213 Miles From Shea

The Mets continue their six game road trip tonight by opening a weekend series in Miami against the Florida Marlins. The Marlins are the only unbeaten team left in the NL East after they swept the Nationals in a three game series. As a side story from the game tonight, Jose Reyes is apparently going to ask Hanely to be the godfather of Hanley's child. The other more baseball related story is that this is could be Marlon Anderson's last night as a Met. Tonight the Mets will send up John Maine, a key part of this Mets rotation this year, against Sanchez, who has more no hitters than the Mets as a franchise.

This is a big night for Maine. He had a slighly disappointing 2008 (10-8, 4.18 ERA, 25 G, 140 IP) due to an injury. He comes back tonight to fry the fish as he has done often in recent memory. In 2008 he pitched 4.1 Innings against the Marlins where he allowed one run, walked one and struck out 6. He saw a lot of action against the Marlins in 2007 with a line of 3-0, 25.2 IP, 2.45 ERA, 12 BB, and 38 K. Here are the numbers the Marlins have against Maine:
    Uggla 3-15, 2B, 7 K
    Ramierez 3-16, HR
    Hermida 5-11, 2B
    Ross 0-2
Uggla, Ramierez, Hermida, and Ross all just killed the Mets. For somereason they look the like the second comings of Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb and Ted Williams when they play the Amazins. If the Mets can control them tonight, then they should be fine. The key is for Maine to do what he has always done against them which is strike them out. Its easy to get Uggla to swing and if they are off the bags, then the mistakes will just be solo homers.

Sanchez is going to try to keep the Mets off the bases tonight as the Marlins starter. He hasn't really been effective since his rookie year (which is the same year that he threw a no hitter). He didn't face the Mets at all in 2008 but in 2007 he only lasted 3.1 innings where he gave up 3 runs, walked 4 and struck out 1. In his rookie year, when he was very good, he was 2-0 in as many games against the Amazins over 14 innings, 2 walks, 13 K's with a 2.57 ERA. Last season overall he was 2-5, 51.2 IP, with a 5.57 ERA (10 G). Here are the numbers the Mets have against him:
    Church 6-11, 3 2B, HR
    Reyes 2-9, 2B, BB
    Delgado 3-8, 2 BB
    Wright 1-7
    Beltran 2-5, HR
The key for the Mets offense tonight is to what they did the last two games. Not only do they need to score runs but they need to make runs. In the last game, although it was a loss, when there was a runner on third, they did a pretty good job (great job relative to the opener) of getting that runner home to score. If the Mets score a good amount of runs early tonight, and Maine is effective, then the Mets should walk out tonight with a win.

Tonight could mark the last time Marlon Anderson plays for the Mets. The Mets need to make room on their 25 tonight and since they now have Sheffield, it looks like Marlon will be voted off. Marlon's only hope to stay on the team right now is for the Mets to send down O'day, in what would be a very studpid baseball move. Hopefully  the Mets will make the correct decision tonight and cut ties with Marlon Anderson.We shouldn't forget though the good times with Marlon. He used to be Mr. Clutch or the nick name that floated around for a while “Money”.

In 2005 He was key for the Mets as he would get Pinch Hit after Pinch Hit. There was a time that we wished could find an everyday position for him. We didn't resign him in 2006 where he played with the Nationals and Dodgers. He hit .274 with Nationals but then put an amazing .375 over 24 hits for the Dodgers. (Including that game when the Dodgers hit a bunch of homers consecutively). In 2007 he opened up hitting .231 for the Dodgers then in the season the Mets got a hold of him and he hit .319 for us and became the clutch guy again. Off of that amazing season, the Mets decided to sign Marlon to a two year contract and we all know that he struggled.

Marlon Anderson has given us a lot to be thankful for. He could still very well have a good season this year (his spring wasn't bad) but what it comes down to is the Mets decided to go with Sheff, and now the consequence is no more Marlon. It is very hard to tell at this moment which is better, but between Marlon and Sheff, Sheff has a larger upside, and we cannot get rid of O'day.

