Mets Bloggers on the Field!
Last night was an amazing experience; The New York Mets invited me, and a score or so other bloggers, to Citi Field, gave us field passes to watch batting practice from the warning track in front of the dugout, excellent tickets to the game, the chance to talk to players, and even a $10 gift card.
From Now On, I'm sticking to the story that Fred Wilpon bought me pizza
Reyes Tosses
Tags: Baseball, batting practice, bloggers, blogging, blogs, cardinals, field access, Mets, mets bloggers, New York Mets, on the field, St. Louis Cardinals, twitter
Opening Day 2010
Today was Opening Day at Citi Field. A day filled with optimism. (Unless you’re one of the fans booing Oliver Perez, the Mets trainers, Luis Castillo or Jerry Manuel) The day lived up to the hype and the Mets won as they usually do on Opening Day. I met with a surprising amount of other bloggers and the Blue Cap Army to tour the Mets Hall of Fame and Museum which was a lot of fun. Hopefully I’ll see a bunch more of them this season. (My next game is Friday.)
The important stuff:
Johan pitched great. He wasn’t exactly lights out, but he was excellent and held the Marlins to 1 run in 6 innings. The bullpen pitched excellently. It was just Nieve and K-Rod this time, but still good way to start. David Wright got his first home run in his first at-bat, and it was just amazing. Wright’s poised to have an amazing MVP caliber player, and getting that first home run out of the way so that no one can start doubting him was a great jolt to the Mets fans. It said, “This season is going to be good. We’re not going to fall on old clichés and you’re not going to be able to use the phrase ‘here we go again.’” Bay and Barajas both had big hits, to help break the ice so to speak. More importantly, the Mets were aggressive. They played an aggressive game, made the Marlins have to make plays (they didn’t), and played hard. There was even a suicide squeeze attempt which was great to see. So even though I think he’s still the worst manager the Mets have ever had, I do offer kudos to Jerry Manuel for calling that play. Suicide squeezes and terror on the basepaths is a much better way to try to steal runs than sacrifice bunting.
Now some pictures of things I noticed at Citi Field today. There are a lot of changes, and plenty of them are fairly mundane, but still changes. I took 400 pictures and a couple of videos, and there was so much good stuff that I’ll never be able to get to it all. The full gallery is here. More pictures at The Real Dirty Mets Blog.
The moved Home Run Apple. Great change. Great location. Looks amazing there. Could become a meeting point, although it’s just a wee bit crowded there.
more below to save on page load times.
Tags: awesome, Baseball, bloggers, blue cap army, Citi Field, Mets, mets police, opening day, opening day 2010, photos, pictures, shea bridge
Fantasy Baseball
I know it’s early, but I’m impatient for the season to start. So I created a “Mets Bloggers” fantasy baseball league on Yahoo.
Unfortunately we can’t all take Johan.
League ID#: 17569
League Name: Mets Bloggers
Tags: fantasy baseball, fantasy sports, Mets, yahoo
Mets Extra
At the end of 162, it’s the Philadelphia Phillies 89, the New York Mets 88.
Wow. That sucked. So much for my optimism. I’m not going to be one of those fans that throws blame and anger all over the place, calling for heads and trades and all of that. I will break down the team and next year and what I want to see happen sometime in the near future. I expect I’ll update a bit through the playoffs (I’m rooting for the Cubs) talk about awards and all of that. After October I’ll still post, maybe once a week, or when other things happen. I’m proud of myself for getting through the entire season with this blog, and look forward to making new bloggie friends in the off-season and next year. Here is my postseason prediction, and my in-season stats for the year.
I think the Rockies win tomorrow.
AL Divisional Round
RED SOX defeat
ANGELS (3-1)
INDIANS defeat YANKEES (3-0)
AL
Championship
RED SOX defeat INDIANS (4-1)
NL Divisional
Round
ROCKIES defeat PHILLIES (3-1)
CUBS defeat
DIAMONDBACKS (3-1)
NL Championship
CUBS defeat ROCKIES (4-2)
World Series
RED SOX defeat CUBS
(4-2)
Personally I went to 33 baseball games this year.
