Agreed on all counts. Chavez is a decent 4th OF, but if he's starting every day, his bat is going to become a drag. Guys with a career .684 OBP with 8 big league seasons don't suddenly become Manny Ramirez at age 31.
Looks like Pelfrey may miss his next scheduled start on Sunday with Forearm tightness. Now I know thats not a big deal on the surface of it as he wants to pitch through it but thats how Wagner's problems started last year. I have long since not been a fan of this training staff and I am worried this will be worse then expected. Last night was just another reason I wanted us to go get Manny this offseason. I believe we're already among the league leaders in runners left in scoring position. Just horrid. You feel like banging your head on the desk watching some of these players hit. Originally I didnt want Holliday citing his 200 point differential between his home/road OPS splits the last 2 years in Colorado but given how bad we have been, I may yet change my mind on that. We are that bad with risp. I dont think the Marlins are going away this year. Theyre on some every 6 year type of thing where they win it all. 1997, 2003...2009? They can hit and they have at least 3 pitchers im sold on in Nolasco, Johnson and Sanchez..possibly 4 in Volstad. Lucky for us the Atlanta bullpen looks like our did last year; awful. Absolutely awful aside from Soriano.
And Sheff with a pinch hit homer to tie it at 4. #500 for Sheff. 1st player to hit his 500th homer as a met; Delgado may be the 2nd if he keeps up this torrid place. Sheff is also the first player to hit his 500th homer as his 1st homer in a new uniform.
He is the suck. 3 more years of this turd. He doesnt need a conditioning program or a pitching coach, Ollie needs a shrink to figure out what the hell he's doing out there There's a lot more holes on this team than I thought. the starting pitching aside from Johan and Livan has been Phillie-esque, i.e. brutal. Absolutely horrid.
Well at least we looked like a team out there tonight. Pelf and Maine starting to come around with good starts, Pelf on Saturday when he had 14 GB outs/only 1 FB out and Maine finally started pitching out there today. Wright finally looked good at the plate today as well, punching the ball to the opposite field. He hasnt been doing that at all this year.
PHILLIES versus the Mets Friday, Saturday and Sunday. These are much more must win games for the Mets then they are for the Phillies, even though it is still early in the season. It sounds like many Met's fans are already giving up on the season and wanting D. Wright to be given a day off, or dropped to the bottom half of the lineup. We'll be happy to take Wright off your hands if you don't want him. Looks like some good pitching matches, but we won't have the opportnity to face Met's ace Johan Santana. Good luck fellas.
I don't think Met fans are giving up so much as they are crashing back to reality with the facts that this group lacks a killer instinct and it may have a stale core. The talent is there but the confidence is not. And the starting rotation right now is extremely average.
The NY Time's said pretty much the same thing Boik in a recent article: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/01/sports/baseball/01phillies.html What I like about the Phillies is their 6-2 record on the road....they are just 5-7 at home, but I think that will get much better. The Phillies don't get worried when they fall behind in games. It's a long season though. I am impressed with the way the Cardinals and Padres are playing right now. Should be an interesting year.
Man, it is so awesome having Johan on our team. He is just sick... Shame we aren't giving him any run support (2 runs per game) and he has a 0.90 era. Very good outing by Chan Ho as well, errors cost the phillies this game...
Good game. I didn't think Chan Ho would pitch that well, but hopefully he can be a solid #5 pitcher now. We couldn't get much going off of Johan. That 7th inning we just fell apart. Werth hesitated twice on throwing home and should have thrown out Delgado. Ahhh well, still in first for now. Should be a good matchup on Thursday.
The stats on Johan are mindboggling. Hes lost only 1 of his last 23 starts. Hes won 13 of his last 14 decisions. The run support dating back to last year is horrific, like 14 runs over his last 10 starts while he was in the game. NL player of the month by the way...1.10 era for April/3-1 in April.
By the way the umpiring in this game is horrific. Umps missed a call regarding a foul tip on what should have been a strike 3. Called a runner safe when he was out on a double play Called interference on Jose Reyes when Victorino throws a forearm at Jose and initiates the contact. Angel Hernandez and Bill Welke suck!
Jaime Moyer looks like he is on his last legs. He can look great against a team like the Marlins but he also gets hammered when his slow stuff misses the strike zone. Looks like everyone but the Nationals could have a shot in the NL East this year. If the Phils don't get another starting pitcher or two around the trade deadline I don't see them repeating. You can't outscore everone even in a hitter's park. It's tough hitting a homer at Citifield.....I would lower the fences there just a little and move them in a smidge. It's the total opposite of the CBP.
