213 Miles From Shea

The calender has turned the page into June, which means another collection of Major League teams making creative and fun promotions and giveaways.
The Mets actually made the list this month with their give-away on June 14th. On the 14th, Nathan's are sponsoring a replica Shea Stadium. This is the type of giveaway that fans could keep on their shelves for a while and is really nice. Normal replicas can range from $10 (if you want a small, non realistic one), to hundreds of dollars for realistic ones. I've seen the picture of this one on the Mets website, and its slightly more detailed then the $10 one I have, so if you can go on Saturday, go get this one.
When you were younger, did you always get your Dad a tie for Father's day? Well this June 15th, the Diamondbacks would be doing that work for you. The first 5,000 Dad's get a really nice Diamondback necktie. This is probably the most creative promotion I have seen for this month.
Two teams have great giveaways on June 17th. I already touched on the first one here. The Orioles are honoring a great fan of the birds who passed away last year, Wild Bill Hagy by giving away Hagy Name and Number T-shirts with 34 on the back to represent the section he sat in. The Cardinals are also doing a creative giveaway on the 17th by giving out ceramic replica's of 1968 World Series Tickets. 17 of these tickets will be painted gold and autographed by Bob Gibson. Honoring past World Series is always a great way to connect generations of baseball fans.
Keeping with the theme of the 1968 World Series. The Tigers on June 24th are giving out a Replica Jersey of the 1968 Tigers. I love when teams give away replica jerseys and these are really cool because of the time period that they represent.

First off, before the Mets game today, I heard of another good PR move by the Orioles. That means I heard two in one day, which is really unbelievable. Anyway, back when the Orioles played in Memorial Stadium, there was a very famous fan who sat in upper deck section 34, Wild Bill Hagy. Hagy passed away in August of last year and was famous for leading the O-R-I-O-L-E chants. Every Tuesday when the Orioles are home, they give out a T-shirt with a player's name and number on the back (thus T-shirt Tuesday) and June 17th, the Orioles announced that the T-shirt will read on the back Hagy 34. This is a really great move for the birds and is one of the more creative, touching promotions I have seen in a while.

Anyway, back to the Mets. My heart jumps every time I see Reyes slide into second headfirst and make contact with the second basemen. The game when Reyes blacked out in Philly this season, and both of Church's concussions immediately flash through my mind. I know thats the way Reyes plays, and I know thats the popular to steal bases. Besides that, its always exciting. When he stole second tonight in the first inning, there was a different feeling in the air. It felt like 2006 in a way because there was this feeling that the Mets were going to get him home some how. It wasn't the 2008, no hits with RISP, it really felt different tonight.

Nothing felt more like 2006 than the 3rd inning where the Mets scored 5 times with 2 outs with. I always seem to be talking about how the Mets need a big inning to turn the season around. An inning where everything seems to go right. Tonight's third inning might be that inning. With two outs, Wright got Reyes home with a clutch hit. Then Beltran kept the inning going with his monster homerun, and then two batters later, Church hits a two run shot. Even though the Mets didn't score after that, it really felt like the Mets developed momentum. (Which hopefully they packed to go out West with them).

Speaking about Wright, how good has he been recently? In his last 10 games, he has 13 hits over 40 AB (.325 BA!), 3 home runs, 7 RBI's (6 in this series, and in the last 4 games alone), and has walked 7 times. He has also scored 10 times. So in his first 45 games this season, he has scored 27 times, or .6 times a game, and in his last 10 games, he has scored on average 1 time per game.
His last four games have been special as touched on before. He has gone 7-15, 2 HR, 6 RBI, and 3BB. That is a great stat line to look at and lets hope those numbers continue as well.

