The Mets will play two games versus the Giants today

Posted on April 23, 2012 by Aaron Yorke

Second Update: Adam Rubin of ESPN New York says that AAA starter Jeremy Hefner will be added to the 25-man roster for today’s doubleheader, as the Mets bullpen will be shortened by the presence of Batista in the starting lineup. After today, Valdespin will reportedly replace Hefner on the major league roster.

Update: The Mets have called up shortstop/center fielder Jordany Valdespin from AAA Buffalo. Word is that Ronny Cedeño is headed to the disabled list. No word yet on what kind of injury Cedeño is suffering from.

Original Post: Thanks to yesterday’s miserable weather and the postponement of the Mets vs. Giants game, there will be two National League ballgames played today between New York and San Francisco. The first will start at 4:10 PM and the next will being soon after the first one ends. For Game One, the Mets lineup will look like this:

Kirk Niewenhuis – CF, Daniel Murphy – 2B, David Wright – 3B, Lucas Duda – RF, Ike Davis – 1B, Josh Thole – C, Ruben Tejada – SS, Mike Baxter – LF, Miguel Batista – RHP

I’m not a huge fan of young Nieuwenhuis continuing to hit out of the lead-off spot. I know he’s off to a great start to his major league career (hitting .325/.400/.525), but he’s also struck out in 12 of 45 plate appearances. Kirk’s high batting average is mostly supported by an unsustainable .423 BABIP.

Ruben Tejada on the other hand, has really done nothing to lose his spot at the top of the order, other than being given a rest on the same day Nieuwenhuis went 3 for 4 with a pair of doubles batting lead-off. Tejada has done a great job working deep into counts so far this season and has struck out nine times in 56 plate appearances. That’s not a particularly amazing figure, but Tejada (batting .265/.345/.408) has flashed some rare power with seven doubles and is also still two years younger than Kirk. If I had my way, Niewenhuis would be batting seventh or eighth in the order while he proves his hot start is more than just a flash in the pan.

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Elsewhere in the East: Lombardozzi lifts Nats, Phils jump on Lincecum

Posted on April 17, 2012 by Aaron Yorke

Washington 6, Houston 3

Update: I almost forgot about the best play from this game, which was Rick Ankiel’s throw to home plate on a bases loaded fly ball by Carlos Lee. Even though Jordan Schafer had plenty of speed on third base, he didn’t dare try to make it home on the fly ball to Ankiel. Turned out to be a good decision, as Ankiel threw a strike and Chris Johnson was able to later hit a single to plate Schafer anyway.

Original post: Washington manager Davey Johhnson started reserve infielder Steve Lombardozzi at second base last night just to give his regular keystoner Danny Espinosa a breather. It seems like this happens way too often, but Lombardozzi turned out to be the hero for the Nationals in their 6-3 win over the Houston Astros.

Lombardozzi went 4 for 5 at the plate, including a bloop two-out double down the left field line that drove in two Nationals runs in the bottom of the sixth inning. That made the score 4-2, giving Washington the lead for good.

Stephen Strasburg was very effective in this one, especially before he allowed Houston to load the bases in the top of the sixth and eventually score two runs. Apparently, something is going wrong for him when his opponents get on base.

“When guys would get in scoring position I felt like they definitely were kind of seeing pitches a little differently,” Strasburg said. “I don’t think I was throwing any pitches worse or with different kind of movement, but they definitely seemed a little bit more comfortable with guys on second base. . . . I know what it is and I know how to fix it, so that’s the bottom line.”

He make it sound like he was lousy, but Strasburg was pretty good with five strikeouts, one walk and two earned runs in six innings. 61 of his 93 pitches went for strikes.

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Super Gee and Mets win over Braves 6-1

Posted on April 17, 2012 by Aaron Yorke

Sure, I was glued to the Rangers game for most of the night (hockey!), but that didn’t stop the Metsies from rolling off another win over the Atlanta Braves on Monday night. This time, Atlanta was coming in hot — the Bravos had won five straight since starting the season 0-4 — but Dillon Gee was able to lead New York to a 6-1 victory anyway.

Gee allowed just four hits, one walk and one run in his seven innings. He also struck out five batters, including getting Juan Francisco swinging on a high fastball to end the 7th. That inning started off with a Dan Uggla single and a catcher’s interference call that allowed Jason Heyward to reach first, but Gee’s work to get out of the jam effectively extinguished Atlanta’s last real hope.

Mark Simon of ESPN New York does a great job examining how Gee had so much success versus the Braves, and in particular Chipper Jones. It turns out that Gee’s Game Score rating of 69 from last night is the best for any Mets starters this season. Yes, 69.

Meanwhile, Ike Davis had the biggest play of the night. In the top of the 6th with runners at the corners and two outs in a 1-1 game, the Mets first baseman ripped a home run to left field to blow the game open. Right before Davis stepped up to the plate, Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez and pitcher Tommy Hanson made the very logical move to intentionally walk the red hot David Wright, but Davis made them pay.

“He’s thrown it every at-bat, every pitch, every time I’ve faced him,” Davis said, referring to curveballs from Hanson. “If you go back at the records, it’s probably maybe three or four fastballs in something like 30 at-bats. The Braves really throw me a lot of off-speed most of the time. So I think the first series I saw three fastballs to open the year off of them the whole series. So obviously they think I’m a fastball hitter. And I haven’t had great success against them, because they’ve thrown pitchers’ pitches with their off-speed pitches.”

