213 Miles From Shea

Yankees and RedSox tonight?

No thanks, theres an amazing Braves and Mets matchup that I am much more interested in (but I wont see it live, I'll be at the Orioles game, student night man).

The tough task for the Mets tonight, Hudson. Hudson has been dominent so far this season. The formula to beat the Braves, by knocking the starter out early, will be tougher in tonights game. You can probably expect a 7 inning start, followed by some good bullpen work.

Advantage for the Mets, they have been hitting extremely well in the last two games, I really hope that it continues tonight.

Tonight's Braves lineup will also be tough for Pelfry tonight. Its a good challenge for him,

Lets Go Mets

Another Large margin win. Another win with offense all over the line up.

How bout Ramon Castro, he is a really good fill in for LoDuca. He hits well, he def. hit well tonight. Although he is not as good and as consistant as LoDuca, he is def. a big part of this team. (In my opinion, few teams have really good back up catchers).

There was a nice spread in the offense, some of the numbers, like Valtine and Green already having 7 RBI, are really surprising (in a good way) because they show the spread of the hitting.

And the Mets really have been racking up the SO from the pitching end. El Duque with 10, Burgos with 2, and Wagner with 3.

There are two things I am worried about. The first is that Delgado is striking out a lot this year. The second is a lack of power from Wright.

I do not worry about this being a long term problem though.

Binghamton actually played (and won) today. Finally, they play a game. As I am writing this, the Zephyrs are in the top of the 8th, Gomez has had no hits tonight, but did steal his 7th base of the season.

The Phillies actually won a game. The Braves actually lost a game. This means that the Mets are now a half game up going into tommorows three game Braves/Mets series. These two dominent teams will clash again as the Mets have to go 2 of 3 to keep the lead in the Division and to even the season head to head record up. This also means that they will have to attempt at winning 2 day games this year. They have not won a day game yet (and thus have a Saturday/Sunday record of 0-4).

Last night was a great all around game, no need to talk about specific stats, because you already know them by now, but man, I love the fact how the damage in the lineup is coming up and down. Thats how teams win, when pitchers have no where to pitch around.

And how bout that pitching…unbelievable…its just a great time to be a Mets fan.

And I really wish that a game at Binghamton could be played… Maybe tonight…or this weekend…I hope

I just went onto MLB.com and saw that voting has started for the All-Star game

Its April 18th…we are 12 games into the season (plus or minus some depending on your ball club), and the voting has started…which further proves this is a popularity contest (which i of course feed into by voting for the Mets)

Also…Mike Piazza isnt on it…so please, write him in for catcher (or first base) even though those will be won by either Oritiz/Giamabi or Varitek/Posada.

Tonight is Maine Vs Willis.

Maine, who struggled last time, has had eight days rest for this start. He has only one start agaisnt the Marlins, which he lost. Willis, on the other hand, is 11-2 agaisnt the Mets. He is also notorious for hitting a lot of homers agaisnt the Mets,

And that is also Maine's weakness

Julio Franco actually hits .316 off Willis. The Mets bats overall come into this game after a nice 8-1 win. Other stats include that the Mets are 8-1 when it comes to night games during the season. Overall, they are 5-4 in NL East.

I wonder sometimes how this season will progress. There are days where the Mets struggle to produce runs, and then there are days where they just launch homers, and hit everywhere. I assume this is just normal there.

That being said, Alou came alive, Well he was hitting very well already this season, in terms of homers as he launched two. And Wright continued his hitting streak. However, you know by now that I love stolen bases. Reyes had 2 tonight, and so did Beltran.

Glavine's pitching was awesome…and Smith did an excellent job again.

Tonight was just an all around good night

The Braves beat the Nats, and as I write this, the Marlins are losing 6-1 in the top of 8th (they lost last night)

In Minor News tonight, Milledge stole a base, Gomez had another hit, and had 2 RBI

More importantly, Vargas had another strong 6 inning outing. His ERA now is 1.50

Nice to know we have something a lot better than Jose Lima as a back up.

Binghamton was ppd again

They will never play ever again at this rate.

The important game of the night, Braves at Washington, resulted in a Washington win.

