11.11% into the season, and the Mets are on top

Apr 24, 2007 11:42 AM

The Mets are 12-6 after 18 games. They’re in first place. They’ve nearly got the best record in baseball. This sounds a lot like 2006, despite the miniscule half game lead. John Maine’s surprising with his good pitching, Heilman’s struggling in some spots, people are wonder when and if Lastings Milledge will be the everyday outfielder, and plenty of so-called experts are trumping up the Braves as one of the teams to beat to win the division.

I do worry about the range of the corner outfielders, but they’re both hitting very well. If Milledge was slotted in, we’d almost have to trade one of them, and who knows what we could get. I trust Omar Minaya, and I wonder if he’s shopping Milledge around at all. They can’t keep implying that next year Milledge will be the starting outfielder forever. Personally I’d rather have kept Cliff Floyd around than Alou if we weren’t going to play Milledge. There are other outfield prospects in the Mets system that they’re proud of, and it might be beneficial to get something out of Milledge now while his value’s still high off his torrid spring ; he’s not doing so bad in New Orleans either.

On the other hand, Jorge Sosa, Jason Vargas and Philip Humber are all doing pretty good down there too, and especially coupled with how the Mets starters are doing I’m not even sure where the biggest weakness is yet. Rather than trading someone now for someone that may or may not be a key for later, It’s probably a better bet to see what doesn’t hold up for the whole season and fix it then.

I still hear a lot of negativity from Mets fans, and with a winning percentage of .667 there is really little more you could hope for. Delgado and Wright have one home run between them in the middle of the order and they’re still winning. With the exception of one cold start, Oliver Perez has looked good since game 7 last year and Maine is more then we could’ve hoped for. There are three guys with good era’s waiting in the wings and the excitement when Pedro returns, even if it’s three months from now, is going to be great. I expect to be seeing a World Series game in person this year.

Back In First

Apr 14, 2007 12:19 AM

Sure they’re technically tied for first, but it’s first nonetheless. I have a feeling this might be the closest any team gets for the rest of the season. The Mets are playing all division games for the next week, and I expect them to heat up with the weather. Expect to see some home runs when the Mets visit Philadelphia on Monday. I would not be surprised if the Mets hit seven in the two days, including two by David Wright.

Enough predictions, I’ll be out at Shea for my third game tomorrow, seeing John Maine pitch again. He had a little bit of control problems on Monday, and with the slightly warmer weather tomorrow, 51degrees, I expect him to have a little better grip. I’m thinking 7-2 Mets. Oops, i thought I was done with predictions.

David Wright swiped his third base of the season last night. He stole 20 last year, and right now is on pace for 48. I doubt he’ll reach that, but with Beltran looking to steal more this year too, you’ve got spots one, three and five in the batting order that look to be pesky and distract the pitchers. I’m sure this was one of the considerations Willie was thinking of when he thought about batting Wright second.

I’d love to see both Reyes and Wright one day be 30-30 players. How awesome would that be?