You can root for the Mets without being convinced of their doom
I think the best part of this deal was ditching Mota. and that the Brewers are paying him.
Estrada looks fine to me as a catcher, but the Mets could even ditch him and not pay him via arbitration. woo. It’s time to focus on pitching, but I know that the Mets just improved the bullpen in this trade
I still trust Willie, I do. It’s only the regular season, but I wish they’d played more to step on their throats. They’ve hit a little downswing offensively which is understandable after a two week stretch on fire, but the bullpen has been unable to make anything stick.
The Phillies won’t catch up, but you can’t let them sweep either. Even the four games, while it doesn’t sound like much, is enough for the division. Willie has some hard decisions ahead of him about postseason rotations and bench players, but he’s got an equally hard and much more important one in finishing out this bullpen. We’ll get some September call ups, and Willie has to be looking for some extra bullpen help. Someone needs to play well, so Willie can pull the “I can’t leave this guy off the way he’s throwing” justification for not putting Mota on the postseason roster. Honestly the Mets need to do some cost analysis and realize that the extra postseason money that they’ll make from the team going further into the playoffs is more than enough to pay off Mota’s contract.
Tomorrow I’ll be watching the game at the Ziegler theatre with the Mets at the Movies promotion they’ve been promoting for a couple of weeks. I have no idea what to expect, but hopefully it’ll be fun to see the Mets on the screen like that. Look for me, I’ll be the one with the Mets hat.
Some Things I Learned At Shea For Last Night’s Game.
1.Jose Reyes is so fast, it took the scoreboard operator three batters after he tied Roger Cedeno’s single season Mets record for them to announce it on the board. (They were ready instantaneously for his record-breaking steal of third) Not to mention that he stole those bases after striking out.
2.There is going to be an Orchard Seating section at Citi Field. It will be in right center field, right next to the new Home Run Apple.
3.Some of you may have noticed that the right field side of Citi Field facing the subway seems to be more finished than the rest of the ballpark. Not surprisingly, this is where the Mets offices will be.
4.The right field ‘excelsior seating level’ will actually jut out over right field.
5.There will be a seating section directly behind the two bullpens.
6.The seats, particularly the ones for the special people behind home plate, are comfortable.
7.The neon ballplayers that adorn Shea Stadium will make the trip to Citi Field, at the very least residing in the home clubhouse.
8.I never knew that shouting ‘drop it!’ at a fielder fielding a pop-up worked, but apparently neither did Luis Castillo because when Geoff Blum dropped David Wright’s pop-up Castillo was still basically on first and had no chance to get to second before Blum picked it up and threw him out.
9.It was inconsequential, and probably mostly unnoticed, but when Alou threw the ball to the plate in the 5th inning, David Wright pretending to grab it and faked a throw to second to try to keep Gonzalez from advancing.
10.If Mota makes the postseason roster, I may cry. How can he explode so thoroughly after two outs? I strongly suspect that he’s no good after one inning, and maybe not on consecutive days either.
11.There are only three places in the entire stadium where you can buy a knish, but I still think it’s the best concession food I can buy.
12.If the Mets were to win the World Series, they could have a Ticker-Tape Parade with torn of 2007 pocket schedules. There are boxes upon boxes of the things in the ticket booths, and that’s just Gate E!
13.One of the ball-boy’s jobs is to run the umpires out their water bottles. I just find this funny.
I’m going to stop at 13 for now, I’ll probably make a longer post about my trip to the “Citi Field Preview Center” another time. Of course, I didn’t get to ask questions because it was 7:10 and I didn’t want to miss the game.
Oh, and if you haven’t already seen it, Texas won the first game of a double-header over Baltimore 30-3 setting a modern day record. It was a come from behind victory, and Littleton earned the save for the Rangers.
Where oh where did my little Brave go?
I have a message to Giant fans. “Get rid of Armando.” It’s good for at least two wins for your team. The only way last night could’ve been better is if Joe Smith didn’t throw that wild pitch and the Giants didn’t score that run on no hits in the top of the inning. Then we could’ve won the game on a walk-off Balk. The Mets have been finding different ways to walk-off, and that certainly would’ve been a memorable one. Drag-bunts, walks and home runs are nice too though.
Two home runs for Delgado again. He’s back, although as he said in his post game interview, he never went anywhere. Now if we could only get David Wright to put together a hot streak, his batting average is upsettingly low. Although to me he’s been showing some good signs, looking a little better. I don’t think it’s a case of anyone figuring him out, or him not being as good as he looked in the past, it’s just some struggles, he’ll get there. I’m as confident in that as I was that Delgado would show up again.
One thing that bothers me is pinch-hitting for Gomez with Julio Franco. I guess I shouldn’t complain because Franco did what he needed, which was place one up the middle that was grabbed in an awesome play by Vizquel, but I’d much rather have Gomez. I understand that a lot of it’s about ‘taking your lumps’ and the rookies don’t get to bat 4th, and get pinch hit for, but Franco? Bleh.
In the comments of Metsradamus‘s blog entry about this game, someone mentioned that Gotay and Reyes were doing some sort of hex thing at Russ Ortiz? I’d love to see a clip of this or something more descriptive. That kind of excites me, I love seeing stuff like that. I actually miss(figuratively since I’m not old enough to remember) the days when players used to stand in the dugout shouting stuff at the opposing pitcher. Do you know how many pitchers nowadays who could get rattled by that? It would be great. I expect the reason it’s fallen out of style is how much baseball has seemed to develop into a fraternity. Baseball players generally don’t hate the guys on the other team, they see themselves part of the same group of people, peers not opponents. Couple this with all the changing teams most players do, and these guys were once they’re teammates and friends. Could you see Glavine shouting stuff at Smoltz? If he did, it’d be totally friendly, and a joke.
Mota returns today, and I hate that he was rewarded with a new contract. I hope the only reason he was good last year wasn’t steroids. I’m not going to cheer him when he arrives, but I hope as penance he gives up a home run to Bonds, as long as it’s inconsequential. After that I hope he’s lights out, although I do like A. Burgos, who got sent down for him, and he seems better than Scott Schoeneweis. Only time will tell.