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Subway Series Recap and Notes

empire-190Some quick notes about the Subway Series

I thought the Yankees were supposed to take pitches, but excepting a couple of innings where some Mets pitchers struggled, they really didn’t. 

While a limited sample size, Jeter’s range looks very very suspect. 

My unofficial analysis suggests it was 70-30 Mets fans on Friday, and closer to 60-40 on Sunday, although most of the Yankees fans left on Sunday before they had anything to cheer about. 

Shake Shack continues to have ridiculous lines.   Need more grills!

In the past Subway Series games, especially Sunday night, have been rowdy and violent to the point of almost making it unfun.  This wasn’t the case this series, I was there for both a loss and a win, and it never progressed much past good-natured ribbing.  There will probably be more fights by the 5th inning against the Phillies Tuesday than all weekend.

The Yankees injuries have messed with the bench most of all.  It’s not as big a deal when they play AL ball, but when they need pinch hitters they are woefully unprepared.  I wonder if they could use a guy like Gary Matthews Jr?

Big thanks to the Mets for emailing me some postgame wrap up notes after the game yesterday.  I was pretty tired after driving back, but some interesting notes that I didn’t catch myself.  The so called “Bronx Bombers” did not hit a home run in the series, and the Mets only hit two, both by Bay.  This ties the least amount of home runs for a Subway Series and is only the third time in a series the Yankees have not hit one.

That was the first Interleague loss for C.C. Sabathia since June 15th, 2007.   It was a bad day for former AL Cy Young award winners, besides ours, as Halladay, C.C. and Greinke all got roughed up. 

The Empire State Building will be blue and orange tonight for the Mets victory.

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The Best Time To Face The Yankees

Many talk about how the Mets are reeling and it’s a horrible time to face the Yankees and Phillies.  I disagree, I think it’s time for them to rise up and face the challenges, but either way this is the perfect time to face the Yankees. 
The Yankees are riddled with injuries, and they’re going into the Subway Series five games out of first place. (the Mets are six)  Both teams have not played very well as of late.  Usually these series are best, regardless of talent, if both teams are both at least playing reasonably well, but maybe both of them playing badly works too; who gets up off the mat better? 

Maybe the Mets anemic offense, despite double digit runs Thursday, gets the Yankees pitchers into a groove?  Or maybe the Yankees tattered and faulty bullpen is what the Mets need to wake up the sleepy bats.  The Mets are just trying to get back to .500 and get some momentum before they play division-leading Philadelphia.  The Yankees are hoping to right the ship and not erase what was an excellent start to the season.  This series is more about not losing than it is about winning. 

The Mets have their two best pitchers going in this series, and certainly a fair chance to win each game.  Winning at least two out of three is not only possible, but would actually create a lot of good will and confidence going into the bigger divisional series against the Phillies.  The Yankees are indeed supposedly better, but they’re losing lately, they’re injured, and even great teams lose 50+ games a year.  The lowly Pirates beat the Phillies and Halladay last week, for instance.  So It’s time for the Mets to make the most of their wins, and get them in these next six days.  No time like the present for a hot streak. 

The Yankees are no juggernaut.  Their biggest key to success last year may have been health, and that’s eluded them this year. Posada will not play.  The bullpen is a wreck, Vazquez is very sketchy this year. 

I’m headed out to the Citi today and Sunday.  I’m planning to enjoy myself.  Let’s have a fun weekend of baseball, an orange and blue Empire State Building on Monday, and momentum for the Phillies.

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Letters to the NL East, Part 0/5

(To read past year’s letters, click here)

Letters to the NL East, Part 0 of 5. (part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4)

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Dear New York Yankees, (Because while they are not part of the division, are still are rivals in a way)

Ugh.  You purchased your 27th World Series last year.  You made the team better by acquiring Javier Vasquez from the Braves, even if he’s struggled as a Yankee before.  But this doesn’t exactly guarantee the same success in 2010.

Your team looked old and over the hill last April but was able to bounce back.  Eventually the age on the team won’t be able to do that, although Jeter and Rivera will certainly be trying so they can get that extra bit out of you in contract negotiations.

However, just about everything went right for you last season, and it’s not likely to go that way again.  Will guys like Nick Johnson and AJ Burnett stay healthy?  Will Granderson hit lefties?  How many games can Posada play behind the plate?   As I write this, Nick Johnson and Posada have both already been scratched from spring games this week.

It’s fair to say that the Yankees don’t have a ton of holes, but you do have two talented teams in your division that can exploit even the smallest problem in your game.  The success of last year does mask a lot of possible problems that could open up and devour the team though.  The handling of the bullpen, Joba and Hughes.  The range and age of your shortstop.  A-Rod’s hip, which was supposedly going to need more surgery but somehow didn’t.  Are the Feds coming for A-Rod and why is he dodging them?  Will Yankee Stadium in 2010 become the setting of some sort of Bourne film with A-Rod dashing through the stands with Matt Damon chasing him?  It’s probably a safe bet that they all the holes won’t all open at once, and that the Yankees could overcome some of them, but that’s why we play the games. When the dust clears you may find yourselves in third place and playing golf in October.