The surging Mets will try to take the four game series tonight as they finish the four game set with the Dodgers on ESPN. Johan Santana will be going for his 100th career tonight (the same day that Nolan Ryan did it as well). The Dodgers tonight will be sending out Kuroda, one of their offseason pickups from Japan.
Kuroda this season is 2-4 over 11 games and 68.1 innings pitched. During that time he has posted an ERA of 3.29. However, in his last four games, he has a record of 1-2 over 27.1 innings pitched, he has posted an ERA of 2.30 (10 BB and 15 K). So recently, he has been hitting his stride, which of course is always unsettling because  the Mets generally do not do well with rookie  pitchers, and one starting to get hot gets me a little nervous. In the first seven games of the season, he was 1-2, over 41.0 innings and posted an ERA of 3.95. Here are some other Kuroda splits:
    Right-handed Batters: .248 BA
    Left-handed Batters: .254 BA
    Home 5 G, 1-0, 30.0 IP, 3.90 ERA
    Away 6 G, 1-4, 38.1 IP, 2.82 ERA
Hopefully the Mets will be able to see the ball well from Kuroda and do some damage tonight.
Santana has done well in his last six decisions, winning five of them. Over the last 8 games, he has been 5-1 with 53.1 IP and an ERA of 3.54. In his first three games this season, he was 1-2, 20.2 IP and posted an ERA of 3.05. He really should be 2-1 in that first three game set. One of those losses was that duel with Smoltz that, if I wasn't a Mets fan, say was a very good game. Anyway, the last time Santana pitched against the Dodgers, he was very good. He beat them over 7 innings allowing 2 hits, no runs, three walks and struck out 9. Here are some Dodger stats against Santana:
    Pierre 1-4
    Kemp 0-3
    Kent 0-2
    Martin 0-2
Martin and Kemp were young last time they faced Santana, but hopefully they will have the same results tonight.
Lets Go Mets!

Eric Brown, 24-years old, has been going through the Mets organization since the Mets drafted him in 2005. The Mets drafted him in the 18th round and 539th overall. Brown was selected out of Wingate University (North Carolina), where, according to his 2008 Bowman Baseball Card, he was “extensively scouted by Mets who regarded him as a 'sleeper' pick”. New York Future Stars cites his great junior year in college, where he struck out 111 batters in 95 innings.
His ability to strike out batters is due to frame and his pitch selection. Brown is a 6'6'' right-handed batter who, once again according to his 2008 Bowman Card (which is always a great, fast introduction to any prospect), keeps his pitches down, uses his slider as his out pitch and gets good movement on his fastball.
So far in the minors, his strikeouts per nine innings have stayed constant except for this year and last year. In 2005, his K/9 was 8.21, with his stay with Brooklyn in 06, it dropped to 7.07 and then in 06, when he moved to Hagerstown, it increased to 7.32. Last season though, it dropped like a rock to 4.26 and right now its back on a slight rise to 4.64.
His ERA has fluctuated over his time in the minors with  the Mets. In his first season he pitched 34.0 innings with an ERA of 3.97. His first 70.0 innings in 2006 (Brooklyn), were awesome as he posted a 1.16 ERA. (He was honored with an All Star Appearance for the New York Penn League in 2006 due to his dominance.)The next half of the season was not as awesome as he posted a 5.16 ERA over 62.2 innings in Hagerstown. He pitched the most innings in 2007 (143.2, roughly 10 more than 06) and posted a good ERA of 4.13. This season he has been struggling over 42 innings with a 6.33 ERA. (This season he is pitching in AA, and facing tougher batters).
Between his ability to strike out batters between the minors and college, and his good ERA for most of his career, he could make an impact in the majors. He should be interesting to follow and lets see how he finishes out his 2008 campaign. Lets see if he can drop that ERA.

Image of his 2008 Bowman card from Ebay.

The Orioles are finally listening to their fans, which is a shocker. The Baltimore Sun printed this morning that the team is going to move to have “Baltimore” on their away jerseys next year. Fans here have wanted that for a long time and this is a pretty good PR move for the Orioles (as opposed to this horrible PR move made by the birds). Also, for their owner, Peter Angelos, will get more money as I am sure many Oriole fans will buy these new away uniforms.
I am glad the Orioles are doing this for another reason. It really frustrates me when team's away uniforms do not say the town, city, or state where they play. There are two main reasons. One, its not traditional. Two, and more importantly, having the town, city or state, name on the away jersey creates more of a fan base and a feeling of city pride for the team.

Also according to the Baltimore Sun, today is the anniversary or Nolan Ryan's 4th no-hitter. It happened in 1975 when he was with the Angels, and he defeated the Orioles 1-0. This also was his 100th career victory. I bring this up because tonight, Johan Santana goes for his 100th major league victory.

(Article on Baltimore away Jerseys can be found on 1D, information on Nolan Ryan can be found on page 5D of today's Baltimore Sun.

