Daily Archives: June 3, 2005
Friday’s game between the Mets and Giants was postponed due to rain
and will be made up as part of a twinight doubleheader starting at 4:10
PM EDT on Sunday…
…have a nice weekend…
As I mentioned the other day,
Mets LHP Tom Glavine and Marlins LHP Al Leiter have donated money and
sports memorabilia for an eBay auction, which aims to raise money
and help save Ali, an Iraqi boy with congenital cyanotic heart disease, whom U.S. troops found in March during a combat patrol…
The auction for their donated materials has officially begun…
Leiter has donated a signed Marlins jersey and a signed Mets jersey, while Glavine has donated a signed Mets jersey, as well…
For more information on OperationAC’s Save Ali campaign, go to OperationAC.com…
…good luck…
The Game…
The Mets (28–26) begin a
three-game series with the Giants (23–29) tonight at Shea Stadium…The
Mets 8–8–2 in series play this season…
LHP Tom Glavine (3–5,
5.05) starts for the Mets…Over his last four starts, Glavine is 2–1
with a 2.45 ERA and walked just five batters…In his only start against
the Giants last season, Glavine was rocked for five run in five innings…
LHP
Noah Lowry (1–5, 5.37) starts for the Giants…Lowry is a basic
three-pitch pitcher, serving up a decent four-seam fastball, a tight
curve ball and a strong change-up with a lot of movement…also, runners
have a tough time stealing off of him…No Mets starter has more than
four career at-bats against Lowry…
The Good…
The Mets have a .300 team batting average against lefties, best in the National League…
The Mets starters are 5–2 with a 1.98 ERA in their last 8 games…
The Giants come to town riding a seven-game losing streak…
The Bad…
The Giants are 9–2 in their last 11 one-run games…
Talking with WFAN prior to tonight’s game, Steve Trachsel said he
has recently been playing catch every other day, and sees no reason why
he can’t be back pitching at Shea Stadium by late-July…
Mets 1B Doug Mientkiewicz just concluded a lengthy interview with WFAN’s Mike and the Maddog…
When
asked if the infield at Shea Stadium was the worst the National League,
Mientkiewicz hesitated and than glibly said, “Yeah.”…
After
complimenting the groundskeepers for doing a phenomenal job with what
they have, Mientkiewicz went on to explain, “The dirt is the worst I’ve
ever seen. I mean, have you ever seen orange dirt on a field with
rocks…it’s bad.”…
Mientkiewicz began to point out that past
infielders with the Mets were not particularly fast, at which point the
show’s hosts interrupted him and referenced the classic infield of John
Olerud, Edgardo Alfonzo, Rey Ordonez and Robin Venture. To which
Mientkiewicz responded, “But, you’re talking about guys who didn’t have
the greatest range in the world. If you hit to them, they caught
it. And I’m not taking anything away from those guys, they were
phenomenal players, but we have range.”…
The show’s hosts,
initially confused, asked him to clarify that it’s not the hops that
are a problem, but the slow speed in which the ball travels upon
it. “Yes. And that’s my point,” Mientkiewicz
responded. “We have speed on our infield that we need to take
advantage of. Do you want Jose Reyes hitting fly ball after fly
ball? No, you want him hitting the ball through the
infield. The faster [the grass] the better, because when you
bring in a team with not a lot of foot speed all of sudden you’re
leveling the playing field. We could have a home field advantage
here that we can take full advantage of.”…
When asked if the Mets
should tear the entire infield up and start from scratch, Mientkiewicz,
with a smile on his face, said, “I think they should.”…
…to listen to mientkiewicz’s full interview, check out the archive page at wfan.com…
Yesterday, Mets GM Omar Minaya told reporters that his team has contacted free-agent RHP Danny Graves…
…most everyone in baseball feels that graves is days away from signing with the marlins, though…
Mike Neal on at Ebbets-Field.com has once again started up the Gill Hodges Hall of Fame 2007 Crusade…
Nealon is fans to grab an icon banner from his site and either put it up on your own site, and embed it into your email to spread the word…
…good luck, mike…
Mets 3B David Wright appeared on MLB Radio’s Stayin Hot, yesterday…
According to Wright, the biggest difference between this season’s team and last year’s group is that they approach every pitch with a more aggressive style and they are far more versatile…
When asked about Victor Zambrano, Wright says he believes the secret to the pitcher’s success is simply trusting his defense, which he did in his last start. As Wright points out, Zambrano has so much movement on his pitches that when he just relaxes and lets the batter make contact the ball tends to come off the hitter’s bat with little pop…
Lastly, talking about the influence of Willie Randolph, Wright says, “the fire in Willie’s eyes rubs off on the team.”…
…to listen to the entire interview with wright, check out the archive page at mlb radio…
Although ESPN’s Alan Schwarz writes that the Mets made the best number five pick of all time by taking Doc Gooden in the 1982 draft, they also made the worst number one pick of all time with Steve Chilcott in 1966 over Reggie Jackson…
…who knew…
…it’s an interesting list, though, which schwarz puts forth…reading some of those names brings back a ton of memories…
…my baseball card collection was never the same after making that big push for all those brien taylor rookie cards…
During Wednesday night’s game, Mike Cameron mistimed a catch against the wall in right field, to which Cliff Floyd joked with reporters about Cameron’s need to make the hightlight reels. Cameron was greeted on the field before last night’s game by a chalk outline of an outfielder trying to make a catch taped to the outfield wall…Though it was not made public who put the tape up, Cameron told reporters he suspects it was Doug Mientkiewicz, who denied involvement.
Also…
In the first inning last night, the infield’s sprinkler system accidentally turned on, soaking Pedro Martinez on the mound. Instead of scurrying off to avoid the water, Martinez stuck his face in the spray and took a drink…
…welcome to camp hijinx, everybody…
