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They Come Home Winners

It’s  been a rough stretch for the Mets, but they’ll return home winners, having ended their losing streak Sunday in Atlanta.  For now it’s just one game, but they do face two of the weaker teams in the league during this six game homestand.

 

They’ve hopefully put the three games in 24 hours meme to rest, eliminating the need to juggle the roster, shuffle relievers and starters, and try to figure out how to keep everyone rested.  T hey can also get back into a normal routine of everyday baseball and hopefully eliminate some of these silly mistakes they’ve been making.

 

It’s the perfect time to start getting on a hot streak; the weather starts warming up, the starting pitchers arms have been strengthened a little, and Jason Bay may even be back as soon as Tuesday.

 

The bullpen has started to settle down as well, and has started to build up a sample size that Terry Collins can use when decided how and when to use different relievers to maximize success.

 

The Mets have played less than 10% of their games so far, and there is  plenty of baseball to be played.  I could give you a whole list of teams that have had poor Aprils that go on to have successful season as well as mention all sorts of statistics Mets player are posting that will get better. Right now we’re only look at one small sample of mostly under-performing data.   Many of those numbers will level out over the months to come, and many players will experience over-performing stretches that lead to more wins than losses.  It’s simply unfair to judge the team conclusively on this small sample of games.  They need to win games, but right now simply that they’re playing them is joy enough.

 

They return to Citi Field after an off-day on a one game winning streak with the path laid out in front of them to start making winning the trend, and losing the aberration.

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Things Sure Are Different

The Mets lost on Opening Day for the first time in years yesterday.  This seems like the first sign that things are different this year.

 

Really, it’s just one game.  One game doesn’t mean anything in the grand scheme of a season.  There were plenty of good signs.

 

Emaus, in the middle of a rally in his Major League debut, worked the count and drew a walk to bring the tying run to the plate.

 

The Mets offense, the second Josh Johnson got a little tired, jumped all over him.

 

Carlos Beltran looked fine in right field, better than some of the Marlins looked defensively at positions they’d played for years.

 

Watching the disaster that the Astros closer was yesterday makes me happy that the Mets look to have a good bullpen, particularly one of the best relievers in the game.

 

This team had a lot of turnover from last year, and a new managing core.  It might take them some time to get their legs under them.  It may take a little while before they learned all their own strengths and weaknesses, and how they work best together.  Reyes and Emaus haven’t worked together up the middle that long.   Pitchers are still building up arm strength, and the bullpen will settle into more defined roles as they get some innings in.

 

Okay, time to fry some fish.  Still plenty of opportunity to win this series.

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Letters to the NL East, Part 4, Dear Phillies…

Letters to the NL East, Part 4.

Dear Phillies,

 

Is Chase Utley enjoying his rocking chair?  Let me warn you now, you’re going to say “Once everyone gets healthy” a lot while the Mets and Braves distance themselves from you in the division.

 

Good job offering Cliff Lee the most money per year, and keeping him from the Yankees.  You see, they’d score runs for him.  I find it hard to believe that you are  better off with Lee than with Werth.  Ibanez’s power seems to be vanishing and he’s aging quickly.  Rollins hasn’t really been good in three years, he’s batting third in the lineup yet has a .258 AVG, and .320 OBP over the last three years.  You’re using whatever warm bodies you could find for right field and second base.

 

You’ve got great pitching, but none of them are good hitters.  Also, every year dozen

s of great pitchers have sub-par years, get hurt, or get no run support.  Will Hamels rising walk rate make him ineffective? Will Oswalt’s back hold up? Roy Halladay threw 750 innings over the last three years, not including Spring Training.  That’s a lot of wear and tear on an arm.

 

Your a talented team, more talented than your fans deserve, but you don’t have a lot of depth and aren’t built to handle injuries.  But injuries happen, and if you play Wilson Valdez for any extended period of time you might as well shoot yourself in the foot now.