I said at the beginning of the year the Phils starting pitching is the worst in the NL and so far they are proving me right. They need to seriously overhaul their staff. Im not sure how some of their kids are doing on the farm but J.A. Happ, Kyle Kendrick, and Andrew Carpenter cant really be worse then the guys you have lined up after Hamels and Blanton. Moyer especially looks done. 11 homers in 28+ innings is well, horrid. I actually like the way Citifield plays. It goes to Reyes, Wright and Beltran's strengths, hitting to gaps not trying to pull everything over the wall. The Mets have more triples then homers in Citifield. No one has done that over a full season in more then 60 years. In this park the way some of the guys on this team run its not inconceivable at all. Reyes especially could set some records there as far as triples go. It also plays to the teams philosophy which throughout the Mets history every year we have a good team, we have strong pitching. For a team that hasn't even put many position players in all star games this is not something to ignore.
Yeah there should be a lot of triples hit there. Ibanez would have had one in game one but the ball bounced over the fence for a ground rule double. I heard Victorino slid into Reyes or something (??) but I didn't see the play. The Phillies have a pitcher named Carrasco at AAA who I think should have been their 5th starter. Kendrick and Happ or ok but still inconsistent. I keep telling Phillies fans we need to go after Roy Halladay. I saw him pitch in Denver in high school and he just shuts teams down. I think Peavy will probably be available before the trade deadline but that would also take a lot to get him. I think Ruben Amaro will add a starting pitcher before the trade deadline. Looks like the Mets have the Pirates and we have the Braves next....we usually do well against the Braves as long as Chipper is not killing us. I think you can vote for the all stars 25 times on the MLB site? I think the game is in St. Louis so you will probably see Pujols and a lot of Cardinals starting as they love to stuff the ballots in St. Louis.
Victorino didnt slide in to Reyes. Victorino got caught in a rundown and gave Reyes a forearm and the idiot ump calls interference on Reyes. Jerry got ticked, rightfully so, and got himself tossed (and as it tuns out suspended for today's game for "Aggressive Arguing"/hat to hat contact which by the way is hysterical). Yeah you can vote 25x on the mlb site. Im voting for Lastings Milledge. I know a lot of people doing it just to embarrass the Nats since everyone knows they have no idea what theyre doing. Since hes still listed on the ballot, why not.
6 in a row baby! If liven wins tomorrow vs Pitt we have Johan on Monday vs Atl or Philly, forget which. Good to see the big 4 bats starting to click. Most important we are doing what we are supposed to do with bad teams and the rest of this mediocre division.
ATL on monday. I really want this win today, these are the games that always seem to get away from us. We need a sweep to really show the killers edge. Snell is a good pitcher but the Mets are really clicking right now. Good starting pitching does wonders for a team.
Ok, so there's not really much to complain about after winning 7 in a row with Johan coming up next but: Something's gotta give with Church. I love the guy in the field and all, but history is repeating itself here. He starts off good like last year and then he hits a wall early and bats .225 the rest of the way. I think he's gonna be a huge liability in this lineup the rest of the way and we'll start seeing a whole lot of Sheffield.
According to ESPN.com snell felt we had their signs. Yet he wasnt mad. 7 in a row bro Im starting to think that poaching Magglio or Jermaine Dye may be a really good idea. You have to love Church's defense but man he goes in to these tailspins where he cant hit a beachball. I love what Sheff brings but he is not who I want as our everyday RF. His defense out there will cost us more then his offense may be worth.
I just don't get it. Another 0 earned run loss. Granted he didn't have his best stuff, but he got the ground balls when needed and should have gotten the outs if it wasn't for the errors. They don't score runs for him. 15 runs so far this season in games he pitched. It is ridiculous he should easily be 6-0. .71 era and 2 losses. And he was definitely visibly upset in the dugout.
well we gave one away yesterday and got it back today. Beltran was definitely out on that steal of third in the bottom of the 9th. Good to see Slapstillo come through though with the clutch sac fly. Niese goes tomorrow. He pwned the Braves last year down the stretch....hopefully we get a repeat of that performance.
He was but I think it did even out because that play on Reyes going for the triple - as stupid of a running decision that was - the throw beat him but on the replay it sure looked like he slid under that tag. And can someone get Wright to listen to Keith Hernandez already??
I think the whole league could use some lessons from Mex and Darling about fundamentally sound baseball. We're lucky to have great announcers compared to the shlub we had before, the clueless fran healy.
How does a guy with a 0.78 era get "outpitched"? His offense acts like the clock struck midnight when he takes the mound. Hes had like 14 runs of support in his 7 starts combined. Pathetic. He should be at least 6-0. Losing 2 games without giving up an earned run is insane especially when there has only been 3 such games in all of MLB.