ESPN launched a new commercial advertising that Steve Phillips, yes that Steve Phillips, is on the Baseball Tonight crew. There are two reasons why I still watch Baseball Tonight. The first reason is I do not get the MLB Network The second reason is I like Tim Kurijan and Peter Gammons. If either of them go over the MLBN, then I am pretty much done with ESPN. The simple reason that ESPN cannot compete with with MLBN is that when I watch Sportscenter, I want to watch baseball, I don't care about the NBA, NASCAR, or Golf. MLBN is all baseball, they break it down and its entertaining. This could be a big problem for Baseball Tonight.

The Baltimore Fan in me loves the Daily News Back Page today:

Here are some 2009 stat lines for players that could have been Mets this year:
Fuentes: 2 G, 2.0 IP, 3 ER, S, BS
Hudson 4 G, 17 AB, 5H, 3B

Also, my prayers and condolences go out to night to Nick Adenhart's family. This is a very sad and tragic day for all of baseball.

Today's game can pretty much be blamed on Oliver Perez. One can make the argument that its O'day's fault as well, and he does share some of the blame for giving up the hit that allowed in the last few runs. That aside, blame falls on Perez because he didn't pitch to keep the Mets in the game, for the most part. Which is the tale of Perez. He kept the Mets in the game for two innings, and then the Mets scored a bunch of runs, and the Oliver allowed in more runs. It is very frustrating because the Mets really had a chance at winning this game, the offense did the best it could to keep the Mets in this game and starters need to perform. Really aside from Johan, the starting pitching is looking weak.

I am very anxious to see how Maine performs and later in the season, to see how Livan peforms. The team is going to need another pitcher not named Johan Santana to step up soon other wise this team could be in trouble real quick. The other side of the story is that 2-1 isn't bad and if we can go 2-1 again this weekend that would nice, it is where we want to be. Hopefully the Mets will get on a roll soon and put up a big spot on the scoreboard standings. The series this weekend is “big”  because it is against an NL East team and that is where we need to perform in order to get the divison crown.

Some places have already released their first power rankings for the season, and its time to see where the Mets have landed. AOL has bumped the Mets from 5 to 3 (the 5 in their last preseason poll) after the Mets win on opening day. It seems like a lot of weight to put on one day but first impressions are lasting. They follow the Red Sox and the Cubs on the list. The Braves made a jump after the starting pitching on the first two games of the season from 9 to 5 and the Phillies dropped like a rock for the same reason going from 4 to 10. My overall opinion on this poll is that it seems to be very volitle and week to week, especially with the emphasis they have placed on the first opening games.

Fox didn't include openning day on theirs, so its more like a final preseason poll, which is what it should be. You can find the Mets at 5 on this list and the follow the Rays, Red Sox, Yankees and Phils (which the Mets have done better than all four of these teams so far this season, but thats only 2 games). Fox suggests that Sheffield will be a starter soon.

And some other numbers:
0-The amount of times the Mets have had the back cover the Daily News this Season so far
3- The amount of times the Yankees have had the back cover of the Daily News so far
0- The amount of times the back cover the News has been positive for the Yankees
*Note: I did not count the Openning Day paper which had a cartoon drawing of both Johan and CC on it
9- The amount of SB Reyes now needs to get to 300 SB in his career
6- The amount of Stikeouts needed for Johan to reach 1600 on his career
7- The amount of BB needed for Wright to reach 350 in his career

I mean this in the nicest way possible. The Mets need to step on the necks of the Reds today. If you go 2-1 the entire season, you will make the playoffs, but there is something to be said about building momentum, and the biggest building piece for that is a three game sweep. The Mets will try to start the season 3-0 this afternoon against the Reds. The Marlins were able to start 3-0 with a sweep over the Nationals yesterday and the Braves failed to start 3-0 with a loss yesterday handed by the Phillies. The Mets will be sending Oliver Perez to the mound and he will have to battle with Bronson Arroyo.

