213 Miles From Shea

When the Mets play the Nationals, I get to see the game, which is exciting. Living outside of DC, its always exciting when you get Mets news. Anyway, I get that 1986 Mets experience a little as well. Its nothing close to listening to Keith and Ron, but down here in DC, we get Ray Knight, the 1986 World Series MVP.

I have listened to SNY broadcasts, which are, all bias aside, the best pieces of broadcasting I have ever heard, so its obvious when I say Ray Knight is not on their level, but its cool watching him do the Mets because he does talk about his time with the Mets on air. They were really prying into his Mets years this time because it was the last time the Nationals would be at Shea Stadium. MASN (station for the Nationals), first panned in on the mural around Shea Stadium which has Knight's back to the camera as he jumps on the plate to score the winning run in game 6. His partner asked him about that moment and he said that it is a real blur to him because he got to third, looked back, saw the ball go in right field and saw the third base coach waving him home.

On another Mets/Nationals note. The announcers always talk about the recent connection between the two teams. When you think about it, there are a lot of players on the Mets who used to be Nationals and vice versa. At the beginning of the season, they had LoDuca but they have also have or have had at one point in time Flores (Rule 5 from the Mets), Estrada (Mets on Paper), Milledge, and Anderson Hernandez. On the Mets side, they have Ryan Church, Ayala, and Schneider. I probably have forgotten a few as well. This year, the Mets have the upperhand on the traded players only because Church and Ayala have been real pleasent suprises. Milledge has been hitting well as of late and Hernandez makes the Nats a fast, fast team, so maybe down the road they might get the advantage from the trades, but right now, it looks all Mets.

We all know how good David Wright is on the field and how good of a person he is off the field. But I just finished reading a story that is so touching that it makes you just fill with pride that David Wright is on our team, the New York Mets. The story can be found here, and its about community event Wright has taken part in for the last three years. The Mets since 9/11 have been sending a player every year to a New York City fire house, and this year Wright went to Engine 10, Ladder 10 on Liberty Street. It's really hard to put into words the emotions that this story brings out, so I am not going to try any further.

The last two nights have been example of why this September, the Mets are different than what they were this April and May. In April and May this team didn't really have fight in them. If they lost the lead, they shrugged it off (hangover from that attitude from most of 2007). This team however walks onto the ballfield and they expect to win. Not only do they expect to win, they know what they have to do to win, and they do it. The pitching has failed the Mets over the last two games, but the bats have not, they have picked up the slack and they kept going.

Last night it would have been very easy for the Mets to turn it down after they took a 7-1 lead, but they didn't and they were able to respond when the Nationals tied it up. They were able score more runs and get that win. One of the differences is that the Mets are hitting with runners in scoring position. I don't know the exact stat, but it doesn't matter becuase it feels like they are killing the ball right now with RISP, and its that feeling that other teams get when the play the Mets now, and its that fear, that nervousness from other teams, that will make this September different from other September.

Last note about last night, how about David Wright. He has been struggling as of late, so what does he do? He goes 4-4 with a double, two singles and knocks in a homer. He also makes an amazing play without a glove. Does this mean he reenters MVP talks? Did he ever leave? The Mets have 3 legitamate canididates for the MVP, and the voting will be interesting. Talking about nice plays, I hope you say Tatis's flying grab last night, it was awesome.

The Mets will attempt to complete the two game sweep of the Nationals tonight and guarantee a winning season. Tonight will be pitting Mike Pelfrey who has dominated the Nationals this year against Odalis Perez. The overall goal once again is to win, and keep that division lead to 2.5 or even extending it.

Pelfrey (13-9) has pitched 176.2 innings this year and has a nice ERA at 3.62. In his last five games though he has really been on fire with a 3-1 record over 38.2 innings pitched, 7 walks, 19 strikeouts and a dazzling ERA of 1.86. If you think that ERA is good, you should see his stats against the Nationals this year. He has faced the Nats twice with a record of 1-1 over 14.2 innings pitched. His ERA over that time is an Amazing 0.61. How does he have a loss with an ERA that low against the Nats? He lost a game 1-0 earlier this season (same one he took a no hitter into the sixth inning). Nationals over their careers have hit Pelfrey like this:
     Zimmerman 4-17
     Belliard 3-15, 2B
     Flores 2-4, 2B
     Milledge 1-5
The key for Pelfrey tonight is to remember all of his success the past couple of months. With that he should just handle this line up like he has all season long, with complete dominance.

