…thanks…
Monthly Archives: August 2005
The Game…
The Mets (69–62) take on the Phillies (70–62) at Shea Stadium tonight…
The Pitchers…
RHP Pedro Martinez (13–5, 2.77) starts for the Mets … Opponents are batting .192 against Martinez, second lowest in the National League … He has not allowed a run in his last two starts, spanning 12 innings pitched … Against the Phillies this season, Martinez has allowed three runs over 13 innings pitched …
RHP Brett Myers (11–6, 3.55) starts for the Phillies … In two starts against the Mets this season, Myers has allowed seven earned runs over 10.1 innings pitched … The Phillies, however, are 5–2 in Myers’s seven career starts at Shea …
The Notes…
The Mets are 15–5 in their last 20 home games … The Mets are batting .277 over their last 26 games … Mets starters have walked no more than two batters in 20 of their last 22 starts … the Mets have won 70 percent of the games in which they’ve hit a home run … Carlos Beltran is batting .292 with 49 RBI in 120 at-bats with runners in scoring position … Since taking over for Mike Cameron, Victor Diaz is batting .323 with four home runs and 11 RBI … Diaz has hit safely in seven straight games, David Wright has hit safely in 11 …
The Bleachers…
To chat during the game, go to MetsBlog’s Bleachers … or, to access the chat room through IRC, go to server name irc.echo34.com and channel #metsblog…
…enjoy…
Comments Off
…in the days after willie randolph and omar minaya were hired by the mets this off-season, we heard and read a lot about how the organization was on a mission to change the losing culture inside the clubhouse…
…it seems to have changed…
…adam rubin covers the mets for the daily news…however, he doesn’t just write game recaps and convey all the news we need, he also manages to squeeze in a variety of personal notes about the team’s players and a slew of interesting tidbits that we, as fans, we’ll never get to see in person…
…i recently asked adam a few questions about the culture that exists inside the mets clubhouse this season compared to last…the conversation went as follows…
Cerrone: What is the biggest difference in the “Mets clubhouse culture,” from this year to last…
Rubin: When Willie Randolph arrived, he talked about creating a culture of winning in the clubhouse. He’s clearly succeeded. Players, taking a cue from Randolph, don’t get too high or too low – with the lack of panic after the five straight losses to open the season a perfect example…
This is an incredibly close bunch, too, even with amazing diversity, though that’s not to suggest last year’s team didn’t get along…
Cerrone: What has Willie Randolph done, though, be it team meetings, hands on teaching, etc, that has kept this team on track all season, when they could so easily have collapsed time and time again…
I guess that’s what I’m curious about. How has he been pro-active in changing the team’s culture…
Rubin: Randolph doesn’t have team meetings per se, he’s more a one-on-one guy, quietly pulling people aside in mostly non-confrontational ways…
Perfect example: Before the series opener in Arizona, he saw Jose Reyes hitting too many home runs from the right side of the plate and told him it isn’t home-run derby. Reyes actually homered during the game from the other side of the plate, but the point was made. Later in the series, Reyes hit a reasonably routine groundball to shortstop and beat it out with his track-like speed…
Cerrone: I see. Then there’s Pedro Martinez’s impact, I would imagine. I remember Klapisch telling me around the time of the Subway Series at Shea how glad he was to be impressed by what Pedro has done for this team. I found this to be an odd comment, but I think what he meant was that he didn’t expect Pedro to be as impactuful as he has been. Your there every day, even on days when he isn’t pitching…how much of an impact has Pedro Martinez actually had on the overall mood of this team…
Rubin: Pedro has impacted the Mets in so many wonderful ways. Attendance is 5,000-6,000 greater in home games he pitches. The production on the field has been exceptional. And what fans don’t get to see in the clubhouse is equally exceptional. He keeps the mood light and is a great teammate. During the last home stand, Pedro broke the ice on how the Mets would handle extra starters with Steve Trachsel’s return by joking that he would take a vacation with Terrell Owens to the Bahamas. (He actually might need it because of his back.) He said afterward he did it to keep everything loose. I’m not sure he really prevented Mike Jacobs from being demoted Sunday by speaking up on his behalf, but if Jacobs had been sent to the minors, he would have been that much more confident because of Pedro’s praise…
Cerrone: When he was on Boston, I assumed he was this serious, intimidating type of guy. But, his antics have surprised me. You’ve talked to a lot players over the years, is Pedro an intimidating figure, because as silly as he can be, he also seems pretty serious…
Rubin: Actually, Pedro may be nasty on the mound, but he’s as friendly as they come when it’s not his day to pitch (or sometimes the day before). He’s best talking about others. I remember a quote he had earlier in the season, something like, “I execute, then I talk.” That’s his attitude about his own achievements, I think…
Cerrone: My father and I have argued endlessly about whether or not a team actually needs a captain, and what it means to be one. Who is this team’s captain, whether it is talked about openly or not. And I don’t mean the default answer, like Pedro, unless it is Pedro, but the guy that really fires his teammates up by either his actions on the field and/or in the clubhouse..
