You can root for the Mets without being convinced of their doom
Going to mix in some pictures from last night’s fireworks night win over Philly here with random stats and projections at the halfway point.
The Mets are on pace for 88 wins on the season. Last year the second wild card team would’ve been the Braves with 89. Close, and that’s right around the level the Mets, Dodgers, and Pirates are at right now.
If you read this blog even occasionally you know I’m a big fan of food and drink and in particular like noting the food and drink at Citi Field. I even have started referring to myself as the Citi Field Beer Expert. So of course I was excited when I found out they were changing the name of the Cleopatra Jones pizza slice at Two Boots to the Cleon(patra) Jones. Personally I think Two Boots at Citi Field should rename all the slices to Mets-themed slices.
Cleon did answer questions and chat with us, which was real cool of him. I left most of the questions to some of the other guys, like Greg, but it was still a cool experience to be near a Mets legend. (One of many on the day) Check out some pictures of Cleon, and pizza. And the pizza was good. If you haven’t had a slice of it before, it’s a slice with sweet Italian sausage, roasted peppers, onions, garlic & mozzarella. It’s an awesome mix of ingredients on Two Boots tasty crust. I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that Cleon Jones was on hand in part for his work with City Harvest.
Don’t answer that. I don’t care. Because this is awesome. It’s perfect despite it not being a perfect game. It’s simply Amazin’.
The first truly great moment, of many to come, at Citi Field. The first Mets moment in history in a while that instantly became a “Where were you when?” moment. The last one was probably also Johan Santana‘s. His amazin’ domination of the Florida Marlins on the second to last game of 2008.
I was at a restaurant for my mother-in-law’s birthday. A Hibachi steakhouse in Valley Stream, NY. Much like Johan Santana, this restaurant had recently been damaged and shut-down, only recently reopening. My wife, among others, joke that I’m addicted to my phone and this bit of positive reinforcement certainly won’t help with that. I fully intended to detach from baseball for a night. I’d seen Carlos Beltran‘s first at-bat before we went to dinner, and figured I’d read the recap and watch the highlights later. I didn’t. I finished my onion soup and peeked at the score. After all, Johan Santana was pitching and we’d been there to see his last dominating start as a mere mortal last Saturday. Game day told me of Duda’s 3-run home run and I smiled. I did notice that there were no hits. Of course I noticed. We always noticed. It was early though, and we’ve seen that before. My salad came and I started eating, and I drank my beer and ate some edamame. All the while that nagging feeling in the back of my brain was tingling. Internet addiction? Mets magic? I checked the score. I checked the pitch count. I got worried. These checks got more and more frequent, with a brief reprieve while the Mets were coming to bat. They had a big lead and I was just hoping they wouldn’t prolong the time Santana had to sit and wait to continue. I fretted briefly over the ‘injury delay’. As we got to the 7th inning I started seriously checking the pace of dinner.
Would the guy behind the bar flip the tiny screen to the game instead of whatever race they were showing? Was anyone really watching that? Maybe I would step out to the parking lot and use MLB’s At-Bat app for a live look-in. Would 3G service be enough for that? Probably not. The audio feed would probably be the way to go. We’d finished ice cream and our waiter had disappeared. Where was he? Run my credit card already! Bottom of the 8th. Someone finally showed up and processed it, and we could leave. I got to the car in time for the 9th. Instantly I was transported into the game. It’s amazing how these events manage to do that. I’d mentally pushed baseball down on my list of important things for the night, but it wasn’t having any of that. Tonight was about Mets baseball. I turned on the radio and Howie’s voice instantly filled me with all the jitters and emotions that we all know so well. He called the game while I drove, which I don’t recommend in such situations..not that there will ever be a situation quite like that, and he called each ball in play with the urgency it demanded but also with a hint of terror that it was going to fall in. Your brains, like mine, like Howie’s, probably ran through each of the billion ways it could’ve gone wrong. It didn’t. It so didn’t.
I parked, and everyone else went in. I listened to the recap and interviews, grateful that they didn’t go to commercial and say “Back to talk about it in a moment”. It was a great night. It was a Mets night. Baseball took over, and it was glorious.
Congratulations to Johan Santana, and Happy National Donut Day everyone!
I missed Banner Day, but every thing I saw about the event sounded amazing. Check out posts from Mets Police and Faith and Fear in Flushing for the specifics.
I have no idea why they originally stopped having Banner Day but you could tell that people were excited to have it back. 300 or more banners were made. All the announcers were talking it about it at different points throughout the day and the promotion got coverage in the papers the next day too. What’s better than a promotion that not only gets covered but has the fans doing the actual promotion?
The fans did not embarrass either. There weren’t a score of “Sell the Team!” banners or “So and so sucks!” proclamations. I sense there was a certain reluctance to bring it back by the Mets assuming that Banner Day’s day had come and gone, and I admit I thought that might be the case as well. The world today provides so many possible outlets for fans, that it wouldn’t have surprised me to learn that the desire to scribble some logos onto a bed sheet and parade around with it had been left in the previous millennium. I was wrong. The excitement I saw on Twitter and recapped by my fellow bloggers proves to me that Banner Day is the perfect promotion for Mets fandom. The winning banner was of an event and time period after Banner Day ended and the creators of the banner were what I call New Age Mets Fans. Some common trait has been passed down from Mets fan to Mets fan that instills within us the desire to talk about and parade our favorite players and moments.