Perez is having his best season since 2004. He is 6-10 this year, but his ERA is down to 4.19 over 139.2 innings. Over his last 5 games he has been a little worse than his average all season. He is 1-2 over 27.2 innings, 11 BB, 20 K and an ERA of 4.55. His stats against the Mets in three games this year look similar. He is 1-1 in 18.1 innings pitched and has an ERA of 4.42. The following numbers are the Mets offense stats against Perez in 2008 only:
     Beltran 4-9, 2 2B
     Reyes 7-10, 2B, 3B
     Wright 3-7, 2B, 2 HR
     Delgado 1-7
Those are amazing numbers for only one season of play. Like Pelfrey, the Mets bats must remember that they can hit Perez and hopefully tonight's offense for the Mets will carry over to tonight. Reyes' numbers are amazing, hitting .700 against a pitcher in a year is a really nice feat, and in a couple seasons of writing these previews, I don't recall too many batters doing that well against a pitcher. Lets Go Mets! Sweep the Nats!

If you like great pitching, than with the exception of Stokes and Ayala, tonight was not your night. If you like offense, lead changes, a homeruns, then tonight was probably your heaven. All in all tonight was a very entertaining game when you forget about that whole pitching has to be good aspect of baseball. The Mets were up 2-0 in the bottom of the second, then in the top of the third the Nationals tied, to be followed by three more Mets runs making the score 5-2. Then, in the next half, the score quickly got to 5-5 and esculated to 7-5 Nationals. In the bottom of that inning, the Mets scored two more runs, but left the bases loaded a crucial time, leaving the score at 7-7. The next top half, the Nationals put on another run, making the score 8-7. That was in the top of the fifth. No one would score again until the bottom of the sixth where Beltran homered bringing in two runs, making the score 9-8 Mets and then Delgado added the insurence run with a shot of his own, making the score 10-8, where it would stay.

This game was back and forth to a degree, but it did feel like the Mets were going to win it the entire time. They had a fighting spirit about them tonight that is the type of spirit you would want a team to take with them to the playoffs. Delgado got another round of MVP cheers tonight as he knocked in three runs off of 2 homers and a single, scored three runs and got walked. It was another great night for him. Beltran also joined Wright and Delgado tongiht with 100 RBI's on the season.

To make things even better for the Mets. the Phillies had a heart breaking loss. They were down by a score of 7-1 at one point and rallied from being down 10-3 all the way up to 10-8. When the score just flipped to 10-8, they left runners on the corners. They would have more baserunners throughout the entire night (including runners on the corners again in the bottom of the eighth) but could not complete the comeback. So now they are 2.5 games back of the Mets.

It's a feel good night folks.

If the ran holds out, the Mets will play the Nationals today and try to increase their division lead and attempt to guarantee a .500 season with a win tonight. Oliver Perez, a free agent at the end of the season, will take on Lannan of the Nationals for the pitching matchup for the first game of a two game set.

Perez, fresh off a win, will try for his 11th tonight. On the season he is 11-7 with an ERA at 3.86 over 168.0 innings, 89 BB and 151 K's. Over his last five games, he is 2-0 with 32 innings pitched, 19 BB, 28 K's and an ERA of 3.66. Against Washington this year, he has pitched 2 games with a record of 1-1. He has lasted 12.1 innings, allowed 8 earned runs, 7 BB and 11 K's. This is basically the addition of one bad game for Perez in Washington (in April, I was there, and it was ugly), and a win he had against Washington in August. In that August win he went 6.2 innings and allowed 3 runs. Here are some National stats against him:
     Belliard 4-17, 2B, 2 BB
     Zimmerman 4-15, 2 2B, BB
     Harris 0-8, 2 BB
     Milledge 0-3
The key for Perez is to watch the walks. That is what killed him in April. If he can hold the walks tonight to a minimum, the he should be fine. If he walks, then he will get into trouble. He will need the run support of the Mets against Lannan and that Nationals pen.

Lannan has had a good year when you look past the record (8-13) over 160.0 innings pitched. He has an ERA of 3.88, 62 BB and 98 K's (so there's a chance he will get to 100 tonight). In his last five game though, he has struggled a bit putting up a record of 2-2 over 28.1 innings pitched an ERA of 5.40. During that time he has walked 17 and struck out 17. His one start against the Mets this year was pretty good, but he got the loss as he out dueled by John Maine. He whent 7 innings and allowed only 2 runs. Mets have been able to put up these numbers against him:
     Reyes 4-10, 2B
     Wright 3-10, 2 2B
     Church 3-7, 2 2B, HR
     Beltran 1-6
     Castillo 2-5, HR
Church has great power numbers against Lannan and so does Wright. One of the key's for the Mets offense tonight is to hope that Reyes can jump out of his September slump. The Mets are 4-2 in September, but if Reyes keeps slumping, that record will slide, and will slide fast, so he needs to start producing. Wright will also have to figure out his woes with runners in scoring position. Lets Go Mets!

