{"id":720,"date":"2010-06-08T13:58:26","date_gmt":"2010-06-08T17:58:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ceetar.com\/optimisticmetsfan\/?p=720"},"modified":"2010-06-08T13:58:26","modified_gmt":"2010-06-08T17:58:26","slug":"can-jesus-cure-the-mets-road-woes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.ceetar.com\/optimisticmetsfan\/2010\/06\/08\/can-jesus-cure-the-mets-road-woes\/","title":{"rendered":"Can Jesus Cure the Mets Road Woes?"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/span><\/div>\n
As is the usual story when the Mets are playing at home, things are looking up.\u00a0 The Mets have the best record in the majors at home, but the worst on the road.\u00a0 Which is the true story of the Mets?<\/div>\n

Well, like any major league team, it\u2019s really both.\u00a0 The Mets are capable of being the poorly run team on the road that lets little things beat them like making one bad pitch, failing to get a runner in from third, poor fielding, or the wrong pitching change.\u00a0 They\u2019re also capable of being the dominating team that you see when they play at Citi Field.\u00a0 The team that laces doubles and triples into the gaps, that pitches out of jams and makes the opposing team struggling with runners in scoring positions, the team that comes back from deficits and is never out of a game.\u00a0 <\/span>\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not just that the Mets get lucky when they\u2019re at home.\u00a0 They really are capable of being a dominating, scary team.\u00a0 Despite their poor play they\u2019re hanging in this division and with a weak road trip coming up, they have a chance at reversing their fortunes.\u00a0 First they have a revenge series against the Padres, with both Pelfrey and Santana pitching.\u00a0 (I\u2019m aware they had both pitching in San Diego as well)\u00a0 If they can win this series, they\u2019d be 32 and 28, four games over .500 with a nine game road trip coming up.\u00a0 <\/span>\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Mets roster has gotten quite a shakeup over the last couple of days.\u00a0 Niese returns and Oliver Perez, Luis Castillo, and Gary Matthew Junior either went on the DL or were released.\u00a0 Jesus Feliciano and Ruben Tejada have joined the team.\u00a0 Both are rookies, Feliciano finally getting the call-up at 31 years of age after an excellent start to the season where he\u2019s batting almost .400 in Buffalo.\u00a0 He had a good season last year and played well in the World Baseball Classic for Puerto Rico.\u00a0 I actually saw him play in the first game against the USA in which he helped them win in mercy rule fashion. \u00a0 He\u2019s received a lot of praise from his Buffalo team and from Alex Cora as a guy that can hit the ball and knows how to win. I don\u2019t know if the \u201cknows how to win\u201d argument is really worth anything, but it won\u2019t be hard to bring more value than Gary Matthews Jr did.\u00a0 It\u2019s yet unknown what type of player Tejada will be, and definitely unknown if he can get on base at the rate that Castillo normally does, but so far he\u2019s played well and he\u2019s young and exciting and his presence means the Mets have a fully home-grown infield for the time being.\u00a0 Not a bad deal for a team that\u2019s supposedly bad at the draft. <\/span>\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\"Jesus Jesus Feliciano (#23) joins his Puerto Rican teammates (Beltran, Delgado, Cora, Pedro Feliciano) in celebrating the mercy rule win over the USA. Feliciano went 6\/16 during the WBC.<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n

So with some of the regulars rounding into mid-season form and some new fresh faces, I expect them to play better on the next road trip and return home in first place.\u00a0 Six of those games are against really bad American League teams in the Indians and Orioles.\u00a0 The three games at the end of it against the Yankees may be a little tougher, but they\u2019ve already beaten them once.<\/span>\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s going to be an exciting couple of weeks.\u00a0 The Mets have invited me to Citi Field on Wednesday, I\u2019m considering traveling the Baltimore for the Saturday game against the Mets, and I\u2019ll be at the finale of the road trip against the Yankees, likely seeing Santana again.\u00a0 By the time that road trip finishes the Mets will hopefully have put the road woes behind them, are at or near first place, and we\u2019ll even know more about if and when Beltran is coming to rejoin the team. I\u2019m really looking forward to the next 12 games.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As is the usual story when the Mets are playing at home, things are looking up.\u00a0 The Mets have the best record in the majors at home, but the worst on the road.\u00a0 Which is the true story of the Mets? Well, like any major league team, it\u2019s really both.\u00a0 The Mets are capable of … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Can Jesus Cure the Mets Road Woes?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[809,19,15,3],"tags":[2968,1027,2966,191,1028,783,2964,1029,14,190,1025,1026,1030,1031,2985],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ceetar.com\/optimisticmetsfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/720"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ceetar.com\/optimisticmetsfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ceetar.com\/optimisticmetsfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ceetar.com\/optimisticmetsfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ceetar.com\/optimisticmetsfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=720"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.ceetar.com\/optimisticmetsfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/720\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":724,"href":"http:\/\/www.ceetar.com\/optimisticmetsfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/720\/revisions\/724"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ceetar.com\/optimisticmetsfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ceetar.com\/optimisticmetsfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ceetar.com\/optimisticmetsfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}