213 Miles From Shea

Preferably we do not want to make it a habit of only winning games by one run but the Mets beat the Brewers again today by that margin, this time by the score of 1-0. Santana is the real story of this game as he pitched amazingly again. He went 7 innings and although he allowed 5 hits he didn't walk anyone and he got 7 strikeouts. That brings his season total to 27 and puts him in the league lead for that category. Now as good as Santana has been, and he has been real good with a 0.46 ERA so far this season there is this one thing the Mets could do for him, and that would be score more runs. Santana can pitch with no lead or a small lead, but lets make it less stresfull for the team and actually score runs the next time he goes out.

When your starter leaves in the seventh after a performance like that, and still only has a one run lead, you gotta hope that your bullpen is strong, and the Mets bullpen was like a story book today as Putz got the hold and struck out two and then Krod came in, allowed hit, but also struck out two and on the second strikeout, Santos got the lead runner on a strike them out, throw them out. The bullpen was able to lock down the game again today.

This means the Mets now find themselves in a position to sweep for the second time this season, and they need to jump on it. They are one of two teams in the NL East with a winning record and the Marlins already have a 4 game lead. I don't know how long the Marlins can keep up this current streak, but it would be nice to gain some ground on them but more importantly it is important to get some momentum. A win on Sunday means we go into our series with the Cardinals on a three game winning streak with a chance to build.

The Mets and the Brewers will play the second game in the series this afternoon for the first day game at Citi Field. The Mets are coming off of a big win last night in the ninth inning to get back to .500 for the season. Today's game should be an interesting pitching matchup because once again the Mets will be in an ace vs ace match up as Santana will be taking on young Gallardo who is slated the next big thing for the Brewers.

Gallardo made his major league debut in 2007 where he went 9-5 with a 3.67 ERA over 110.1 innings in his roookie year. Injuries held him up in 2008 where he pitched 4 games, getting no decisions in each start over 24 innings and posting a 1.88 ERA. Gallarado has never faced the Mets, which has become a concern for the Mets ever since 2006 where the Mets started a disturbing trend of doing bad against unknown starters. This spring he went 3-2 over 23.2 innnings posting a 4.18 ERA with 13 BB and 19 K. In his first two starts this season he is 1-1 with a 6.94 ERA with 6 BB, and 9 K. His first game was terrible, but his second game was very good. The Mets will need Santana to keep them in this game.

Santana had an amazing game in his last outing, but the Mets were not able to get him the win as they could only score one run, and the Mets basically gave Santana the loss as they had defense blunders that led to two unearned runs. Anyway, on the season, Santana is 1-1 with a 0.71 ERA over 12.2 innings, 5 BB, and 20 K. Last season Santana pitched in two games against the Brewers for 12.2 innings allowing 3 BB, and striking out 17 (with an ERA of 4.26). Here are the numbers the Brewers have against Santana:
    Kendall 2-20
    Hall 3-18
    Cameron 4-15, 7 K
    Weeks 4-7, 3BB
    Hardy 2-7
    Braun 3-6, 2B
    Fielder 2-6, 2K
This will be Santana's home debut and the Mets are hoping that it will be memorable. If the Mets can hit on the Brewers early and often, the key being often, then they will be able to give Santana that crucial run support. The Brewers have a lot of sluggers up and down their lineup, and a lot of them are young. That means Santana will be able to craft the strike zone and paint a lot of swinging strikeouts, hopefully. Lets go Mets! Take Game Two!

Tonight was a big win for the Mets tonight in a few ways. If you only watched the first inning, this game probably looked like the Mets were going to walk all over the Brewers tonight because they batted a round in the first. Also, Hernandez was on fire. Well the game went on and Bush got dialed in and meanwhile Hernandez started to run out of gas. Then the Brewers scored a run in the fifth and then hit a three run bomb in the sixth to take the lead. So far this season, if the Mets were trailing after 6, they didn't win. Also, if the Mets lost tonight, it would be the third time they would lose a game after leading 3-0 after some point in the game.