 

And that bullpen! No Lidge, you’ve got Contreras closing for now because you can’t trust Madson.  Contreras, who’s 10 among active pitchers in wild pitches and 20th in errors, is who you’re going to trust in pressure situations.  The bullpen wasn’t good last year and it doesn’t look any better.  What’s your plan? Burn out the starters and hope they hold up all season?  You can only push an arm so much before it breaks.

 

You know what they say…the bigger they are, the harder they fall.

 

Your Bitter Rival,

 

Optimistic Mets Fan

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Left Field Landing Observations

Edit, 3/12/11: The Mets have announced the last two sections of the Left Field Landing have been renamed Mr. Mets Landing, and discounted.  Many of the pictures here, and in the full album here, are from this section.

Edit, 4/1/11: And now it’s sponsored and called BJ’s Clubhouse.

Since Citi Field was mostly empty last night due to the team and the rain, I moved all over the Left Field Landing section where my seats were to get a feel for it.  I’ve never sat there before, and I was surprisingly impressed with the vantage point.  At least from the front six or so rows.  Further back and you lose too much of left field for my liking.  I ventured out to the farthest section, 339, and it was almost the same as watching it at home, from the center field camera.  Actually, I could’ve reached out and touched the camera.

Center Field Camera
Center Field Camera

There was this interesting thing out above the Apple, that seems to report wind speed and direction.

Checking wind speed at Citi Field
Checking wind speed at Citi Field

Continue reading “Left Field Landing Observations”

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These Mets Are Scary

Mets Win
Mets Win

This Mets team can be pretty scary.  I certainly thought they had a chance to be very competitive coming into this year, but it would’ve been hard for anyone to predict it would evolve the way it did.   The team may be the team you’d least want to face in the National League, because you never know what you’re going to get from them, they can hit you from all angles.  People talk about Philadelphia’s offense being scary, but when you get down to it the Phillies are a team built on offense; if you pitch well against them you can win any of the games.

The Mets can baffle a team’s offense on any day.  It could happen via R.A. Dickey’s knuckleball dancing towards the plate, or it could happen with Pelfrey’s dominate sinking fastball.  The next day Jon Niese could unleash his curveball, or Johan Santana could be on the mound with his two Cy Young awards.   The bullpen has also been very good, regularly racking up scoreless innings.  They’ve got some hard throwers, some specialists, and Frankie Rodriguez.

Offensively the Mets have the talent to beat a team in a couple of ways.  They’re capable of hitting big home runs one day, and the next day battering pitching to a tune of 14 runs without a long ball.  They’re aggressive, steal bases, take extra bases on base hits, capitalize on errors and play hard.  They’re capable of coming back from deficits, don’t quit until the game is over, and even if a starting pitcher is shutting them down, they’re capable of waking up against a reliever and winning a game.

They seem to have the right mixture of confidence and cockiness, and all reports suggest they have great clubhouse chemistry. (Winning will do that) Even if they don’t make a trade, it looks like they’ll be getting Carlos Beltran back to the lineup which would be about as big a mid-season acquisition as you can find.  They’re already in prime playoff position, and they’ve got plenty of guys looking to have a better second half including Johan Santana, Jason Bay, Luis Castillo, and Jose Reyes.   This is a team to look out for, and it’s looking like the final series before the All-Star break against the Braves is going to be a big one.

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Mets Slowly Vanquishing Their Demons

The Mets are slowly but surely erasing the negatives of the past few seasons and vanquising their demons into the nether.  They are putting the past behind them and setting it up nicely for a bright future.

David Wright’s Power:  David Wright has already surpassed his home run totals from last year, proving it was just a fluke.  He’s had big home runs, multi-home run games, and some absolute bombs.  Maybe now that the league realizes his power his back they’ll pitch to him a little more tentatively and he’ll be able to cut back on some of the strikeouts.