The Mets will see today if their winning streak was a sign of things to come or a tease of a season that will never be with today's game. If the Mets win today, they still have a shot of taking this series and they will have to get through Billingsley this afternoon.
Billingsley has already pitched against the Mets once this season, beating the Mets in 6 innings of work. He allowed a run, walked four and struck out 4. Besides one inning of work against the Mets in 2007, this is his only experience against the Mets. On the season, he is 4-6 over 12 games and 56.2 IP and has posted an ERA of 3.68. The following Mets have these stats against Billingsley:
    Schneider 2-7
    Beltran 2-4
    Reyes 0-3
    Wright 0-3
What was frustrating last time the Mets played Billingsley is that they could not get anything going. They would walk on base, they would get hits, but they just could not drive anybody home. The past four games the Mets have scored 25 runs, so if they can keep that up, then the Mets should be fine today.
The Mets will need Pelfrey to step up today. On the season, he is 2-6 over 9 games and 49.0 innings pitched, he has posted an ERA of 5.33. He has never started against the Dodgers and there are no current players on the Dodgers that have a batting history with Pelfrey, so here are some stats about Pelfrey this year:
    Left-handed Batters – .385 BA
    Right-handed Batters – .272 BA
    1st PA vs Pelfrey .286 BA
    2nd PA vs Pelfrey .299 BA
    3rd PA vs Pelfrey .404 BA
That third time around the batting order, batting average worries me, but hopefully that won't happen today.
Lets Go Mets!

The Mets will try to make it four in a row tonight as they take on the Dodgers in the second game of a four game set. The Mets are now 15-10 at home, and they will try to make it 16-10 and standing in their way tonight is Kershaw, making his second career start in the majors. The Mets will face the unknown with John Maine.
Kershaw scares me right now only because he is unknown. The mystery pitchers generally are the ones that mess with the Mets. In his debut, he pitched 6 innings, allowed 5 hits and 2 runs, walked one and stuck out 7. He received a no decisions. In 9 starts, 10 games in the minors this year, Kershaw pitched 43.1 innings, posted a 2.28 ERA and an 0-3 record. He walked 15 and stuck out 47. The main trend that I see here is that he strikes out a lot more than he walks, which gives flashbacks to that game against the Nationals where Figueroa made his season debut. Although the Mets won that game, they struck out 11 Mets in Lannan's six innings of work.

The Mets will rely on Maine tonight to help the Mets offense in case they forget how to hit against the unknown quantity that is Kershaw. Maine this season has pitched 10 games to the tune of a 5-4 record and 3.41 ERA over 58.0 IP. Right now he is in the midst of a two game slide dropping both of his last starts. He lasted a combined 10 innings and given up 7 runs (6.30 ERA), walked 7 and struck out 10 over those last two starts. Before this 2 game slide, Maine was on a four game winning streak. During those four games and 25.1 innings, he posted an ERA of 2.13! One of those wins was against the Dodgers where he pitched 8.1 innings and didn't give up a run until the 9th inning. He walked 2 in that game and struck out 7. He struggled against the Dodgers last year, putting up an 0-2 record in as many games, over 11 innings pitched, allowed 7 runs (5.73 ERA), walked 3 and struck out 8. Here are some Dodger stats against Maine:
    Pierre 3-11, 2 3B
    Kent 2-7
    Martin 0-6
    Ethier 1-7
Lets hope the Mets current momentum will lead them to light up Kershaw tonight and lead Maine to a repeat performance from May 7th.
Lets Go Mets!

It has always amazed me how emotions can change over the course of a 162 game season. A three game winning streak can completely change how everyone feels. Last week, I was nearing depression. Baseball did not look good for the Mets and I was starting to get jealous of other teams that were winning. Now the Mets started to win, but more importantly, they started to play with that same energy they did in 2006. The past two days I have gotten up in the morning and thought, “Man, its a great day to turn on ESPN to watch Sportscenter.”
This all goes to show how amazing a game baseball is. How it can take a whole community of people (a community of Mets fans of course) and put them on an emotional roller coaster.
On the topic of current streaks. The Royals have lost 11 straight, and I feel like I haven't really heard anything about their losing ways. I'm assuming the majority of that is due to the media expecting the Royals to lose. At the start of the season, they were pretty good, but of all the teams that surprisingly started off good, they have just lost all of the wheels on their car. Their record right now is 21-33, meaning before the streak it was 21-22, around where the Mets are now. Just goes to show anything anything can happen.
Besides the Mets and the Royals, there are only four other teams on streaks of three games or more. The San Francisco Giants are now on a 3 game winning streak, the Cubs, Twins and the Phillies are each on 4 game winning streaks right now.
Lets keep it going! (Except the Phillies)

Update (4:22):
I forgot to look at the NL West! The Diamondbacks, Dodgers, and Rockies all have four game losing streaks right now. Rockies are close right now to ending that streak.
Update (5:20):
Rockies give up 9 unanswered runs after putting up 8 unanswered runs to lose 10-9 to the Cubs. The Rockies, reigning NL champs, now have a losing streak at 5 games.