It’s great to see Davis bust out of his first week slump with home runs in consecutive games. It’s even better that he’s adjusting to how pitchers deal with him. I’m pretty psyched to watch him continue to mash this season. Maybe later this week he’ll push that OPS over .600!

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Can Pelfrey please go deeper in games this season?

Posted on April 16, 2012 by Aaron Yorke

I hope everyone had a good weekend! Over at The Daily Stache today I wrote a piece on Mike Pelfrey and how he doesn’t go deep in games despite his low strikeout totals.

Pelfrey can be very frustrating to watch, but one thing he has gotten good at is being on the field every fifth day. In fact, Pelfrey has started at least 30 games in each of the past four seasons. He would be a really legitimate asset if he could just lower those walk numbers!

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Mets visit Philly for weekend series

Posted on April 13, 2012 by Aaron Yorke


Tonight at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia, the New York Mets will visit the Philadelphia Phillies to start a three-game series. First pitch is scheduled for 7:05 PM.

So far this season, both teams have received good performances from their pitching staffs (the Mets more surprisingly so) while struggling to put runs on the board. If you haven’t heard already, the Phils have been without both Ryan Howard and Chase Utley because of lower body ailments. Howard tore his left Achilles tendon on his very last swing of the 2011 postseason, while Utley is battling chronic knee pains that also held him out of the beginning of last year’s regular season.

In place of their two injured stars, the Phllies have had to put up with replacement-level production from Freddy Galvis at second base and from a cavalcade of mediocre players at first base. Although Galvis is a very good on defense, he only hit .273/.326/.400 at AA Reading last season and doesn’t figure to be a huge threat on offense right away. That said, the youngster has base hits in his last three games and is now 3 for 20 on the season with a pair of doubles.

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The Mets will do something to respect Chipper Jones this season

Posted on April 13, 2012 by Aaron Yorke

This isn’t a big deal to me, but apparently the Mets will do something at some point during the season to “honor” long-time New York public enemy Chipper Jones, who is retiring from professional baseball after the 2012 season. The story started as a rumor and gained steam when WFAN morning show producer Al Dukes got on the phone with a Mets official, who confirmed that the Mets would be acknowledging Jones’ career.

Tasked with confirming the rumor, Dukes got a Mets official on the phone Thursday morning.

He summed up the chat on air: “It was a conversation that went like this … ‘Will we acknowledge Chipper Jones’ career? Yes we will.’”

The last home game the Mets play versus the Braves this season is on Sunday, September 9.

Of course, WFAN personality (and one of my favorite people to listen to) Craig Carton thought it was a horrible idea and framed it as another reason why the Mets are losers. Over at MetsBlog, Matt Cerrone was also less than thrilled.

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David Wright got hurt and now the world of the Mets is ending

Posted on April 12, 2012 by Aaron Yorke

Mets are embarrassing in home loss to Nats

Yesterday, the Mets lost to the Washington Nationals 4-0 and it was pretty horrible to say the least. New York knocked just three hits while striking out a whopping 15 times in the shutout loss. Nats phenom/ace/superhuman Stephen Strasburg recorded only nine of those strikeouts in his six innings of work, which means the Mets struck out six times in three innings against the Washington bullpen. That is gross, especially when you consider that the Mets first two batters of the game reached base (Tejada single, Murphy walk), but were stranded even after Strasburg blessed Queens with a one-out wild pitch.

Duda lined out to center before the wild pitch, so that did nothing to advance the runners. After the runners moved over, Davis was frozen by a nasty breaking ball for strike three and then Bay did what he always does and hit a grounder to shortstop. That was it for the day’s excitement.

On the other side of the ball, Johan Santana saw a run to cross in the 2nd by allowing two singles, a walk and then a wild pitch. He would pitch pretty brilliantly the rest of the way, however, and finished with eight Ks, three walks, and five hits allowed in five innings. The problem — besides that the one run allowed by Johan was all Washington would need — was that Santana burned through 99 pitches over those five innings and forced Terry Collins to replace him before Mets fans were ready to see him go.

The New York bullpen had apparently been waiting to blow up for days now, because they were intolerable. Manny Acosta walked three, then Ramon Ramirez walked two, then Jon Rauch got two outs on two pitches, then Miguel Batista and Tim Byrdak walked one each to finish off the “ballgame.” That’s seven walks in four innings for a bullpen that had been pretty decent for the first five games of the season.

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Reviewing Tintin and Mission: Impossible

Posted on December 27, 2011 by Aaron Yorke

I just got back from a great trip to the movies with my brother, J-man. Not only did we avoid seeing something horrible like The Darkest Hour, but we actually saw a pretty good movie in The Adventures of Tintin. I’ve had my eye on Tintin for a while because it looks like the sort of adventurous romp that I would enjoy. It’s also been described as a mix of Indiana Jones and Pirates of the Caribbean.

Overall, the movie is more like Indiana Jones with a Pirates twist, but I suppose I should have taken that comparison with a grain of salt anyway because the last Indy film was a huge disappointment and the Pirates series would not have lasted one iteration if not for Johnny Depp’s complete ownership of the Jack Sparrow role. Anyway, like with Indiana Jones, the title character in Tintin is of a scholarly profession and can inexplicably beat up men twice his size. Specifically, Tintin is a ginger, baby-faced journalist with an unquenchable thirst for adventure. He’s definitely a likeable guy, but he only survives the movie due to a combination of glass-jawed henchmen and his ability to expertly pilot any vehicle that he has never seen before. Upon hijacking an enemy aircraft, Tintin says he “interviewed a pilot once.” Then he flips a few switches and we’re off to our next destination.

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