Cliff Floyd was one of my personal favorites when he was on the Mets, and he really has been a leader this year on the Tampa Bay club. He is one of the few veterans on the club that is full of young talent that still needs to be shaped and developed into superstar ability. The Rays are going to make the playoffs, but the question is now whether or not they are going to go in as Division Champions or Wild Card winners, and it would be a shame at this point to be the latter after such an amazing year.

Floyd called a players only meeting yesterday to get the team back on track, to get them to do the small things and to get them to win the Division. They didn't win yesterday, and now their lead is only a half game. I love how Floyd is the leader on that team, and I have a good feeling he will be able to help that team back on the Division Champion path. Let's hope the Rays can continue to win, and prevent for the first in a long time, the Red Sox or Yankees from winning the AL East. (I believe the last time another team besides them won the division was in 1997 when the Orioles won the division).

Other things to watch tonight besides this AL East showdown is the Angels can clinch the division tonight and the NL Wild Card race is heating up. While the NL East lead is down to 1.5, the Wild Card lead is down to 3 and the Astros have snuck into the race with their great streak. Septmeber baseball just keeps getting better, and more heart wrenching.

On Sunday, I wrote about how Baseball-Reference.com is doing a count to the 250.000th homer in history. And, like everything in baseball, the actual homerun was going to be complicated. Rain rules in baseball are funny, if a game gets suspended, then all of the stats in the game are not official until the game is completed. Last night, there were a ton of homers in Detroit, where Gary Sheffield hit the big homer. However, if that game was suspended, then the count would have to continue last night. So, the back up 250,000th homer ended up being Jason Kendall who hit homer 250,004.

The game continued, and finished, so Sheffield had the magic homer. This was a pretty cool count by Baseball-Reference.com and if you havn't seen the count page, you should visit it here.

The Mets got bad news today, but news that we were starting to expect. Wagner is out with a torn ligament, and the surgery will knock him out all of next year as well. So that leaves some questions with the closer roll. Who will be it this year? Who will hold that position next year? How long will he have to be signed for?

Luckily, the first question is answered already. Ayala has been great after being thrown into that closer roll. He is not Billy Wagner, but he is not old Brandon Looper. The good news is that we have him, and that the pen has been good as of late. There is nothing else we can do this season with that roll, so the book is closed on that.

Now next year. The Mets have a few options. Within the system, Kunz is not ready yet to be that closer, to fill that roll. He is at least one season away. One of the best closers in the Majors right now, K-Rod, will be on the market, but that will not only cost a lot of money, but a lot of time. Street is available, but at what cost in the market? Personally, I feel that K-Rod might be the way to go. With Delgado on his current streak, the Mets are no longer in the Texaria sweepstakes, so the only other one besides K-Rod would be CC Sabathia (and possibly Oliver Perez). The question then becomes what to do with Kunz. When he is ready, we'll bring him up, but if K-Rod is there, then Kunz is not our closer, but our setup man. This actually can be quite good for Kunz because K-Rod started up as the 7th inning man, and worked his way up the ladder, so possibly Kunz would be able to learn a lot about pitching from K-Rod.

This is another conversation that will be picked up again at the end of the season, right now, the attention is on Ayala, Feliciano, Heilman, Stokes, and the rest of that Mets pen to finish out the season and hopefully the postseason.

How do you know if your team is struggling to get people in the ball park? Your team opens up a $1 dollar section in the ball park. At Camden Yards, the Upper Deck on the third base side has a number of 1 dollar seats each game for the month of September. These sections include special items from MASN (Oriole network) and also include a free tour of Camden Yards (coupon). That deal is better than Minor League parks. To give an idea of where these seats are to those of you who have never been to Camden Yards, think of Shea Stadium, Mezzanine deck, probably around section 23 down to 29 (but not the last two sections in fair territory). From that example, you can tell these are good seats. Hopefully I will get a chance to travel up to Bmore before the season is over, including gas costs and everything, a one dollar ticket really helps the wallat pain of going to the ball park.

Fenway is going to have their 456th consecutive sellout game tonight according to MLB.com, a Major League Record. It is also a huge series as the Sox can take over the lead of the AL East from the Rays (1.5 game lead). I believe the series finale is on ESPN, so if you live outside of the SNY area, it should be a fun game to watch. I hope the Rays are able to pull it out, it would be amazing to see them get an AL East division championship.

A couple of weeks ago, I said that the Dodgers really hurt their chances of a NL West title by gettin on an 8 game losing streak, and that the only way to get back would be an amazing push. Well, they have had that. Last night, they continued an 8 game winning streak, negating that losing streak, and taking over the division lead from the Diamondbacks. That mediocre division is starting to get a bit more competetive as each team is starting to peak a bit voer .500.