Mets sweep away Marlins with 3-2 comeback win

Posted on April 27, 2012 by Aaron Yorke


Kirk Nieuwenhuis has done it again. The rookie center fielder continued to endear himself to Mets fans on Thursday afternoon with a 3 for 5 day, including the game winning hit in the bottom of the ninth. With the score tied at 2-2 and the bases loaded, Nieuwenhuis ripped a Heath Bell offering over Giancarlo Stanton’s head in right field to score Josh Thole as the winning run.

New York entered the ninth inning trailing 2-1, but it became clear immediately that Miami closer and former Met Heath Bell did not have his best stuff. What wasn’t clear was what caused Marlins manager Ozzie Guillen to leave Bell in the game while he lost the lead in the slowest manner possible.

Bell walked David Wright, Ike Davis and Josh Thole while showing an inability to locate his curve ball. With the bases loaded and one out, Bell was forced to heave fastball after fastball at pinch hitter Justin Turner. Although Turner was behind almost everything, he stayed alive by fouling off eight pitches in the 13-pitch at-bat to eventually force a walk and tie the game.

Still, Guillen stuck with Bell, and although Scott Hairston grounded into a fielder’s choice, the game was ended right after that by the clutch Nieuwenhuis hit. The Mets have now won three straight games to sweep the Marlins series after a demoralizing doubleheader versus the Giants.

Nieuwenhuis went 3 for 5 in the game and was the only player on either side with multiple hits. He led off the bottom of the first with a triple and came home on a Ruben Tejada sac fly for the only Mets run scored before the fateful ninth inning.

Niewenhuis is now batting .333/.403/.517, but it’s important not to get too jazzed up. He’s still striking out 28.4% of the time, which is right behind the terrible Ike Davis (30.1%) and the not-as-terrible Jason Bay (29.8%). A 9.0% walk rate is not great but not terrible. Those batting numbers are being held up mostly by a ridiculous .462 BABIP.

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Mets sign Brad Emaus and Fred Lewis to minor league contracts

Posted on April 26, 2012 by Aaron Yorke

He’s back! I thought Brad Emaus got a raw deal from the Mets last season when they sent him back to Toronto after one lousy month. It appears that someone in the front office is also an Emaus believer, because it was announced yesterday that he’s back in the Mets organization on a minor league deal. Joining him is another guy I’m randomly a fan of, Fred Lewis.

The Mets selected Emaus from Toronto in the 2010 Rule 5 Draft and gave him the starting second base gig to begin the 2011 season. However, Emaus got off to a slow start and hit just .162/.262/.162 (with a .214 BABIP) in 42 plate appearances. That was enough for the Mets to send him back to Toronto and give the second base job to Justin Turner, who caught fire in May to endear himself to fans, but still ended the season with only a .690 OPS.

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Dickey and Wright star in Mets 5-1 win over Miami

Posted on April 26, 2012 by Aaron Yorke

For the second straight night, the Marlins took a 1-0 lead over the Mets in a pitching duel and for the second straight night the Mets stormed back. R.A. Dickey was pitching splendidly for the Mets when Omar Infante tried to rain on his parade with a fifth inning solo home run. However, David Wright ensured that Dickey came out the winner with a dramatic two-run blast of his own with two outs in the bottom of the sixth.

The round tripper, that came on an 0-2 Mark Buehrle change-up, gave Wright the RBI he needed to pass Darryl Strawberry on the Mets all time leaders list. Wright now has 735 RBI in his career.

To clinch the victory, New York added three runs in the eighth thanks to RBI hits from Lucas Duda and Mike Baxter. Duda had two hits for the game and raised his numbers to .249/.329/.426 while Baxter seems to be making the most out of his limited playing time and is hitting .267/.389/.400 in his 18 plate appearances this season.

As expected, the game went by relatively quickly, especially while Dickey and Buehrle were still in the game. Dickey breezed through Miami with sevens strikeouts and one walk in seven innings while Buehrle had four strikouts and one walk in his seven frames. The two home runs were the only tallies allowed by either pitcher.

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R.A. Dickey and the Mets try to beat Miami again tonight

Posted on April 25, 2012 by Aaron Yorke

Tonight at 7:10 PM, the Mets play Miami again at Citi Field in Queens. I’m pretty psyched because R.A. Dickey is on the mound. So much so, that I wrote a preview for the game over at The Daily Stache. It’s pretty in depth, so go check it out. By the way, Mark Buehrle is on the mound for the Marlins, and he’ll be pitching against the Mets for the first time ever.