I was first very worried when I heard Perez would be starting in Cinncy, the park allows a lot of homers, and so does Perez, not a good combination. However, looking at some numbers, I feel a little better. In 2008 Perez went 1-1 against the Reds in 2 games with a 3.75 ERA over 12 innings pitched where we allowed 6 runs (5 earned), 7 BB and 14 K. In his Career in Cinncy, he is 4-2 over 10 games where he has allowed 9 homers, over 53 IP, and a 3.91 ERA. I thought the homers vs games number would be much worse. Here are some numbers teh Reds have put up against him.
     Phillips 3-13, 2 BB
     Encarnacion 2-10, 2B, 4 BB
     Votto 1-6
     Harriston 2-3
     Bruce 0-3
     Gonzalez 1-9, 2B
The key for Oliver is to have faith in his pitches and faith in his defense. We have seen time and time again when the defense makes a mistake bhind Perez, heg gets flustered and he starts to make a lot of mistakes. And of course, the other thing to remember is one can flip a coin and then decide off of that if Oliver will be effective or not. The Mets will have to back him up with some runs today.

Runs could be tough for the Mets today because they do not hit Arroyo well at all. Last year he went 2-0 in as many starts against the Amazins with a 1.69 ERA, 8 H, 3BB, and 13 K. His career numbers agains the the Mets are also pretty good as he has gone 4-2 over 7 games and has a 3.48 ERA. Here are the Mets lines against the Bronson:
     Delgado 4-21, HR
     Sheffield 8-23, 2B, HR
     Reyes 5-19, 3 2B, HR
     Beltran 4-16, 2 2B, HR, 3B
     Castillo 2-5
     Perez 1-2
The Mets have an interesting trend agaisnt Bronson. Although they don't hit often, they hit hard. Look at Beltran, all of his hits are XBH. Reyes has 4 of 5 of hits being XBH. The key for the Mets bats is the same as yesterday but intensified today. They need to hit with RISP and today they need to because they probably won't get a lot of hits off of Arroyo (but its always possible for them to have a hit parade!) Lets Go Mets! Sweep the Reds!

The Mets played it very dangerously tonight, but the end result was a 9-7 win as the Mets took the second game of the season and can look for a sweep tomorrow. The key for the Mets in this game was they hit when they were in RISP situations. They scored runs and they were able to keep their pitching in the game. Delgado had two really key hits that drove in 4 runs. His two run homer helped the Mets get on the board in the first but his hit in the 7th is what kept the rally going to eventually get it to 4 runs. At first it didn't seem like it would be a big deal but the Mets pen went on to allow 3 runs and live dangerously, loading the bases in the ninth.

While it was close and not pretty, the key is that the Mets pen didn't cave in. And in their defense, they didn't get much help from other side of the pitching equation which is the starting pitching. Pelfrey went 5 innings and allowed 4 runs but still got the win. Its tough for the pen when they have to protect a 1 run lead for 4 innings, but they started to goof once the Mets got that 5 run cushion. Hopefully they won't repeat that situation, and especially tomorrow when Perez pitching in a hitters park, which calls for trouble.

One last note for this game, Beltran had a good game where he went 2-4 and he is quietly playing very well. He is starting to become one of my favorite players just by how he gets the job done day in and day out.

The Mets will play the second game of the series and the season tonight against the Reds. This time the Mets will put Pelfrey on the mound to go toe to toe with Volquez. One of the main stories for the Mets in this game will be hitting in RISP situations. In the last game, they 1-12 with RISP, and won thanks to a good bullpen that was able to lock down the Reds. It would be better for everyone's heart rates on the team and the fans across the nation if the Mets remember how to score more runs today. And it could be very tough against today's starting pitcher.

Volquez got off to an amazing start last year, and although he fizzled towards the end he still finished with a very nice 17-6 record and a 3.21 ERA. This Spring he picked up where he left off last year going 2-0 in five games, and 22.2 Innings pitched with a dazzling 1.19 ERA. In fact, one of the rare times you ever see this guy put up bad looking numbers is against the Mets. He faced the Amazin's one time last year (and I remember being very worried about it then) and allowed 8 hits and 4 runs over 5 innings of work, 3 walks and 3 K's. Here were some notable lines from that game:
     Delgado 2-2, 2B, BB
     Reyes 3-3, 3B
     Beltran 1-3, RBI
     Wright 0-1, BB, RBI
The key for the Mets today is once again to hit and hit often. As stated before, the overall objective is to get those hits with RISP. The Mets recorded a good amount of hits in their last game, but they couldn'd do anything with those hits. The Reds pen, except their closer, is also not the strongest in the league. If they can knock around Volquez the Mets should be able to pick up some late inning runs and also start to ware into this pen for tommorrows early afternoon game.

