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Reversal of Fortunes

I don’t usually do game recaps, and I don’t usually buy into “they would’ve lost this one last year” arguments trying to compare this team to that one.  This game was too much fun not to keep talking about though.

 

Halladay gave up a hard hit ball to lead off the game that required a great catch to turn into an out, but after that he was pretty steady until the 6th when a tight zone and good patience by Andres Torres with two outs led to a walk.  Nieuwenhuis laced a single into left and that brought up our uncrowned Captain.  David Wright rocketed one down the line that Mayberry misplayed off the side wall and two runs scored to tie the game.  Meanwhile Jon Niese battled some control problems but only allowed those two early runs through five innings.

 

The Mets would battle and fight through the next couple of innings, having runners on base and not scoring and allowing runners to reach base but not allowing them to score.  Josh Thole may have suffered a concussion, which sucks.

 

If you believe in poetic moments and turning points in seasons there was a huge one in the 7th inning.  With two on and one out Hunter Pence grounded to second base where Daniel Murphy flipped to Justin Turner who threw to first.  Shane Victorino slid a good three feet wide of the bag to take out Justin Turner and was ruled out for interference.   You may recall a similar play in late August of 2007.  It was the top of the ninth in Philadelphia with Marlon Anderson on first and Endy Chavez on third with one out and the Phillies leading 3-2.  Shawn Green grounded out to shortstop and Anderson went in hard at second, keeping Rollins from turning the double play and allowing Endy Chavez to tie the game.  Except Anderson was ruled to have interfered on a play much less clear cut than last nights.  Instead the Mets lost that game, got swept in a four game series against the Phillies, and failed to completely bury them in the division.  That one game may have been the difference between the playoffs and what ultimately happened in 2007.  Who knows how things are different from there.  Now the Mets get one of those calls that helps them win a game and go back to three games over .500 and 2.5 games ahead of the last place Philadelphia Phillies.  Is it karma? The universe correcting it’s course back to one that features the Mets establishing a dynasty and perennial playoff team?  Is it the turning point in a season that the Mets were universally picked to finish last but haven’t been under .500 at any point?

 

Probably not.  It was a great win culminated by Jordany Valdespin collecting his first major league hit in epic fashion with a 3-run home run off one of the game’s best closers.  It instantly became a Mets classic, but it’s still just one win in May.  The Mets will face so many ups and downs and turning points this season that it’ll be near impossible to pinpoint this game in May when it all started going right.  Would the Mets have won this game last year?  Well..maybe.  After all, many people compared this game to the Omir Santos game winning home run off of Papelbon back in 2009.  2009’s team doesn’t seem like one that you’d describe as resilient, having been the first losing season since 2004.

 

Still, there’s a lot to like about this game.  The Mets hung in there against a tough pitcher.  Jon Niese didn’t let the wheels fall off.  Except for Torres misplay in the first allowing Jimmy Rollins an extra base, they played pretty crisp defense.  They made pitches when they needed to and exploited the Phillies weaknesses.  They took a four game losing streak and responded with a three game, and counting, winning streak.

 

Is this season going to be a gusty team that fights and scraps to stay above .500?  A scrappy contender that finds a way to get at least a wild card spot?  An overachieving bunch of rookies that show promise but ultimately revert to what they were predicted to be?   It’s too early to tell, but no matter where it winds up it’s going to be a fun ride.

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Mets Ticket Giveaway!

It’s time for May’s Mets Ticket Giveaway, courtesy of Seatcrew.com.  This week Optimistic Mets Fan is giving away two tickets to a game against the Milwaukee Brewers on Tuesday May 15th.

 

Seatcrew.com is a secondary ticket market similar to Stubhub with an important twist: There are no ticket fees for the buyer or the seller, which means lower prices on tickets for you.  For a full write-up, and a list of which games you have a chance to win tickets to, check out my post from the offseason.

 

So here’s what you have to do to win.  First, you need to have a registered Seatcrew account. All you need is an email address.  Second, you need to predict how many hits David Wright will hit against the Phillies in three games.  This means you need to have your guess in to contest@ceetar.com before Wright’s first AB tonight.  There is one catch: Since this is an Optimistic fan site, we’ll be playing by reverse Price is Right rules.  This means the person closest to the total without going UNDER is the winning entry.  If you guess 4 hits, and David Wright hits 5, your guess is ineligible.  Be Optimistic.

