213 Miles From Shea

One definite starter, and one hopeful starter, pitched for the Mets today, so that is where the attention goes today. Pelfrey started the game, and did a very good job while Hernandez also did a very good job unlike his main competition now of Garcia. The Nationals beat the Mets today by a score of 6-2 which is all pretty much thanks to Knight and his 5 runs he allowed in .2 IP in the ninth (and then De Salva letting up a run after him). In other words, going into the ninth, the Mets were winning 2-0, and there is really no reason to be upset about this loss because it is Spring Training. Anyway, here are some box stats:
The Good:
    Castillo 1-2, R, BB
    R Martinez 1-1, 2B
    Tatis 3-4, 2B, RBI
    Kielty 2-3, RBI
    Reed 2-3, BB
    Pelfrey 4.0 IP, 2H, 2BB, K
The Bad:
    Knight .2 IP, 5H, 5 ER, 2K
    Reyes 0-3
    Chuch 0-2
    Castro 0-2
I just realize I forgot to put Hernandez up on the board but he pitched a nice two innings with no runs to go along with Pelfrey's very nice four innings of work. Tatis came out and showed that he is still on the good stuff and that he will probably the Mets go to guy on the bench for PH and late inning subs, or spot starting. Kielty had another strong game. I'll get into this in more detail on another day but Kielty is interesting because the Mets cannot bring him up and send him down because he has to clear waivers, so he is going to have to be very convincing in order to make the major league club.

Another day and the same story. The bench battle gets tighter and tougher, and the battle for the fifth starter spot is just begging for someone to stand up and take it. Anyway, no one on the team really had a bad night at the plate, which is a good thing, meaning a lot of players were on the good list for stats, so lets go to box highlights:
The Good:
     Sullivan 2-5, 2R, RBI, HR
     Valentine 1-2, R, HR, 2 RBI
     Murphy 3-5, 2 RBI, 2B
     Evans 2-5
     Reed 1-4, 2B, 2R, BB, SB
     Kielty 1-4, BB, 2B
     Rivera 1-1, R, 2 RBI, HR
     Parnell 2.2 IP, BB, 2K
     Villone 1.0 IP, BB K
The Bad:
     Garcia 2.1 IP, 2 H, 2 ER, K
     O'day 1.0 IP, ER, 2H
Rivera I think has locked up the third string catcher roll. He continues to come out and hit the ball hard a well, and probably will come up if something happens to Castro or Schnieder (he is also getting a lot playing time. Anyway back to the bench, Sullivan took a step back in game 15 but in this game he came back in a roaring way in this game. It looked like last week that Evans could be the odd man out, but he has also put together some awesome power numbers to show he deserves to stay around.
Finally on the pitching side, there is really nothing to say about Garcia, he really stunk again. Villone is doing really well since he has been in games, you have to start wondering if he can sneak his way into the pen. I think the last bullpen spots will be very hard to determine because there are many arms that are similar and are all trying to get their way in.

I realized that I missed some stats from the WBC over the last few days, so I wanted to do an update before today's big games. Today has a great lineup of games as Pool 2 gets its competition underway. USA will be taking on Puerto Rico and in my opinion, these are the two toughest teams in the pool while Venezuela will be taking on the surprise Netherlands. (And if you are a sports fan in general, there is a great set of games anyway today because in College Basketball it is Super Saturday with ACC Semifinal games and the Big East championship amoung other great games). By the way as an aside, I am very happy because as a student of Maryland, we might finally have a shot of making hte NCAA tourny with a win over Wake tonight and today's game against Duke. Anyway back to baseball, here are some stats:
    Beltran 1-4, R
    Delgado 1-1, R, 3BB
    Figueroa 1.0 IP, K
    Feliciano .1 IP, K
    Wright 0-4, 2K
    Krod 1.0 IP, BB, K, Save
Given the state of the Mets, you have to start to wonder about Figueroa. He has played very well so far in the WBC and has done better than Garcia and Redding. If he continues to pitch well, he could end up pitching himself into a last week competition into that fifth and final starting spot. The other way of coruse of looking at the spot is that it doesn't matter because most teams have a revolving door of fifth starters.
Delgado continued to tear it up. Wright couldn't respond after his big game and struggled like his first game. Krod came out and dominated. I am just very excited for the games today and the ones tommorrow, the WBC has been a lot of fun to watch so far this year, and has gone way beyond my expectations.