David Wright, split seconds from launching a 2-run home run in Camden Yards
David Wright, split seconds from launching a 2-run home run in Camden Yards
 Sloppy Play: Few losses were more gut-wrenching than the Castillo dropped pop-up, but so far this year the Mets have played very solid defense all around.  Jason Bay is a very good outfielder, with good instincts.  Angel Pagan has been playing a good centerfield and has stopped making blunders; who else to vanquish Mets demons than an Angel?  Blanco throws out just about everybody that tries to steal on him, and the infield defense is much improved, especially with a lefty first baseman that isn’t learning the position for the first time in Ike Davis.

Jose Reyes: Jose Reyes is back.  He’s stealing bases, he’s lacing triples into the gaps, he’s hitting the ball out.  He’s terrorizing pitchers and reasserting that he’s one of the most exciting players in this game.  He’s smiling and having fun, and if there is any singular factor that’s making this clubhouse better than it was last year, it’s Jose Reyes’ infectious baseball attitude.   I’m still waiting for more home run handshakes though.

Citi Field: No longer is Citi Field where home runs go to die.  If Citi Field was intimidating Mets hitters, it no longer is.  The Mets have had plenty of home runs at home, and have had some fun walk-off homers.   The park is starting to feel like home and it’s become a big asset to the Mets, who have more home wins than anyone in the majors.  It’s better decorated this year as well.

The Bullpen: The bullpen has been a sore spot for a while, being one of the biggest parts of the two collapses.  So far the bullpen looks pretty solid.  Francisco Rodriguez makes things a little shaky sometimes, but he gets the job done.  There is still a state of flux with Takahashi and Mejia but the bullpen has come through, even more so now that the starters have been able to keep them from being overworked.  The arms and talent are there, so it’s no longer about trying to find someone, anyone, that can do the job.  As the season rolls on and the rotation gets more settling with Takahashi, Maine and/or Perez coming back and contributing, or acquiring another quality starter, the roles in the bullpen will become a little more settled and we’ll know who we can trust.  One things for sure though, we no longer think the game is doomed when the bullpen gets into it, and this knowledge probably helps the offense know they don’t have to score a billion more runs as well.

The Mets are a good solid team.  There are plenty of holes they could patch up, plenty of places to improve, and plenty of losses that will happen.  This team seems to have turned the corner and put the past behind them so that when things aren’t going as perfectly as they are now, I trust that the good times will return and that the Mets will be a fun team to watch all season.   They are no more flawed than anyone else in the league, and they’ve got the talent, the resources, and the desire required to make this season a successful one.

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No John Maine in the Bullpen

A popular opinion on the handling of John Maine over the years has been to suggest he’d be better in the bullpen.  Metsblog has a post on this topic today as well.  Maine has occasionally struggled to get through 6 innings, although I would emphasize that this isn’t always the case, and some theorize that he’d have more success with being able to go all-out in one or two innings without worrying about a second time through the order.

I disagree.  I’m not saying Maine usually gets far into games, but I don’t think he’s ever a risk to throw three innings and completely task the bullpen.  In April and May of 2009 (throwing out the first June start where he was injured and went on the DL), he averaged around 5.2IP and went 5-3 with a 3.75 ERA.  This includes the first three starts of the season, where a pitcher is normally on a pitch count.  Without those he averaged 6IP over the next seven starts.  He made one bad start over that stretch, allowing five runs (four earned) over 5.1IP.  Every other start was a quality one.  So it’s not that long ago that John Maine both pitched six innings regularly and was good at it.  I know six innings isn’t amazing, but it’s more valuable than a couple of innings here and there out of the bullpen.  2010 was less pleasant for Maine, but he did have three of four quality starts after he redid his mechanics. 

My biggest problem with the idea of moving Maine to the bullpen is injury.  Maine’s injuries have always been injuries that seem fatigue and wear and tear related.  Putting him in a position where he’d possibly pitch, or get ready to pitch, every day would negate days of rest where his shoulder can just recover.   Especially with the way Manuel works the bullpen, I’d be worried this would be cause for further injury.