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Pelfrey might miss a lot of time and Davis slump is getting serious

Posted on April 25, 2012 by Aaron Yorke

Pelfrey diagnosis still up in the air

What exactly is the cause of Mike Pelfrey’s elbow swelling? That question is still up for debate. In an interview with Mike Francesa on WFAN yesterday, Mets general manager Sandy Alderon said the following:

“We not sure what the final diagnosis will be, but there is certainly swelling in that elbow. We should know something more concrete in the next couple of days. This is not something will go away in the next couple of days, so we put him on the disabled list.”

However, in a post made just before the start of last night’s game versus Miami, Adam Rubin of ESPN New York issued a much more grim report.

Mets officials are aware that Mike Pelfrey has suffered a partial tear of the ulnar collateral ligament in his right elbow and are bracing to lose the right-hander to season-ending surgery, a major league source told ESPNNewYork.com.

Well, that would be horrible. Not only is Pelf off to a wonderful start this season, but I am just not ready for multiple Chris Schwinden outings. Nothing is official yet, so we’ll just have to sit back and hope that Pelfrey has not actually torn his UCL.

If it does turn out that Pelfrey has to miss the rest of the season, I’m guessing that Matt Harvey will replace Schwinden once the hot prospect is deemed ready for major league duty. It’s possible that Schwinden does make more than a handful of starts, but he’d probably need to pitch really well in order to hold off Harvey. All this is still hypothetical, though, so keep your fingers crossed.

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Mets fans booing Reyes wasn’t a crime

Posted on April 25, 2012 by Aaron Yorke

Here’s something I can’t stand: A journalist telling fans who they should cheer for. In the wake of last night’s booing of Jose Reyes, Bergen Record columnist Bob Klapisch decided to take Mets fans to task for disrespecting the star shortstop.

I know fans sometimes can act out of line. I’m not for any sort of violence or yelling of obscenities. I know I was frightened at some of the things I heard at Giants Stadium when I was a kid, and I’m in favor of keeping the stadium a family friendly environment. However, if fans want to boo a guy, they should boo a guy. Especially if he’s on the other team, and especially if he left the home team for a rival organization. It wouldn’t hurt if the player in question flat out quit in his last game with the home team.

I’m still not sure if Reyes deserved to get booed last night, but I do know that he didn’t deserve the sort of adoration he got when he played for the Mets. Klapisch says that Mets fans should be embarrassed by the reception they gave Reyes.

Reyes did nothing wrong signing with the Marlins, the only team to offer him a contract last winter. The idea that Reyes is a traitor — or “garbage” as he was taunted during batting practice — isn’t just bad revisionist history, it’s an insult to the legacy of the most complete player to ever wear a Mets uniform.

Yes, it’s true that Reyes is one of the best players in Mets history, and it’s true that the Mets did not make a significant offer to attempt to retain him. Here’s what’s also true:

  • Reyes never was part of a team that won a National League pennant
  • Reyes is playing for a division rival that knocked the Mets out of the playoffs on the last game of the season in 2007 and 2008
  • Reyes chose to sit down in the last game of the 2011 season. Instead of helping his team win the game and giving the loyal fans a proper send off, he sat in the hope that it would help him win a batting title.

Winning. Loyalty. Selflessness. These are the things that fans care about. They are also three things that are mostly absent from Reyes’ resume. A lot of fans don’t care about how many triples he hit or how exciting he was to watch because it didn’t result in even one NL pennant. A lot of fans don’t care that Reyes never got a real offer from the Mets because no matter what he was going to get oodles more money than the average fan can even think about.

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Santana, Mets beat Marlins 2-1

Posted on April 25, 2012 by Aaron Yorke

The Mets came from behind to fry the fish last night in a 2-1 victory. Johan Santana and Miami’s Josh Johnson both put on incredible performances. In the top of the seventh, the Marlins broke a 0-0 tie when Gaby Sanchez doubled home Giancarlo Stanton. However, the Mets struck back in the bottom of the inning when they walked four times in a row against four different Miami pitchers.

In the eighth, Lucas Duda hit the game-winning RBI single to send the Citi Field fans home happy. You can read all about the game in the recap I wrote for The Daily Stache last night.

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Here comes the hurt: Pelfrey, Bay hit disabled list

Posted on April 24, 2012 by Aaron Yorke

Update: It sounds like the Mets will promote Chris Schwinden to make Pelfrey’s start on Friday. Thank goodness. In four starts for Buffalo this season, Schwinden has pitched 22 innings with 13 strikeouts and nine walks and a 2.05 ERA. Those aren’t mind-blowing stats, but we’ll take them.