The Big story from the game last night was of course Santana, he finally got to the mound and faced batters. When he left the game in the third inning, he allowed only one run, but then his reliever let his runners on first and second get home, which is why he gave up three innings. He also had two strikeouts. It was nice to see him out there and he said that he felt great. The second story of the night was Tim Redding, but we'll get to that after some box highlights:
The Good:
    Evans 2-5, R, 3 RBI, HR, 2B
    Church 2-4, R
    Reed 1-2, R, RBI, HR
    Schneider 1-2, R, 2B
    Castillo 1-3, R, 2B, BB
    Green 1.0 IP, 3K
    Armas 1.0 IP, H, K
The Bad:
    Redding 2.0 IP, 8H, 9ER, BB
    Stokes 1.0 IP, 4H, 3ER, BB, K
    Sullivan 0-4
Before we get to the fifth starter battle, lets go to the bench battle. Thanks to some moves made by the Mets this morning Evans, Sullivan, Reed, etc are battling it out for that last bench spot. Evans continues to pat his resume starting to show off that he can hit the ball hard and same with Reed. Sullivan was a surprise contender for this spot at the start of spring but so far so good, although last night, not at all, and that might hurt him.
The real person though who really hurt himself is Tim Redding. He has pitched himself out of the spot. he gave up five runs over one out to University of Michigan and then last night he somehow gave up 9 runs and three homeruns. How did he do that? This is going to pave the way for Garcia who starts today or Livan Herndandez or someone else.

One of the things I always like to do is to take a break and see how some of our friends are doing on other teams. Sometimes they are not friends, but its nice to have some knowledge outside of the Mets:
    Heilman 8.0 IP, 4H, ER, 2BB, 2K
    Gomez 19 AB, 2R, 6H, 2 2B, 2 HR, 3RBI
    Humber 3.0 IP, 6ER, 0BB, 0K
    Mulvey 3.0 IP, 0ER, 0BB, 2K
    Petit 4.0 IP, 3BB, 3K, 0ER
   Anderson Hernandez 8 AB, 2H, 3RBI, 2BB, 2K
   Milledge 19 AB, 4H, 3B, 2BB, 3K
   Schoenweis 3.0 IP, 2 ER, 2BB, K
Who didn't foresee Heilman having a great start at least, because there is no pressure right now. A better representative though will be the season because I remember being really excited about Heilman around this point last year when he was really doing well in Spring. Its nice to see our young guys performing well, even if they arn't ours anymore (Gomez, Humber, Mulvey). No regrets though, I'll still take Santana. I am also surprised that Hernandez isn't batting above .700, wasn't that his thing to do in the winter and Spring.

The dust has settled on a game that shocked the baseball world, now we can look at some of the other WBC action from last night. The Netherlands were close to not being the only upset as Australia had the lead against Cuba for a long time, and it wasn't until the eighth inning when the Cubans tied it then eventually won it setting up a big important game tonight as Mexico will have to fight their demons and get beyond Australia to get into the next round of the WBC. If Australia wins, then they will get that spot and that would be a wrap for the second round spots (the winner will have to play Cuba to determine seeding). Also last night Venezuela in a big way punched their ticket for the next round by beating Italy 10-1. Here are how a couple of Mets and Pedro did last night:
    Krod 1.0 IP, H, 2K
    Reyes 1-5, R, BB
    Pedro 3.0 IP, 2K
So far in the classic, Korea and Japan are moving on from Pool A (Korea Champs), the PR and Netherlands are moving on from Pool D, USA and Venezuela from Pool C and Cuba from Pool B. Aside from the Mexico/Australia game tonight to fill in the last spot there are a couple of championship games. The Netherland's will try to beat the PR, which they almost did last time, and really shock the world as the winners of Pool D while USA will try to best Venezuela again for the Pool C title. Another slate of exciting games tonight, get caught up in the WBC!

You know its Spring Training when the game ends in a tie, and that is exactly what happened to the Mets today as they ended the game with the Nationals in a 5-5 tie in the tenth inning. The Mets potential bench men had good days again. The competition is really getting tight to make it on the bench because very few of the bench hopefuls are making mistakes (now if that can transmit to our fifth rotation spot pitchers, that would be awesome). Here are some numbers from today's game:
The Good:
    Sullivan 3-4, R, RBI, 2BB
    Anderson 3-4
    Church 2-4, RBI
    Evans 2-4, 2R, RBI, BB, 2B, 3B
    Murphy 1-1, RBI
    Kunz 2.0 IP, K
    Cherry 1.0 IP, BB
    Villone 1.0 IP, Perfect
The Bad:
     Maine 3.0 IP, 5H, 5 ER, 2BB, 2K, 2HR
     Mackowiack 0-3
     Green 1-5
     Valentine 0-3
     Reed 0-2
To start of commenting on the pitching. After Maine's rought start, things really started to go well for the Mets as the next 6 innings saw 5 pitchers, and no one gave up runs. I wanted to be a little selective instead putting down everyone, I put down pitchers that didn't allow hits. I was very proud of Kunz today because he usually struggles against big league talent, but not today. I am very curious to see how he does in the minors this year because I think Holt, Niese, Parnell, and Gee will take some pressure off of him to peform at a top notch prospect level.
How about Anderson and Sullivan today. They were on fire. Evans also turned it up as he really needs to perform to make this team. Mackowiack cooled off after a hot weekend and same with Valentine and Reed. On the whole for the Spring though, it is amazing how these guys are hitting. and thanks to the WBC, they are seeing a lot more playing time. On that topic, thanks to the Netherlands, we will be getting are “leadoff” man back in a few days and that means that we get to see Manuel play with this lineup again and see what happens when Church, Murphy and Castillo hit in different places around Reyes, who will be hitting in different places.