On the other side of the ball, the Mets will send up Pelfrey to build off of his last season where he went 13-11 with a 3.72 ERA after a slow start. Last year Peflrey saw the Reds twice picking up a loss over 13 innings pitched, 7 earned runs, 2 walks and 7 strikeouts. His ERA over those two games was 4.85. The good thing for Pelf is that two Reds hitters that know how to hit Pelf are gone (Griffey and Dunn).  Here are some carear numbers the Reds have posted against Pelfrey:
     Encarnacion 1-6, HR
     Bruce 1-3
     Votto 0-3
The key for Pelfrey today is to have confidence in his pitches. We saw over the course of last year as he got more confident, all of his stuff got better. If he can do that again today he should put some nice numbers on the scoreboard. Another item Pelf can now have confidence in is that pen behind him has already demonstarted this season that they can back up starters. This could be the beginning of a great friendship between the rotation and the pen. Finally, just for fun, watch Pelf during AB's. Maine likes to rip on Pelfrey's low, low batting average, and that Maine has a homerun in the bigs. Lets Go Mets! Beat the Reds!

I finally got a chance earlier today to see Santana's handshake run from yesterdays game, which you can see on Metsblog here. At first, it was really funny. He has a unique, complex handshake for every player on the Mets. After I got over how funny it was, I then realized how important it was. First, it establishes his dominance as a leader on the mound, in the clubhouse and for pitchers and hitters. Second, it reaffirms the actions of Jose Reyes and Krod, and gives out entire team a lot swagger on the field. If we play with that swagger, that confidence, then we will be a much better team on the field.

Now to things I don't like. I don't like blackouts. And I have a new reason to not like them. On Saturday the Mets will be playing the Marlins at 6. The game had to be moved up an hour to account for a Flo Rida concert afterwards. The problem is fox has an exclusive contract to show baseball games between 4 and 7. In other words no other channel can show a game during that time. That type of Captialism on sterioids is really hurting baseball. When a TV company can block out games that cannot be provided in any other way, thats just ridiculous. I give this a 0% chance of a difference being made about this before the game on Saturday night.

With the first game of the season comes the first off day of the season. It is funny in a very non-humorous way that we wait so long for opening day only to have it followed by an off day. I don't know about you but off days are really terrible for me during the regular season. At least we didn't lose yesterday, an off day after a loss is terrible. Time ticks by slowly, the game replays through your head, you have a long time to wait for redemption. Anyway, baseball will be back again tomorrow and hopefully Mets bats will also be back again tomorrow.

That being said, I do have some random baseball thoughts I want to put out there. I did watch Sunday's game of the Phillies vs the Braves because I don't want to root for our rivals, the Braves, and I don't want to root for the Phillies either (please note where I placed the word rivalry, this “hate” thing with the Mets and the Phillies needs to continue a few more seasons before I recognize it as a rivalry. Right now it still feels like something the Phillies fans are trying to make up). Anyway, believe it or not I'm glad the Braves won on Sunday. The Phillies did something that only two other teams have done, and I feel that it has no class. On their uniforms on Sunday they bordered the team name in Gold to represent their championship. The Red Sox did it for the ring ceremony and the Cards did it in 2007. So both teams to do it in the actual game have lost (the Cards actually got swept by the Mets in 07). That being said, I'll go for a Braves loss tonight to give them both .500 records.

On another note, living in Baltimore (well now DC) I caught part of the O's game last night and man the Yankees played terrible. They were making stupid base running mistakes, they weren't getting their pitching right, and that thing on the back of their hats for the new stadium looks really stupid, and uncomfortable. If it was someplace else on the hat or the jersey, I would say nice patch, but on the back of the hat, just too much going on.