My record at Shea Stadium was 15-12.
My record at Mets games was 17-12.
My record for the hometeam was 18-15.
My record for the Nationals was 3-2. (This included three stadiums, RFK, Shea, and Dolphin Stadium)
This year I attended games in 4 stadiums(Shea, RFK, Yankee, and Dolphin)
I’ve now been to 13 Stadiums(Shea, Yankee, Fenway, Wrigley, Citizens Bank, Dolphin, RFK, Petco, ½ old Busch, ½ new Busch, Dodger, Angel, San Fran, McAfee)
Next year the goal is to check out Camden Yards, Nationals park, and Tropicana field.
The Optimistic Mets Blog player of the year is: David Wright.
Is there any doubt? David Wright is looking so good. He was the most solid, consistant player on this team. He struggled in April when the team didn’t, and since then there have been very few games he hasn’t gotten a hit in. He’s now in the top two or three in career Mets avg, slugging, obp and ops. He’s got a .311 career Mets batting average. He expanded his game, learned from his peers, and took on more of a leadership role. He’s a great fielder who needs to figure out his throws a bit, but I’m so glad he’s on our team.
Tags: David Wright, end of the season, my stats, postseason, predictions, recap
Fiery Ejections and Walk-off Doubles
At Shea for my usual Saturday season ticket plan, I finally got to see the Mets with two in a roll, win a series, and it was fun. The attendance was over 52,920, and it seems that many of the bloggers I read were there as well. The Faith and Fear duo, Metsradamus, and Metswalkoffs. I think they all had better seats than me too.
It was a great game, Orlando Hernandez was pitching well, and so was Joe Blanton. El Duque let up some base runners, but they always got out of it, and he battled through the 7th with nearly 120 pitches. One could think that scoring only one run is just the Mets slumping again, but that’s not the case. All the credit there goes to Joe Blanton, who pitched through eight innings. The Mets did have Ricky Ledee thrown out at the plate on a nice 2-out, runners in scoring position, double by Carlos Beltran. I think Evan Roberts really needs to rip Joe Benigno about that on their show on WFAN Monday, because he’s playing very well. He was running full-speed on Wright’s walk-off double, even though his run was meaningless. He was excited, and he came charging around third, almost catching Castro. It was a botched play in right field, as if he had played it on a hop, Castro wouldn’t have scored. It didn’t matter though, as I had faith in Delgado getting a fly-out there to score him. After struggling against Joe Blanton, as soon as he was lifted for a guy with a 0.00 ERA in 12.1 innings, they jumped all over him. Castro leads off with a double, they walk Belran to the boos, and David Wright hit’s another double the opposite way to right, game over.
The Mets win a series again, every other team in the East loses, and just like that the Mets are again three full games up on the competition. Four and five games in the loss column over Philadelphia and Atlanta. The Mets now have added another team in the A’s that they don’t have a losing record against, having tied the Cubs all-time earlier this season, also on a walk-off ninth inning hit. A pitcher’s duel, a temper tantrum with an ejection and throwing stuff on the field, and a game winning double by David Wright. What more could you ask for in a game?
I did notice a little less campaigning for Paul Lo Duca at the game today, and I wonder why. I think the Mets may have started that push a little early. Now if Paulie overtakes Martin in the voting Monday, Dodger fans will be motivated to vote hard. We should have waited until after that tally came out to push for him, and get him past the unsuspecting Dodger fans. So remember, Lo Duca still needs our votes next week, and you can vote 25 times per email address you type into that box.
Tags: 1-0, all-star voting, Carlos Beltran, David Wright, Ejection, Joe Blanton, New York Mets, Orlando hernandez, Paul Lo Duca, positive signs, Walk Off, win streak