Well the Mets started to rally. In the seventh inning, Gary Sheffield reached history by hitting his 500th homer, and it was the first time someone hit their 500th homer in a Mets uniform. The Mets would go on from their to load the bases, but couldn't break the 4-4 tie. The next inning, the Mets loaded the bags again, but couldn't do anything with it. Which leads us to the ninth inning. Delgado hits a leadoff double. Beltran strikes out. Church is walked. Santos hits a slow, slow roller that basically acted like a one out bunt moving Delgado and Church over. Castillo then came up and hit the ball at deep short, beating out the throw and Delgado scored the winning run.

The Result:
   1) The Mets get their first walk off win of the season and at their own home. Remember earlier today I said something had to give? Well that happened today with the Mets taking the game with the one run lead.
   2) Mets fans now have no reason to boo Castillo who is tearing it up on the homestand and is a bit reason why we won the game today.
   3) For everyone who thought that Sheff was going to be a cancer in the club house, the congradulations he got from the Mets dugout were sincere and great. It shows how tight this team is.
   4) The Mets are now tied for second in the division with the Braves, and are 4 games out of first place of the incredibly hot Marlins.

The Mets will take on the Brewers tonight for the first weekend series at Citi Field. The Mets lost another close one last night, and I saw a stat somewhere today that said that the Mets have lost the five games this season by a total of 6 runs, showing how close the Mets are getting but just not getting the job tonight. It starting to become obvious that something is going to have to give soon in either direction for this team, and lets hope it is to the winning side. The Mets will facing Bush tonight and they will be sending up Livan Hernandez.

Hernandez had a very successful last start and he is going to try to build off of that to beat the Brew Crew tonight. Last year he played one game against the Breweres where he allowed 4 runs over 7 innings in a losing effort. He walked 4 and struck out 5. The Brewers have a lot of hitting experience against Livan, and have hit him well in the past:
     Cameron 10-43, 2 2B, 4 HR
     Counsell 17-42, 2 2B
     Kendal 12-34
     Hall 4-13
     Braun 2-10
     Fielder 1-8
The key for Livan tonight will be to keep them off the bags and keep them in the yard. With the type of experience these guys have on Livan, there will be no surprises tonight, so lets hope that he gets them out. He will need run support tonight and to do that, the Mets will have to hit up on Bush.

So far this season Bush has been in two games and one start for a total of 7.1 innings and has a 6.14 ERA. Last year against the Mets Bush got the loss in 5 innings of work where he allowed 2 homers and 6 runs while walking 3 and striking out 2. The Brewers pen is pretty weak, so hopefully the Mets will be able to get through him. Here are the numbers the Mets have against Bush:
     Castillo 2-9
     Church 2-7 HR
     Reyes 2-6, 3B
     Delgado 3-5, HR
     Wright 1-5
Delgado is having a terrific season so far and Castillo has been doing pretty well as of late. The funny thing is depending on how you look at stats, Wright is either doing fantastic, average, or terrible. He has been hitting in every game, and he has been hitting to keep rallies alive: fantastic. He only has one homer and 4 RBI: Average (for Wright). In a little over 30 AB, he already has over 15 K's : Terrible. Lets hope he can make contact with the ball and at least put it into play (but not double plays!). Lets Go Mets! Beat the Brew Crew!

The Mets play the Rubber game in the series with the Padres tonight as they face their biggest challenge of this series, Jake Peavy. The Mets are back at .500 and winning this game is important in an attempt to get the ball rolling, to build momentum and start taking series. The Mets played well last night because they took advantages of mistakes that the Padres made and that is how they are going to have to win tonight. If the Padres make a mistake, the Mets will need to jump on it.

Peavy is tough but he isn't unbeatable. He is already 1-1 this year with a very respectable 3.52 ERA over his first two games and 15.1 innings. The most amazing stat though he has this year so far is his 2 walks vs his 18 K's. The Mets didn't play him at all in 2008 but in 2007 the Mets went 1-1 against him and he posted a 3.75 ERA over 12 IP, 7 BB and 16 K's. Here are the numbers the Mets have posted against Peavy over the years:
    Cora 4-21
    Beltran 5-16, 3 2B, 3B
    Delgado 2-12, 2B
    Reyes 4-15
    Wright 2-12, 2B
    Church 4-11, 2B
    Sheff 2-4, HR
The key for the Mets is too string hits together. If they can hit him in bunches then they can score runs and maybe get a move to the pen. Last night they showed they can hit the pen for first time against the Padres in the series, and you have to think the confidence from that will roll into today (although they haven't gotten runs off of the big guys in the Padres pen).