Your cross-town rival,

Optimistic Mets Fan

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2009 World Series: Bad News

As everyone has made light of, this World Series sucks for a Mets fan.

Mets fans are pretty split on which side they’re rooting for, if you can even call it rooting.  Funny thing is, you see plenty of Yankees fans saying that we should be rooting for them, but I don’t hear any Phillies fans making that same argument.

From Mets

Personally, I’m rooting for the Yankees to lose.  I don’t get any joy or any more grief no matter what the Phillies do, but the Yankees winning would really irk me.  It’d blow my theory of them being cursed for knocking down the house that Ruth built, it’d give even more fuel to the “Jeter’s the best player ever” arguments you hear, as well as the constant reminder about how much they’ve won.  Their eight rings to the Mets two would start to get a little insurmountable, whereas three for the Phillies wouldn’t be as rough.

From Mets

Some say that the cracks in Yankee Stadium will open up and swallow both teams into Hell.

Some compare it to 1999 although despite how much it sucked losing the Braves, the Braves fans were never in the equation as hated rivals.  Others suggest we ask who the Yankees were rooting for in 1986 and root accordingly.

Personally, I’m just not watching.  I get no joy out of watching either team, and if you factor in all the game-delay tactics, the 50 million pitching changes, and the pop-fly home runs, I’m just not sure it’s going to be fun to watch anyway.

I’ll be watching the Islanders at the Rangers Wednesday night.

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Have You Been to My Website Lately?

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Dear Derek Jeter,

Fine. You persisted. You asked me, day after day, for months and years, “Have you been to my website lately?”. So I went. I was driven to check it out. Let me tell you something, It wasn’t all you’ve hyped it to be.

The first thing I noticed was that it made the processor in my computer go wild. That site ate up resources faster than C.C. At the buffet.

I tried some of the cheesy flash games. They sucked. I have a feeling they were developed in a single day, and thrown together for the sake of having something on the site. One was a lame game where you had to ‘be a major league shortstop’ and catch balls, but the balls were thrown to all parts of the field, from in front of the plate all the way to the wall. I know you’ve got a huge ego, but do you really think you can play defense so well you don’t need the other eight guys?

Then I played the racing game, which came with no instructions, and featured racing against two other cars, none of which seemed to resemble the Ford Edge you’re always hyping. I had no idea what I was supposed to do so I just tried to ram the other cars. Unfortunately, collisions weren’t programmed in and I just passed through it like it wasn’t there.

After finding another link to the racing game, I played some trivia. Silly questions about Ford products mixed in with questions about your accomplishments as a player. Yawn.

After I figured out how to navigate the TV part of your site, I watched the outtakes. Most of them were you just stumbling over words or forgetting what you were saying while standing in front of a green screen. They weren’t really very good.

But the best part just had to be the ‘hidden’ icons that popped up thrilling information about Ford products when I scrolled over them. “Ford is second to none in terms of quality.”

I did it. I finally visited your website, and it was a horrible waste of my time. Can you please shut up now?

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Why I’m Watching Baseball

What I’m Rooting For Now

Sure, the Mets are out of it. Everyone has been injured. The manager is still a disaster, and there is still no obvious plan in place going forward. So what should we watch when we’re drawn in to watching baseball? What should we be rooting for?

September call-ups are always a popular choice, even if the Mets aren’t going to have that many. Biggest guy to watch is Josh Thole, the prospect catcher. Catcher is a big hole next year which makes catching prospects even more important. If Thole is for real, then the Mets can look for a short term stop-gap type solution behind the plate for one year. Can watch Murphy and Evans and Pagan and Parnell as they jockey for position and hope to be in the plans for next year.

From Mets

Mainly though, I’m rooting against the Phillies and the Yankees. It still looks unlikely that either team will miss the playoffs, but stranger things have happened. Both bullpens are suspect, as Lidge goes for the blown save record, batters figure out Phil Hughes, Mariano gets older and frailer, and other guys don’t step up the possibility for a collapse looms. I think both teams are beatable, especially in the playoffs if it comes to that. I don’t expect to see either in the World Series.

Still, the state of baseball frustrates me. The Phillies and Yankees don’t lose as often as I would like, and too often grab victory despite teetering on the edge of failure. I would get no enjoyment watching either of them play baseball in October, and hope I don’t have to. The Islanders first game is October third. The Giants and Jets both start playing this Sunday. I have no idea when the NBA starts, but I think it’s a couple of weeks yet.

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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.

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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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5-1 against the Phillies and Yankees

Three games against the Phillies start tonight. It’s actually a big New York baseball week, as the Yankees are playing the Red Sox this week as well, and then they meet in the Bronx for the first Subway Series at the new Yankee Stadium. It’s actually a shame Delgado’s going to miss it. He had nine RBI at the place last year, and this year with the rate balls fly out of right field, I figured he’d be able to double his home run total for the year this weekend.

