seem to recall the Mets trying out a similar hat……

ITS BACK! If this is the “Stars and Stripes” design this year, than the Mets will be wearing their famous Ice Cream Hats again. Of course this time around the brim will be closer to Navy and the NY will be Red/White/Blue, instead of Orange/Blue. However, the Mets wearing those hats will bring back flashbacks.

The Mets try to bounce back from their loss last night by playing another game against the Rockies. This time around the Mets will try to see if they can get another quality start out of Jon Niese while the Rockies will be hoping to see if they can get a better start out of Cook than they did last week.

Niese in his first start of the season had a quality start as he allowed 3 ER over 6 innings. This time around, Niese will have to work on keeping runners off base (8 hits, 2 BB last time out). Niese had one start agains the Rockies last year and was not really effective as he allowed 4 ER over 6.1 innings. These are the numbers that the Rockies have against Niese over his career:

Even though Niese allowed runners on base in his last start, he was able to hold back a lot of damage. If he can do that again, and the Mets can score some runs, then the Mets should be in good shape.

Aaron Cook gets the call for the Rockies. In his first game of the season he allowed 5 runs (4 earned) over 5.1 innings and recieved the loss. Cook didn't face the Mets in 2009 but he played against them 3 times (1-1) in 2008 where he got 22.0 innings pitched and recorded a 3.27 ERA. The Mets have been able to put up these numbers over his career:

Hopefully the Mets will be able to score more runs tongiht than last night. Although Wright has some pretty terrible career numbers against Cook, hopefully he will be able to continue his numbers at Coors that I posted yesterday (about .390 BA, now 7 HR). Let's hope the Mets can get it together tonight. Lets Go Mets!

Have you heard of Sporcle? It's a website that features quizzes that users can create, and the topics range basically everything (from Geography, to Sports, to Pop Culture, etc). There are plenty of great Mets quizzes on the website, including some that are really difficult like naming all of the Mets starting pitchers on Opening Day.

However there was one that was pretty funny. Funny in a sad, pathetic kind of way. I'm talking of course about a quiz where you have to name 18 of the Mets injured players from last season.

If you have a few minutes, check it out!

For once in my life I am glad that last night I was busy writing a Research Paper and preparing for a few exams because if it wasn't for that school work, I probably would have been watching last night's “game”.

Positives:

Negatives:

The Maine problem (hahaha) was with John Maine. Things are not looking good. He was able at times to get the first two batters out in an inning, but then he would fall apart. Or he would let people on base, get two outs, then get into actual trouble. This was seen by the Rockies in the entire game having 7 RBI's with 2 outs. Thats 7 of 11 runs, coming with 2 outs in the inning. Its demoralizing, its painful and it can linger.

There have been whispers (Kevin Burkhart) that Maine will probably not be making his start on Sunday. I hope thats true. Before this season gets out of hand (and its still very early), Maine nees to regroup and figure out why his pitches are missing.