Has anyone noticed that recently, the Nationals have been bouncing back? Not that I am concerned, but one could say that their last 4 games have been played very well (including the 3-2 loss to the Mets).

They beat the Braves 5-1 tonight, really just shutting down the Braves to five hits. Meanwhile, they hit James for 3 and Yates for 2

Yates has seemed to be a weak link in the Braves Bullpen. You have to start wonder if the Braves will start to explore other options, maybe sending Yates down for a week or two to give him a wake up call.

At the time I am writing this, Florida is all tied up with Houston, bot 7th

There is a lot to report from tonights Zephyrs game. The first stop is Carlos Gomez, cause he is always exciting. He wint 3-3 tonight, with a run, a triple, and two walks. He is now batting .419

So I am really pumped about this kid.

Henrandez and Gotay may be batting 180 and 150 respectivly, but tonight they both showed some strength knocking in 2-run shots each. (Hernandez did strikeout 3 times though).

Andy Tracy knocked in HR number 5. He plays first and used to play third for the Expos.

The biggest story of this game has to be Humber who went 6 innings, one run, and had 4 SO

The overall score was 10-2, after losing the day before 3-10.

Here are some misc notes

Ray Knight does the pregame show for the Nationals. I am sorry to say, but he is really boring when it comes to this. If he would talk more about his playing days, he would be much better.

Cliff Floyd hit a homerun today

There are now three starters for the Yankees that are on the DL. Wang is still on there, Mussina is on there now, and Pavano (surpise surpise) is on there.

I guess this means the major league debut of Phillip Hughes must be soon. I dont like the yanks, but I def. want to see what this kid has.

BJ Ryan is now on the DL.

In the AL East, that is a serious blow. Hes got good stuff, and I dont know a lot about the Jays bullpen, but there are no replacements that can be as good as him.

Back to the Yankees, Matsui is on the DL.

Another Matsui, Kaz, is on the DL for back spasms.

Shame, ol Kaz was getting off to a roaring start this season too.

Bradly (Athletics) and Dunn (Reds) were both scratched from games yesterday as well.

Just thought this was cool. The BrewCrew is leading the majors now in Bobblehead promotions. They will have 18 this year.

That is a lot of bobbleheads

There is nothing like a rain or weather ppd. You get all excited about the game coming up. The possibility of winning, In this case, getting back into first. The possibility of seeing someone knock it out of the yard. Or seeing someone shout down the opponents lineup.

And then you get none of it.

Ok its just one day, and thats a bit of an over reaction.

I was watching the Orioles last night, and the fans got free ponchos from the new cable station that carries the orioles and the nationals (its two stations) MASN and MASN2. So far, these guys give us our games, they give us our scheduels, friday night, they gave us winter hats, and now they give us ponchos…they are the provider now in the Baltimore.

And the Oriole prediction came true again, so far, the Orioles have gone Loss, Win, Loss, Win, when the Mets lose. In three of those games, there have been grandslams.

In other news, Freddy Garcia will make his first start of the season tommorow agaisnt the Mets. This will be the Mets first two game series of the year (followed by another in Flordia).  Last year, in three starts, Maine was 3-0 agaisnt the Phillies, and had a 1.96 ERA. Thats a lot different than his last start vs Philly. Beltran has a .457 average (over 800 slugging) agaisnt Garcia.

And Atlanta is crushing Flordia right now, 8-1 in the bot of the 8th

Well that was a bust. A team cant lose all of its games, so, even though the Nationals won earlier this week, I guess it was time for them to win again.

The thing I really have to say to this game is…clutch hitting.

The Mets don't seem to have it anymore…they left 4 runners on third during this game. And for DWright, its not going to help his homerun slump being “robbed” on the wall like that. So all in all, this was just a frustrating game.

So in 11 games so far this season, these are some of the numbers:

The Mets are 0-3 during day games

They are 0-2 on Saturdays

They are 4-0 for the first game in a series

But they are 1-3 on the Second game of the series (0-3 for the second game if agaisnt a NL East team)

Overall, they are 4-4 on the NL East, 3-0 agaisnt others

Weird Numbers so far.