The Mets open up their four game set with the Dodgers tonight as they try to pull their winning ways into a three game streak. The Mets and the Dodgers played 3 earlier this month in LA where the only game the Mets won was against tonight's starter, Brad Penny. The Mets will be sending up Vargas tonight.
Lets go back to that game when Penny pitched. He lasted only 4.2 innings allowing 10 earned runs, walked 3 and struck out 2. Last year, he pitched 3 games against the Mets with a 2-1 record over 19.1 innings where he posted an ERA of 3.26 walking 6 and striking out 14. This season, Penny has a record of 5-5 over 11 games and 66.0 innings pitched. He has had a 5.32 ERA. The Mets have put up these numbers against Penny:
    Reyes 7-28, 2 2B, HR, 4 BB
    Delgado 6-21, 3 2B, HR
    Wright 9-17, 2 HR, 6 RBI, .529 BA, .591 OBP
    Tatis 0-8
The show tonight can easily come from the left side of the infield. Wright has great numbers against Penny lifetime and Reyes has really been on a tear over the last 12 games.
Vargas will be taking the rubber for the Mets tonight. So far this season he has a 1-2 record over 3 games and 18.1 innings and a 3.93 ERA. The last time he faced the Dodgers was in 2006 where he faced them 4 times over 21 innings and had a 1-2 record, 5.14 ERA, 5 walks and 10 K's. Here are some Dodger stats against Vargas:
    Pierre 9-17, 4 2B, 3B
    Penny 3-8, 2B
    Martin 2-7, 2B, HR
    Kent 4-15, 2 2B, 5 K
So tonight the Mets essentially will be facing a line up with the automatic pitcher out due to the success of Penny vs Vargas. Lets see if the Mets can carry the momentum back into Shea tonight!
Lets Go Mets!

Reyes has some pretty good numbers so far this season. In 208 AB, he has 31 R, 58 H, 12 2B, 5 3B, 7 HR, 24 RBI, and 16 SB. Those look really good, but what do they mean if they are dragged out over 681 AB, his AB total from last year? Well the result is quite good:
2008 Projection:
    101 R, 190 H, 39 2B, 16 3B, 22 HR, 79 RBI, 52 SB
His R total would be down from last year (119) and his H total would be about the same (191). He has more doubles and triples (36 and 12). His big increases would be in homers and RBI. Last year he had 12 homers and only 57 RBI. 22 homers would be a career high and his RBI total would only be 2 short of a career high of 81. His stolen bases would be down to a more human 52 (78 last year). If that projection line holds true, it would be incredible for this team.
Reyes has seemed to be hitting well of late, and numbers back up those feelings. From the start of the subway series to last night (12 games) Reyes has been very good:
    53 AB, 9 R, 18 H, 4 2B, 5 HR, 10 RBI, 4 SB, .340 BA, .368 OBP, .698 SLG
Nice Reyes…Keep those numbers up.
I was also curious on how the Mets as a team can compare to the Mets of last year in terms of HR hit, GIDP hit and HR allowed. So far this year, the Mets have hit 46 HR, hit into 38 GIDP, and allowed 52 HR. Last year, the Mets hit 177 HR, hit into 114 GIDP, and allowed 165 HR.
If this years numbers over 51 games is extrapolated out, these are the results:
    146 HR Hit (.9 per G)
    120 GIDP (.75 per G)
    165 HR allowed (1.02 per G)
So, if you feel that the Mets are hitting less HR than last year, you are correct in your feelings. If you feel like they are grounding into more Double Plays, then you are also more correct. If you feel like the Mets are giving up more homeruns than they did last year, you are wrong because its the same!
I was very surprised that they are on pace this year to give up the same amount of homeruns that they did last year, I guess it feels like they are giving up more because they are hitting less as a team.