Original Post: It turns out that Ronny Cedeño was just the tip of the iceberg. Today, both Jason Bay and Mike Pelfrey have hit the disabled list. Bay has a broken rib that he apparently suffered when he dove for the Gregor Blanco double last night. Pelfrey is dealing with elbow swelling.

Both Pelfrey and Bay are players who fans are less than enthusiastic about, but both have been decent enough this season (Pelf maybe more than decent) that the Mets will miss their production. Pelfrey has made at least 30 starts in each of his past four seasons, so hopefully he only misses three or four starts. Also, the Mets have no starting pitching depth.

Bay is more replaceable because Kirk Nieuwenhuis has been surprisingly good and Andres Torres is on his way back (he was 3 for 4 in a rehab start in Port St. Lucie last night). Also with Jordany Valdespin recently called up, the Mets can now more easily get the youngster playing time. Scott Hairston is an option who can step in to play left field and more easily match Bay’s offensive production.

Robert Carson has been called up to replace Pelfrey, while Zach Lutz takes Bay’s spot. Back in March, Carson was in the mix to be the left-handed guy in the major league bullpen before Byrdak returned from injury. At AA Binghamton, Carson has six strikeouts, one walk and two runs allowed in 5.2 innings. That’s all in five relief appearances, so we are could be looking at the grim prospect of Miguel Batista making some more starts. Of course, he was so bad yesterday versus San Francisco that the Mets could make another roster move prior to Pelfrey’s next scheduled start on Friday.

Lutz has been tearing the cover off the ball at AAA Buffalo so far. He’s hitting .333/.425/.556 with three home runs. That makes him a great pinch-hitting option off the bench, but Lutz is a third baseman by trade, so it doesn’t look like he’ll get many starts unless the Mets want to cram him into left field. Spelling Ike Davis versus lefty starters is a possibility, though.

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Mets versus Marlins and the return of Reyes

Posted on April 24, 2012 by Aaron Yorke

The Mets begin a three-game series with the Miami Marlins tonight at 7:10 PM in a game that the Mets need to win if they want to escape the doldrums that have followed a 7-3 start to the season. Of course, the big event tonight will be the return to Queens of Jose Reyes, who as a free agent signed a deal with Miami this off-season. Once viewed as a “franchise” player for the Mets, Reyes has more triples, stolen bases and runs scored than any player in the team’s history.

So how will he be received by the Citi Field crowd? That’s what I’m most interested in seeing. I’ve gone back and forth on whether Reyes deserves to be booed or cheered when he steps to the plate tonight. On one hand, he made the logical decision to take more money to play for a better club. On the other, he took himself out of what turned out to be his last game as a Met last season.

I guess if I was at the game, I would do the “right” thing and give Reyes a decent applause, but he still rubbed me the wrong way the way he left his last Mets game just to ensure he could win the batting title. Not only does the decision put into question his motivations for playing, but it makes me wonder if Reyes ever really understood how important on-base percentage is.

No matter how the crowd reacts, I’m not really sad to see Reyes in another uniform. Sandy Alderson was not about to buy into an injury prone player coming off of a career year. Even if the Mets had the money to offer Reyes a huge contract, that wouldn’t make it the right decision. The Mets may very well be better off without Reyes in two or three years.

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Mets trounced by Giants twice

Posted on April 24, 2012 by Aaron Yorke


It was not a great day to be a Mets fan yesterday. New York’s National League team lost not once, but twice to the San Francisco Giants, and neither game was particularly close. In the first game, the Mets lost 6-1, mainly because Miguel Batista imploded right at the start of the game.

It was nice that former Met Angel Pagan led off the game with a grounder to first, but then Melky Cabrera walked and stole second. Pablo Sandoval, the Kung Fu Panda, followed with an RBI hit into right-center field. It’s a good thing that Lucas Duda threw out the Panda as he tried for a double, because the next batter Buster Posey hit a home run. 2-0 Giants was the score after one.

For a second, it looked like the Mets would make a game out of the pitching mismatch that saw Tim Lincecum starting against the overwhelmed Batista. In the second inning Ruben Tejada walked with two outs, stole second base and was doubled home by Mike Baxter, who was in the lineup to give Jason Bay a breather.

However, the Giants would put the game out of reach in the top of the third. Batista got the first two men out, but Ike Davis misplayed a Panda groundball to extend the inning. Posey followed with a walk, which set the table for a Nate Schierholtz three-run bomb into the Mo’s Zone to make the score 5-1. Last season, that would have only scored a pair of runs, but it didn’t matter, because Tim Lincecum had the good stuff today.

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