 

If it helps, the Phillies are scheduled to start Roy Halladay, Joe Blanton, and Cliff Lee returning from the DL.  My personal guess would be 6 hits, with 2 home runs if you’d like to use that as a guide.  Good Luck!

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Resiliency and Back to Intra-Division Games

The Mets are 10-5 against the other NL East teams this year and they have six more coming up this week.  It’s against the Marlins and the Phillies, the two teams behind the Mets in the standings.  They’re both capable teams, and the Mets face some good pitching, but it’s the perfect time to reassert their intra-division dominance and keep a winning record going.

 

The Mets have showed a nice resiliency this season with managing to avoid falling below .500 despite a couple of losing streaks.  4-2 would maintain their .667 winning percentage in the division as well as put them back to their 4 games over .500 high watermark.  With Tejada (likely as of Sunday evening) going to the disabled list the Mets could use some of that resiliency.  Jordanny Valdespin spent just enough time back in Buffalo to make sure he didn’t leave the oven on, and is on his way back to the majors.

 

The Mets do face some good pitching, but Roy Halladay hasn’t been perfect this year and Cliff Lee is making his first start off the DL.  Hopefully there’s some rust there.   The Mets miss Josh Johnson in Miami, but Carlos Zambrano, Mark Buehrle and Ricky Nolasco have been pitching pretty well.  Maybe this is the week Ike Davis and Lucas Duda start acting like the bash brothers I hoped they could be.

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Josh Lewin Plugs an Old Mets Sponsor

You guys will dig this quote from Josh Lewin.  He was talking about Chris Schwinden getting strikeouts in Wednesday’s game.  Specifically he was referencing Jordan Schafer’s league leading 31st strike out.

“When you’re having more than one, (Jordan) Schafer’s the guy to pitch to.”

When you're having more than one..

This amused me at least.  Schaefer, for those of you into the history of Mets sponsors, was a Mets sponsor (before my time) years ago and one if their tag lines was “Schaefer is the one beer to have when you‘re having more than one”.

 

In memory of the Mets sponsor (now owned by Pabst) the Crane Pool Forum awards the Schaefer Player of the Game (and month) awards to the most deserving Met, based on member voting after each game.  You’re welcome to join in the discussion.

When you're having more than one.. (winners? or beers?)

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Putting the Sweep In Perspective

The bats of the New York MetsThe Mets are now 2-1 in series sweeps.  It’s never a good thing when you get swept, and it doesn’t even matter who the opponent is.  Obviously you tend to eye weaker teams with the thought that you’re supposed to get a few free wins off them, but that’s not how baseball works.  The Mets ran into the Astros while they were playing well, with the back of the rotation, with a still struggling Ike Davis, and with a couple of players affected by the flu.  It’d be as foolish to eye these three games and use it as confirmation bias that the Mets are a last place quality team as it would be to take the 3-0 sweep of the Braves as evidence that the Mets will win the division.

 

So it’s time for the Mets to crawl home and lick their wounds, reassess the fifth spot in the rotation, and maybe the last bullpen spot as well.  Meanwhile the Yankees just lost two of three to the team picked to finish last in their division.  The Phillies and Braves traded bullpen explosions through 11 innings before Chipper Jones made it 15-13, final.  Roy Halladay started that game btw.  Chris Schwinden or Roy Halladay, the result was the same.

 

Perspective.  Sweeps suck and the Mets have a lot of adjustments to make.  They’ve been knocked to the mat, but they’ve got plenty of time to stand back up and start swinging.  They’ve got a day to dust themselves off and go back on attack mode.  Certainly they could take this blow and keep reeling, but I think the Mets have shown a tendency to bounce back pretty well under Terry Collins. They’re due for some home runs, and hopefully as the weather warms up a little and Ike warms up a little, they’ll start hitting more.  Scoring more, winning more, and hopefully pitching better to boot.  May starts out 0-2, but plenty of time to salvage that.  The six games against the Phillies will be important in distancing themselves from them in the standings so that if and when they get Chase Utley, Ryan Howard, and Cliff Lee back the Mets have some breathing room.

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Citi Field Beer Write Up

Let's Go Mets!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.