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Pitching Wins

Pitching wins.  That’s the common refrain around baseball, and there is a lot of truth to it.  So while many Mets fans may have been upset that the Mets offense is struggling, even against position players in a 20 inning game, I’m ecstatic that the pitching has been so good.  It’s too early to tell for sure on the starters.  Some velocity numbers seem suspect, but static numbers do not tell you everything.  Pitch counts, and pitch speeds, are something that many managers and baseball experts are still working on.  20 years ago these things were barely more important than who won the airplane race.  (On a side note, I kinda miss the airplane race.  It was so perfect for the Mets, since Jets from LaGuardia fly over constantly.) Let’s give some guys a couple of starts to build up arm strength and get the early season jitters out of the way before we judge what they’re capable of for the season.

If the pitching is going to be this good, the Mets are going to rise to great heights.  Santana is going to win games; I really don’t think there is anything to worry about with him.  He’s had a little less velocity than we would like so far, but he’s also fresh back from surgery, and a slow starter.  He did get up to 92 by the end of his appearance Saturday, and I hope it’s just a matter of getting his arm strength up to mid-season form.  You could probably say the same thing about Oliver Perez, who looked masterful the night before.  Perez mixed and matched pitches and location and speeds like a pro.  Like Santana.  He was _nothing_ like the Ollie we know.  He wasn’t good Ollie, or bad Ollie.  He was just a pitcher doing his thing.  There wasn’t wildness, or getting unfocused.  He was pitching, not throwing, as the adage goes.

There’s not enough to say about Pelfrey.  He’s amazing.  He leads the team in ERA, in wins, even in saves!  He threw a masterful game in the low-oxygen Colorado game, threw a bullpen early Saturday and then still demanded the ball from Manuel in the 20th inning for the save on Satuday.  If there’s anybody on the team you’re ready to say “Throw out 2009, it’s 2010 now and that’s what counts” with, it’s Pelfrey.

Now, the offense hasn’t been great.  However, the offense is also underperforming.  Bay, Pagan, Castillo, Reyes are all better players than they’ve played so far, and there is little reason to think they won’t get better.  That will win games. They’re 4-7 right now and once the offense clicks they could easily rattle off a winning streak.  Once we get Murphy back, or Murphy comes back and doesn’t improve and Ike shows up, the offense will get a boost as well.  Like Murphy or not, he’s not the automatic strikeout that Jacobs is.

A lot hinges on tonight.  Every other pitcher has shown that they’re going to put up some good games this year.  Even Niese’s quality start is perfectly acceptable out of the 5th guy.  Maine is the only holdout, and after scrapping the changes that didn’t work this spring, he’ll revert to what’s given him success in the past.  It might be too soon to expect him to have that nailed down and for him to pitch a gem, but a competitive game over six innings or so that gives the Mets ample opportunity to win the game would be a great start.

The offense will work itself out, but if the pitching can do what it’s started to show it can do, this 4-7 record will be a mere slow start in a great season.

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Subway Series at the Better of the Two New New York Ballparks

Yankees get their first taste of the better stadium in New York.

subwayseries2009

The Subway Series part two, at Citi Field, takes place this weekend. The Yankees won’t be able to get many cheap pop-fly home runs here. Most of them will have to be earned, and while the Mets don’t have the best pitchers going, I suspect the Yankees will be kept in the park anyway.

The Yankees come into this series having won a series, but having struggled since the last Subway Series match-up. Andy Pettitte was removed from Thursdays game early, and the Yankees needed to use their bullpen, including Mariano Rivera, for 4.1 innings. This needs to be the focus of attack for the Mets. C.C. Sabathia has been exploitable when he goes deep into games, but if they can get him out semi-early, they can get into an already taxed bullpen that’s not very good to begin with.

In fact, the Yankees bullpen in 2009 seems awfully like the Mets bullpen of 2008, and we all know how that ended. The Yankees of 2009 also struggled to beat the Marlins and the Nationals, something that was part of both Mets collapses. So was poor play against a rival in 2007, much as the Yankees have yet to beat the Red Sox this year.