Optimism was present in many of the banners. One of my favorites read, “The Mets are going all the way, Duda, Duda!” which I thought was clever and that I think I’m going to co-opt occasionally this year. There were tributes to announcers, and players of the recent past as well as the distant past. Current players got some love too, including a mock-up of a newspaper cover featuring R.A. Dickey’s exploits.
I wonder if the Mets were impressed by the enthusiasm and fun that went on that Sunday afternoon. It did seem like they were enjoying the banners as well, so many they truly will bring this back as a yearly tradition. It’s a fan-friendly event that really resonates with Mets fans and is the perfect event that was born of a fan movement way back at the Polo Grounds and not in a corporate meeting room somewhere. It would be cool if it could be done while fans are already in the park. There are rumors of scheduled doubleheaders being added to the schedule for 2013 to help facilitate the interleague everyday format, so perhaps they could again do it between games one Sunday afternoon. Either way, I know I’m going to make a point to be there for it next year.
Many Mets fans wanted Bobby Valentine hired to manage the Mets again at Citi Field. Well, there is still a chance he could manage here; The Boston Red Sox just need to make it to the World Series this year and he’ll be in the dugout managing the American League Club at next year’s All-Star Game.
It requires rooting for the Red Sox of course, which isn’t something I’ve ever had trouble doing. The enemy of my enemy is my friend after all.
The perfect scenario is Valentine manages the All-Star Game as the losing manager from this year’s World Series, and that Terry Collins manages the other team. An interesting twist would be if somehow the Nationals make the World Series and we get a Valentine vs. Davey Johnson matchup at Citi Field.
I sent along a full write up of the Citi Field Beer selection over to John Kleinchester of Beertography, so you should go check it out.
If I was going to grade the selection available I’d give it a “meaningful games in September” grade and just missing the playoffs.
This is still a big step forward off a down year last year however. The selection is still reeling from the loss of the Brooklyn specialty beers at Taste of the City stands in center field. In fact, if you poke around on Beertography you can catch hints of similar stories about what seems to be “Big Beer” pushing out the little guys. Particularly in the review for Yankee Stadium and the Prudential Center in Newark.
My hope is that Citi Field continues to add new local beers, and expands beyond what they have now. At the very least, adding more Sixpoint cans including the newly released summer ale Apollo, would be excellent news.
One of the specialty slices at the new Two Boots location inside Citi Field is a “Meat the Mets” pie. I had this on Opening Day and I must say I found it delicious. It features Creole chicken, pepperoni, sweet Italian sausage, jalapeños, ricotta, and mozzarella. That’s a lot of meat!
Continue reading “Two Boots Citi Field: Meat The Mets Pizza”
David Wright was hitting for three and when he broke his finger it has devastating effects on the Mets lineup. That’s not to say they can’t win without him, but at the time of the injury he was practically carrying the team and no one else has managed to pick them back up yet.
Regardless of if Wright is back Friday, next Friday, or after a DL stint is irrelevant. The Mets need to make adjustments and this 50 hour window between games is the perfect opportunity to do it. Assess the best way to set up the lineup, have guys refocus on the game plan, do their infield drills, and put extra work in scouting the Phillies pitchers. Those two losses should keep the Mets from getting complacent under a “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” mentality. It’s broke, so fix it.
Obviously Ike Davis and Lucas Duda need to hit more. Jason Bay does too, as he represents basically all of the right-handed power in the lineup if Scott Hairston isn’t starting, but if Bay can simply manage to not double up on career-worst years I’ll be happy. I’ve never really been a big believer in the idea that lefties can’t hit lefties, attributing it more to a small sample size coupled with the inability for players to get enough reps against them. The Mets lineup is extremely left-handed, so they really need to start hitting to avoid being exploited by LOOGYs. Maybe the massive amount of lefties the Mets will see, both in Cliff Lee and Cole Hamels, and in the relievers teams bring in face the Mets lefty sluggers, will give Duda and Davis, as well as Daniel Murphy, Kirk Nieuwenhuis and Josh Thole, the reps against them that they need to get comfortable with release points and different breaks. Certainly if they could start demonstrating that they can hit lefties, it will keep Terry Collins from putting lesser players from the bench in key spots.
4-2 is still a good start. The Mets now need to do the work required to win on this road trip, and continue the good start. Cliff Lee will be tough, but the Mets can hit Vance Worley and they own Cole Hamels. Then they get three against the Braves again, who they already swept. David Wright back would have a huge impact on run-scoring, but they have to find ways to win these games with or without him.
Citi Field updated the scoreboard this season. It’s now a little more colorful, but more importantly it now contains a lot of new info.
You’ve got stats, including career stats, for the batter. These include more than the traditional HR and RBI that you used to see. You’ve got OBP, and SLG, and OPS, and even XBH.
You’ve got a spray chart for all the balls in play for the batter during the game, including a recap of each of his at-bats.
You’ve still got a little factoid, and most of them are still pretty silly, about the player.
There’s an in-inning summary of how each batter did and how they did or did not get on base.
The pitching summary includes a dynamic WHIP and ERA as well, while still maintaining the K count and giving you the pitch speed.
There’s a ton of info on there, and it’s great to see. Now we’ll have less reason to need to pull up baseball-reference on our phones mid-game to check on players. Speaking of which, they really need an Android app.
The Mets!
oh wait, that’s tomorrow.
Arthur Pesner wins the seatcrew.com tickets to next Wednesday’s game against the Nationals with the correct answer of Ron Taylor in 1970 in relief of Tom Seaver who took a no decision. Ron Taylor is the first Mets pitcher to record a win on Opening Day!
Thanks for playing, check back again for tickets to the Brewers gamae on May 15th.