Man we are picking a bad time to be bruised up. On the road for 10 vs the 3 best teams at home in SF, LA and Boston. Reyes - out tonight - Calf - day to day Delgado - Out til at least the weekend - hip impingement - day to day Schneider - Not even close to returning - Back/legs Putz - Elbow - day to day (supposedly not serious) Figueroa recalled, Niese sent down yesterday as Putz is out tonight and tomorrow. Signed FA catcher Javier Valentin. Solid depth signing who could compete with Santos next year for the starting job even though he is light with the bat. Also supposedly we are waiting til at least June to consider putting Fernando Martinez on the 40 man to delay service time. Before June = FA 2014, after June = FA 2015. Delgado's injury is the reason I bring this up. Minaya specifically mentioned on his conference call today (per ny post).
That's a complete joke. If Martinez can really help the Mets now he should be up. Geez its the New York Mets, not cheap teams like the Florida Marlins or San Diego Padres or even a team that has money like Baltimore but stink anyway so they might as well hold back their top talent until then. The last thing the Mets need to worry about is service time and arbitration costs.
The main reason was not money related. Its because they want to give him more seasoning. Hes no lock to be up in June or even September. But he journeymen Ramon Martinez and Michael Abreu are the only internal solutions not playing like complete crap...that means you Nick Evans if youre out there reading this!
Then Omar should have just said that because his comments make it sounds money related. I'd totally agree not to bring him up if 1. they don't think he's ready or 2. if he's just going to warm the bench because that will hurt his development.
Great come back win tonight vs the Giants. Spotted a 5-1 lead we fought back and made it 6-3 when he left. Then the David Wright we all love to watch swatted a bases clearing 3 run double to tie it. Picked up two in the top of the ninth, the first on a throwing error by Brian Wilson to win it. The news on Delgado seems to vary heavily, ranging from day to day to career threatening surgery needed. According to metsblog Minaya met with ownership and coaches today to discuss options. I dont think anything is imminent but they will have to make a decision on Delgado soon as playing 23 vs 25 isnt a good thing usually. Murphy's AB's have declined as a result of Sheffield's lineup presence being required. I know he has been taking some infield practice at 1B. Jeremy Reed started at 1B, after Alex Cora and Fernando Tatis have been playing there this week. This could get really interesting with makeshift lineups and players learning new postions all over the place. Reyes appeared as a PH tonight and looked horrible. Not sure if it was the calf or Jeremy Affeldt that made him look so bad but man it wasn't pretty. Alex Cora was one hell of an underrated signing. Great team player and does the little things well. We need 3 of 4 this series vs SF with LAD and Boston looming. If we split those 6 games with LA and Boston and come home 6-4 ill be pretty happy. Anything better and I'll be thrilled.
It's not a joke, it's good roster management. Getting an extra year of service time out of a player that you believe is going to be a long-term fixture is absolutely the right move. That's more leverage the Mets have to give Martinez a long-term deal that buys out a couple arbitration years and keeps him locked up for several more years at a reasonable price, much like they did with Wright and Reyes. We're not talking about a savings of $1 or 2 million, it's more like $10+ million, and that's significant for any team. The only exception is if you're wracked by injury and have no capable replacement available AND if the player is absolutely wearing out AAA pitching. Martinez is 281/328/500 in 138 at bats: not bad, but hardly fantastic. And in any case, Fernando Martinez probably isn't a huge upgrade over some type of Fernando Tatis/Dan Murphy platoon.
Great win today; nice to see the Mets finally pick up Johan on a day when he didn't have his A game. I liked the Cora signing at the time, and he's done nothing to make me go back on that. And I'm glad to see Luis Castillo playing well too. No, he's not hitting with much power, but he's getting on base, and swiping a few bags while there.
David Wright with another big day with RISP! Please continue to drive in those runs. I want so badly for him to lay those "choke with RISP" demons to rest
I agree, Slapstillo has been a pleasant surprise. I have to apologize for my harshness. Hes showing some pride and playing hard and doing pretty well. Just hit 300, play solid D, and have a high OBP. That label was such BS from the beginning. Its only the last year and a half for whatever reason he has had those issues.
My point is that if the Mets could use him (not having him warm the bench) they should call him up, especially how the last 2 years ended and not worry about service time. Games in April and May count just as much as games in August and September and if he can help he should be up. I do agree with you with the 2nd paragraph 100%. I just think with Omar making those comments it makes them sound cheap especially since they got killed all off season for not going after Manny and also everything with Wilpon and Madoff.
Oh, I agree. But, when this happens to some players they read about these things in the paper and they tend to start having mental issues about it (i.e. AROD) which then compound and make it even harder for the hitter to break out of the slump. It's one thing I was scared about with Wright. This BS label having an effect on his mentality and damaging his psyche. I'm glad these last 10 games it has shown that it hasn't gotten to him.