The Netherlands just won a game they weren't supposed to again. They were supposed to be squashed by the Dominican Republic on Saturday. They barely lost to the PR yesterday. Their pitchers were tired, the DR was hungry, the Netherlands were supposed to lose tonight. But baseball can be funny.

The Netherlands didn't give up runs, really at all. They fought hard. They played hard. They played fundamentals and it paid off, they won 2-1 in the bottom of the 11th in what can only be described as an instant baseball classic.

To understand how exciting of a game this was, the score going into the 11th inning was 0-0. The DR scored a run thanks to a Reyes walk followed by a Bautista triple. It was supposed to be over at that point. The Netherlands get up to bat and hit a leadoff double, then they get an out, then an RBI single. So now its tied game with a runner on first with one out. A bad pick off move allows the runner to get all the way to third. Then, a strikeout. Now its a runner on third, and two outs. Intentional Walk. The count on the next batter is 3-1, then 3-2, and then the magical hit. The ball is hit towards Willy Aybar, and it hits off his glove, the runner from third scores, and the game is over, the Netherlands wins an amazing game 2-1. They Netherlands were out hit, but they were not outscored. To that point the DR had over 27 consecutive innings without allowing an earnerd run.

It is a shame this game was only on the MLB Network, or MLB.com, and probably didn't get a lot of attention because this was easily the best game of the classic thus far. This game is the type of game the Classic needs to get popularity. It has an underdog winning, and underdog knocking out a major team, one that could have won the title. The underdog gets to move on. Also, it was just a great game, hopefully now more people will watch the classic.

I still cannot believe what I just saw.

There were a couple of games yesterday including two elimination games and a game to determine the first team to move on in Pool D. In the first elimination game, Mexico needed to beat South Africa in order to have a chance at the second round and the loser of the game would be out of the tournament. Mexico played the way people thought they would going into the tournament and they knocked out South Africa. In the second elimination game, Italy upset Canada and knocked them out of the tournament (giving them the opportunity to play Venezuela in a rematch today to move onto Round two play). Puerto Rico beat out the Nederland to get a spot in the second round, the first team in Pool D to do so, but the Nederland had a 1-0 lead for a a while, and it wasn't until the 8th when the PR got three runs and won the game 3-1. The Nederland were really close to round two, and they play the DR tonight for the chance to move on and shock the world. Here are how current Mets played last night:
    Beltran 2-4
    Delgado H, 2B, 2 BB
    Cora 0-3
    Feliciano 1.1 IP, H, BB, 2K
Beltran had a chance in the seventh inning to get the ball rolling for the PR as he came up with two outs and bases loaded, but he wasn't able to deliver, at least he got some hits though, and same thing for Delgado. I am also very happy to see Feliciano doing well. Today's games are pretty exciting as the DR and Veneuzela try to get into the next round, and if they lose to the Nederland and Italy respectivily, those will be some big upsets.

On a side note, I am listening to the Venezuela game right now, Endy is at bat, and they are talking about the catch.

In a move that has been speculated the entire Spring, the Mets cut out Sanchez today from their 2009 roster, and released him. We are all familiar with the story. The 29 year old Sanchez had a great year in 2005 and then the Mets brought him over for 2006 where he was a key part of the Mets bullpen, until he got into a taxicab accident midway through the season and the velocity just never came back. He made appearances and pitched in 2008 about the same amount as he did in 2006 and his numbers looked very similar, except for the bottom line ERA where he was getting lit up. Here are his numbers from the last few seasons:
    2005- (4-7), 79G, 82.0 IP, 36 BB, 71 K, 3.73 ERA
    2006- (5-1), 49G, 55.1 IP, 24 BB, 44 K, 2.80 ERA
    2008- (5-1), 66G, 58.1 IP, 23 BB, 44 K, 4.32 ERA
    2009 (Spring)- 5G, 5.0 IP, 6 BB, 4 K, 3.60 ERA
This move, basically came down to several factors the Mets had to consider. They save aprx 1.5 million by releasing him. Also, Stokes is out of options, and they would like to keep him around, at least to have be a long man in the pen. Finally, as pitching goes for the Mets, there are a bunch of new guys in camp that can put up similar numbers that Sanchez will this year and for much cheaper (Or the other way to look at it, his job was supposed to be setup, Putz has that, and the Mets need specialists to fill the other pen spots, so as nice as it would be to have Sanchez around, it is a bit like carrying extra weight). I am a little sad to see Sanchez go, I always liked his passion out there. I've heard that the Nationals like him and I am sure he will be picked up by someone because he does have upside, he is just not right for the Mets right now.