The Mets will give the ball to John Maine tonight, who hopes to build off his last start where he was effective allowing 2 runs over 5 innings. He hasn't faced the Padres since 2007 where pitched 2 games agianst them over 11.2 innings, had a 5.40 ERA, walked 6 and struck out 9. This will also be Maine's first regular season game at Citi and his first time to see in a real game how he will do in the spacious dimensions of Citi Field. Here some numbers the Padres have against Maine:
     Gonzalez 2-8, 2B, HR
     Giles 0-4
     Kouzmanhoff 1-6
     Eckstein 0-3
If you have not watched any of the games this series, or have but didn't watch Adrian Gonzalez, you really need to watch him. He has a fantastic swing and fundalmentals at the plate and on field that can be turned into an instructional video. That being said, if we shut him down tonight then we can put ourselves in a good position to take this series. Lets Go Mets! Beat the Friars!

Hello Readers!

Last nights game was great! I hope you all had a chance to watch it. I wanted to take some time to invite any of you who live in the College Park, Maryland area to a presentation I am giving on Saturday morning at 10:30 AM in Queen Anne's Hall (On the University of Maryland College Park Campus). The event is called Just Politik Undergraduate Research Symposium. I will be presenting a pilot research on a project that I have been working on for about two years now. During this project I try to take on the current understanding of the lure of Minor League Baseball and how Minor League Baseball interacts with the communities that it is in by understanding how these communities form and how they are unique for each team. The project includes a case study of the local Minor League team, the Bowie Baysox, to help form the thesis that (if this project goes onto the next step) I will need to support using other teams and towns. The talk will be pretty short, aprx 20 min and there are two other great presentations on the same panel before the floor will open for questions. The two other topics are “If These Stalls Could Talk: Spatializing the Ephemeral Practice of Bathroom Graffiti” by Joseph Parker and “I Can Do That!: Contemporary Zine Culture and the Aesthetics of a Queer Anti‐Urbanism” by Jenna Brager (our pannel topic is Questions of Space: Culture Politics and 'Community' Reconsidered). If you can make it out it would be great to meet any of you. A few days after the talk I'll probably post actually excerpts from my project and explain what the thesis is for anyone that is interested.

Lets Go Mets-
Elliot

There are many things to be happy about after yesterday's 7-2 win over the Padres. The big story right off the bat is that Oliver Perez turned around and he just had a dazzling start. He was working all of his pitches and he was able to get out of trouble (like in the first inning). He also showed a lot of emotion last night (like when he struck out on what would have been ball 4 and slammed his bat on the ground) that should show to all Mets fans out there that he really cares. A lot of his success belongs also to the Mets management. They took him out the right time. We all know how it goes with Perez that all it takes is one bad pitch in a late inning and he starts to unravel. By taking him out after 6, we got a great start out of him, and what that will benefit him in the long run.

The other thing I was happy about was how the Mets recovered from yesterday's blunder in the OF with that strange play that seemed planned with Murphy throwing to Reyes throwing to home. After that, if the patter continued from the last few games, the Mes should have gone hitless. Instead they load the bases and they get everyone home. The first time they loaded the bases, they got a sac fly and a hit to bring home two runs. The second time they played heads up baseball scoring 3 runs on 2 wild pitches including Reyes going first to home on a WP, something that I have never seen before and so glad that I got an opportunity to see.

Finally, we saw the first of what should be a lot of Carlos Delgado crushed homers to the right field portch. That Porch looks like it is tailor made for his swing and might be what causes the Mets to never consider bring the left field wall down or in.