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My Paper: The New Age Mets Fan

As you probably know by now, Hofstra held Dana Brand’s 50th Anniversary of the Mets conference last week.  I wrote a paper on the new age of Mets fans, like myself, who have not seen a Mets World Series Championship.  I talk about the differences in rooting for the team without remembering them going all the way, without that light at the end of the tunnel.  I emphasize how different it is for us not to have lived through all the great stories told about the ’86 and ’69 teams and how a lot of the changes to baseball like the Wild Card or black uniforms are things we’ve pretty much always had.

 

Check out some of the other bloggers who were there, particularly Greg at Faith and Fear in Flushing who put a lot of work in making it a conference Dana would’ve been proud of. On the Black.  A Gal For All Seasons.  Metstradamus. The Eddie Kranepool Society. Mets Police. And probably a bunch I’m forgetting this morning.

 

You can read my paper in its entirety here.

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The Hofstra Mets 50th Anniversary Conference

You’ve probably heard about this conference, running from this Thursday through Saturday.  If not, here’s a link to Faith and Fear in Flushing and Greg Prince, who’s done a great job as a liaison between Hofstra and us bloggers in memory of Dana Brand, who’s brainchild this conference was.

 

I’ll be part of the Brown Bagging in the Bullpen with the Blogosphere lunch panel on Thursday and Saturday with some notable Mets bloggers.  I’ll also be speaking in a panel on Saturday entitled “Metmoirs” and Memories about the plight of the New Age Mets Fan who’s never consciously lived through a Mets championship.

 

I encourage you to check it out, as it promises to be a fun couple of days and the Mets are headed out of town to Colorado anyway!

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Tripling Barry Zito’s ERA

Clearly Barry Zito’s ERA is a factor of small sample size. (sing it everybody!)

 

He’s coming into tonight’s game with a 1.125 ERA having given up only two runs over 16 innings.  This is unsustainable, as I suspect the Mets will demonstrate.

 

If the Mets score 6 runs in 5.1 or less it would triple Zito’s 1.125 ERA.
If they only score five they’d have to do it in 2.1 innings to triple it.
4 runs in 8 or less innings would double it.
If they only score 3, they’d have to chase him in 4 innings to double his ERA.
For his ERA to dip under 1, he only needs 2.1 scoreless innings, but if the Mets score once he’d need to go 11.

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Do You Believe In 6-3?

Is the Mets 6-3 record more than just a hot start?

 

Nine games are not a lot.  There is a LOT of baseball to be played yet.  Even the 1962 Mets had a stretch of games where they won six of nine.  In fact, they won nine of 12.  Of course, they followed that up with a 17 game losing streak, mostly to the Giants and Dodgers.

 

I don’t think this team is 1962 bad.  I’m pretty sure of it.  I don’t even think they’re 2011 bad.  I think this collection of players is a winning ballclub.  I said in March that this division would be a race down to the wire.  I still believe that they are all going to be more bunched up this season, compared to the Phillies winning 102 games last year.  As we know, this means winning the games against the division opponents becomes even more important.  The Mets are 6-3 against the division, 2-1 against the favorites, and are playing good baseball.

 

I was more optimistic, obviously, about this team to begin with.  I believe.  I think others are starting to believe too.  Maybe not that this team could actually compete, but that they might actually win more games than they lose.  They’ve shed the negativity that’s so prevalent in the offseason for what looks like a very fun team to watch.  You could see the expected win totals creeping up from the offseason, through Spring Training, and now even further with a nice start.

 

Obviously nothing’s perfect.  The Mets won’t win 67% of their games.  They probably won’t go 159 and 3. Bay still is very spotty and seems to get hurt every time he does anything good.  The defense is a work in progress, and may actually be really bad.  Mike Pelfrey is still Mike Pelfrey.  Although I’d offer this counter point to those saying it’s a pain to watch Pelfrey pitch:  Think about how the Phillies fans feel watching guys get soft blooping singles off of him and unable to make much of them.   Is there anything more frustrating than watching your players make soft contact?

 

There is much more good than bad in this short part of the season.  Ike Davis and Lucas Duda have started slowly, but they’re already hitting home runs.   The rotation has actually been excellent.  Santana is still standing and pitching well, Dickey is still awesome, Niese so far looks to have taken his new contract to heart, and even Pelfrey is generating the groundballs he needs to be successful.   Let’s not forget David Wright.  Many of you joked about his jammed finger and day to day status leading to a three month DL stint.  Instead he missed merely three games and homered in his very next pitch.  I think Rich Coutinho said it best:

So let’s enjoy some baseball, and see if the Mets can sweep the Braves again!