The Mets lineup is depleted, while the Yankees are mostly healthy. It’s not a full strength match-up, but it’s still one the Mets can win. The Yankees pitching can be exploited, their home runs will be down playing in a fair park, and the Mets have actually been hitting the ball lately.

A lot of this depends on the lineups. The Yankees have to juggle outfielders, worry about having no DH, and worry who to play where. The Mets need to keep Fernando Tatis on the bench, start Evans in left, Murphy at first, and probably Jeremy Reed over Fernando Martinez, who has looked mostly over matched at the Major League level so far. I have a feeling he’ll have a good series, if he plays, but right now I think Reed can provide some defense and maybe a hit here or there, and maybe Sheffield will be healthy enough to play a game or two, or at least get some key pinch hits off the bench late.

There is also scoreboard watching fun going on this weekend. The Phillies, who are a half game ahead of the Mets, play the Blue Jays, who are one game behind the Yankees. Additionally the Rays, who are two games behind the Yankees, play the Marlins, who are a half game behind the Mets. The Yankees could be anywhere from second to fourth following this series, and the Mets could be anywhere from first to third. It’s a volatile series, and it should be fun to watch.

The inevitable new park comparisons will come into play, especially Sunday Night on ESPN. I don’t think there is much to discuss. Citi Field wins hands down. Besides having better, readily available food and cheaper, higher quality beer, it’s just a prettier ballpark. Yankee Stadium has it’s perks, but most of them are away from the field of play. The Mets have some work to do with getting some more history into the place. I loved the MVP wall that featured images of all the MVP winners for the Yankees, and I love seeing all the scenes from different years of play above the concessions and around the concourse. However, that’s only about 2-4% of the trip to the ballpark, and once you get to your seat, you might as well be sitting in the same Yankee Stadium from 1923, 1953, or 1983. I’m sure some Yankee fans will be making their first trip to Citi Field this weekend, and I hope they’re not too disappointed when they see the Mets have a better stadium, a better team, and a better fan base.

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First Thoughts

Thoughts after the first series.

 

I like how this team looks, even if Oliver Perez seems to still be three weeks behind and in Spring Training mode. They really lit him up by the second time through the lineup. I’m not worried though, I just think he really did get behind by pitching in the WBC without the oversight to stay in shape. Give him another three weeks with the Mets and I think we’ll see a pretty impressive post-April record for Perez.

 

The offense looks good, despite people trying to read into every failed opportunity with runners in scoring position. It’s going to be an awfully long season if you expect the Mets to hit .350 in those situations, every game. Sometimes it’ll be worse, and sometimes it’ll be better, but by the end of the season I suspect the numbers will be right around career averages and what not. Don’t worry about it right now, I’ve seen more good signs in this regard than bad ones.

 

The bullpen does in fact look revamped, and I’m happy for that. It’s still early though, and our bullpen was fairly decent in April last year too, behind Billy Wagner’s scoreless inning streak.

 

Since Manuel vocalizes every fleeting though, it’s necessary to analyze actions to try to get an understanding of how he feels about players. So far I get the feeling he doesn’t like Castillo much, because if it were me, I’d get Castillo as many at-bats and as many opportunities to succeed prior to coming home, not sit him yesterday. I think he buys into the Church can’t hit lefties thing, since he pinch hit for him yesterday when he was 2/3. I’m not sure if he likes Anderson too much, or is trying to give him every opportunity to come through and prove he could deserve to stay prior to his impending release. I just can’t believe they’d get rid of O’Day instead, because that just doesn’t make sense. Quality, or at least performing, relief help is a lot harder to come by than what Marlon brings to the table.

 

I’m happy with 2-1 for now, but I think it’s important they win this series from the Marlins and come home above .500 with the clubhouse smelling of wins, not of mediocrity.