The Mets will play the second game in the series tonight with the Padres as they celebrate Jackie Robinson day. This year it has been mandated that every player across the league wear 42 tonight, which is really great when you think about it. This means that everyone is being included in the celebration of when Baseball started a movement to include everyone. Anyway, on this historic day, the Mets will be sending a historic mystery to the mound in the form of Oliver Perez, who has had two bad starts in a row so that means he might be due for some magic tonight. He will be facing Correia tonight.

Oliver Perez last season faced the Padres twice in games that led to No decisions for Perez. He pitched 14.2 Innings and allowed 2 walks while striking out 12. During that time he allowed only 3 runs which is a 1.84 ERA. Perezz needs to get a good start under his belt tonight not only for his confidence but to get people off his back. Plus, over the last few games, the Mets are in need of a win tonight after those two back to back almost wins. Here are the stats the Padres have on Perez:
    Giles 4-11, 4 BB, 3K
    Eckstein 3-10, 2B, 4BB
    Gonzalez 1-5, 2K
    Kouzmanhoff 0-2
    Hairston 2-9
The key for Perez tonight is the key that we always have for Perez. He needs to know how to stop the bleeding. When he gets into trouble, he needs to be able to get out of it, other wise its going to be a long game for the Mets. Needless to say, the Mets are going to want to score runs tonight.

Correia has pitched in 171 games since coming into the majors in 2003 and he has only started 47 of those games. So far this year he has a no decision in one start where he lasted 6 innings allowed 3 runs. He has played with the Giants from 2003 to 2008 where he saw 1.1 innings against the Mets in relief. He allowed one run on a homerun during that time. Overall last year he had a 6.05 ERA over 110 innings pitched in 25 games and 19 starts with a 3-8 record. Here are the numbers the Mets have against him:
    Cora 3-7
    Reyes 1-7
    Delgado 0-6
    Wright 5-6, 2 2B, 2 HR
    Beltran 2-5
Wright who was the hero of the game for the Mets in the first home this season will look to play hero again tonight with those amazing career numbers against Correia. More importantly for the Mets, we will get our first look at Sheff in the outfield as he gets his first start of the season tonight sitting at 499 homers. It could be a very special night at Citi with Sheff sitting on this milestone. Lets Go Mets! Lets beat the Padres!

After a while of waiting, I finally found a link today to go look at the MLB Draft order. The Mets, a year after having three first round picks, will not have any this year, and we knew that going into this season since the Mets signed Krod and didn't have any Type A free agents leave. The Mets would have had the 24th pick in the draft. Following the 32 initial first round picks (the two additional picks in the first round would be 10-Nationals for not signing a first round pick last year and 29-Yankees for the same reason). Draft slots 33 to 49 are the supplemental first round picks for type A and type B picks.

This means that the Second Round will start with pick 50. That means the Mets first pick of the draft will be in the second round at pick number 73. The Mets have found jewels in the later rounds before (like Dan Murphy most recently in round 13 in the 2006 draft). In other words the Mets will have to have some excellent scouts to make a draft, which really isn't different than any other year where as long as one or two players make it to the majors, its considered a good draft (isn't it amazing how baseball works?).

Anyway some other draft highlights for the NL East include the Nationals two top ten picks, the Marlins 18th pick, the Phillies 0 first round picks and finally the Braves one first round pick. The Diamondbacks ended up with 5 first round picks (when the supplemental picks are added in as well).

If you think the last few days have been bad for the Mets, be thankful that you are not a Nationals fan. Their season is going so poorly right now, and their doesn't look like they have an upside right now. The Nationals right now are the only team in the majors to not win a game yet. They have had several games that they should have one, but they haven't been able to close it out yet this season. Things are so bad that they felt in necessary to make some big changes today. In an attempt to wake up a certian Center Fielder and the entire team, the Nationals sent Milledge down to the minors today to get back on his game which in a sense rewards Dukes who has been playing well as of late and now gets to be the every day starter in CF.

The Nationals season is going so poorly right now, so much worse than anyone predicted. They were going to be bad but this is ridiculous. If this keeps up though they might pull a Rays in the sense that they will start to get back to back years of number 1 picks and as long as the scout the players right, they can start to build a very good team, just too bad Nationals fans won't see any dividends of this for a few seasons.