We’ll have to settle for Ryan Church and Daniel Murphy knocking a couple out. Fernando Martinez, if he doesn’t connect with one off the crappy Phillies pitching, will have a good shot there. But before the Mets get to the Bronx, they host the Phillies, who they are 3-1 against so far. Metsblog ran a poll, and the pessimists got their voice heard with 2-4 being the expected outcome over the next six, with 4-2 the runner up. Personally, I’m thinking 5-1. I know this is overly optimistic given the injuries, but I really think the Mets match up well against these two teams.

All four times they’ve faced the Phillies the Mets have looked liked the better team. Everyone knows that the Phillies strength is offense. Good pitching generally beats good hitting, and I’m confident in Santana, and in Pelfrey having a bounce back start. Pelfrey is also more of a ground ball pitcher, which should help against the power numbers of Philadelphia, as will Citi Field. The big question mark is Redding, who has had some good starts, and some bad ones. Supposedly he pitches pretty well against the Phillies, but I don’t know how much stock to take in that. Maybe pitching in Citi Field will help him. On the other hand, the Phillies aren’t good at pitching. The Mets have hit Happ well, have hit Hamels, and everyone seems to have hit Moyer this year. Their bullpen has been better, but it’s still not great and Lidge has looked awful.

It’s hard to predict a sweep, because anything can happen in baseball. I’d be shocked if the Phillies were to win this series. Then they’ve got a tough opponent in the Red Sox, who I don’t expect them to beat either.

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Letters to the NL East

(If you weren’t paying attention last year, so begins the second annual ‘letters to the NL East’ week. We start with the other team we want the Mets to do better than, before diving into the division)

 

Part 0 of the 5 part series, “Letters to the NL East”

 

Letter to Brian Cashman and the New York Yankees.

 

Dear Yankees,

 

You spent a ton of money after your first season out of the playoffs in years. It certainly makes you wonder if you made a mistake firing Joe Torre. There are still a ton of question marks with your team, even putting aside the A-Rod situations.

 

Will A.J. Burnett be Carl Pavano part two? Will Posada be able to reliably play catcher this year? What’s up with the log jam at DH, or your too many outfielders? How much does Pettitte have left for a full season? Can Joba really help the team, even if he’s superb, considering the Joba rules and Innings Pitched limits?

 

Those are just the obvious ones before the season has even started. Who knows what other issues will pop up. I’d stray away from assuming just because you again spent way too much money that you’re the team to beat in that division. I still think you’re favored not to make the playoffs. I don’t care what the so called experts say. Don’t be surprised if by August, your ‘fans’ are looking for a ticket into Citi Field. That’s where the good baseball’s gonna happen this year.

 

But don’t worry, the media will still be all over you. The over/under for new A-Rod controversies is at 13.

 

Hatefully Yours,

 

Optimistic Mets Fan

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Mets Believe Mets Fans Believe They Can Win

I was at the Subway Series games this weekend, and while a lot of the juice has gone out of it, there was still excitement in the air. The lack of juice could be attributed to both teams struggling. I didn’t hear one “Jet-ers Boy-Friend” chant for A-Rod. No Hip-Hip You’re-Gay! No Captain Cologne! (Admittedly, some of these are better left unsaid) There were still a good amount of Yankees fans being positive, cheering “Der-ek Jet-er” and other assorted lame Yankees chants. Despite the Yankees being in arguably a worse position than the Mets, their fans are still more optimistic.

The argument everyone always falls back on is they’ve won in the past. But winning in the past doesn’t do anything for winning in the present. The only thing it affects is confidence, and part of that is fan confidence. Who do you think has more confidence in their team, and their own performance? Cano, or Castillo? Both are playing badly, but one guy is having his head called for constantly and booed. The other is certainly souring faces, but he’s not yet being chased out of town or having fans seriously consider releasing him. Sometimes if you tell someone that they are a certain way enough, they believe it themselves. When Delgado comes up to the plate, everyone at Shea is convinced and screaming at him that he’s going to ground out to second, so he’s thinking about grounding out to second. Just like you can’t stop thinking about the giant elephant in the room. Conversely, Derek Jeter comes up in a big spot thinking he’s going to come through because that’s what everyone always tells him he does. So he hits roughly the same ground ball, but instead it seems to go a little faster, and just seems to find that hole between second and first.

So how about we go about our business as Mets fans with a little bit of swagger and confidence. We just crushed the Yankees, winning the series 4-2. Play that way all season and the Mets would win well over 100 games. We’ve gained on the Phillies, and we’re coming with a vengeance that they should be frightened of. Even bad teams can win frequently, and whether you think the Mets are good, bad, or somewhere in between, lets go out there and root like we think and know they will win the game instead of constantly telling them how they’re going to fail and not good enough for us. Maybe they’ll start to believe it too.

Oh, and Jerry Manuel telling everyone that the it’s the Yankees town isn’t helping. All it did was give fodder to the newspapers to continue talking about the Yankees and treating the Mets like the second team.