Rubin: David Wright will be the captain. I’m not sure anybody really is now. Randolph set the tone as manager. And guys feed off each other. If it’s the pitching staff, it probably is Pedro. I vividly remember Kris Benson standing in the rain during spring training just to watch Pedro throw a bullpen session, to absorb anything he could.
Position-wise, the team certainly feeds off Jose Reyes’ energy when he reaches base. And Wright’s production and the fact that everyone likes him makes him a natural leader.
But Mike Cameron was a guy who kept the clubhouse mood light, though not with Pedro-like antics. And Carlos Beltran spent a lot of time during spring training with younger players huddled around him talking baseball. He also invited guys like Wright and Reyes for extra workouts across the street from the Port St. Lucie stadium at Gold’s Gym. That’s leadership, too.
The best thing about the Mets when they’re going well is they don’t have to lean on anyone in particular…
Cerrone: Excellent job, Adam. Thank you, as always, for the insight…it is greatly appreciated…
…and be sure and check out adam’s mets reports at the daily news…
Comments Off
Kaley weighs in on the Steve Trachsel situation at Flushing Local…
…this will be an old story after next wednesday, when trachsel has been re-entered into the team’s rotation…
Comments Off
By way of Rob Neyer’s chat at ESPN, CoolStandings.com, which calculates the chances of each team making the playoffs, lists the Mets as the favorites to win the Wild Card…
Comments Off
Thanks to your readership, MetsBlog.com has cracked the Top 100 most visited Blogs, checking in at 92 out of roughly 33 million blogs, according to the Truth Laid Bear’s traffic rankings, the definitive resource in blogging traffic…
We’re also the second most visited sports blog online, behind only Blez’s outstanding AthleticsNation.com…
…again, as i’ve said before, thank you…without your readership, none of this would be possible…
…hi jay…
Comments Off
In yesterday’s Journal News, Peter Abraham asked, “At what point does a slow transition to a new team and city become simply a bad season?”…
Since his collision with Mike Cameron, Beltran has driven in just one run and scored just six times. For the statistically-interested, that would be 80 runs scored and 13 RBI for the season, if he were to produce at that pace for a full 162 games…
…not good…
“If we get to the playoffs, then we’ve all had a good season,” Abraham quotes Beltran as saying…
…see, this is the type of passive-aggressive quote my father would have a field day with…he’d go on to rant about how beltran is too soft, not a true leader, and so on…i, of course, would then disagree…
…to me, what he is saying is that regardless of statistics, which fans love to use as a metric, all that matters is wins and playoff games…i want to agree…but they are not independent of one another, carlos…if you don’t put up the statistics, the team will not make the playoffs…i suppose they could…anything is possible…but it’s certainly less likely than if you were playing up to speed…
…the problem with measuring beltran’s pre-season expecations with his current performance is that he a) played the bulk of the first half of the season with an injured quad muscle, and b) the collision with cameron no doubt took the wind out of him emotionally…both scenarios should have warranted a trip to the disabled list…beltran refused, though…and in some ways, thats what makes him so special…but the mets, as an organization, should know better…it’s one thing when cliff floyd whinces around the batter’s box after fouling a ball off of his shin…willie can roll his eyes at that and tell cliff to get back in the game…i get that…but with a torn quad, or broken cheek bone, that’s another story…
…another way to look at this, assuming carlos truly was playing injured for the majority of this season, is that he helped to motivate this team by refusing a stint on the disabled list after the collision…he could have folded and nobody would’ve thought any different of him…i remember how depressed i was the night the two outfielders slammed faces…to me, the season seemed over, at least emotionally…i can’t imagine how their teammates felt…but by not going on the disabled list, carlos basically said that he wasn’t giving up, and if he wasn’t giving up, than nobody should give up, not a single fan and not a single player in his clubhouse…i know the season, at least for me, has felt a lot different since that moment…
…that has to account for something…it has to accont for some portion of his paycheck…doesn’t it…
…maybe i give more credit to these players as men, as mortals, and not just as numbers in a box score like others…i don’t know…but i have a hard time looking at his line, .264, 14 HR and 62 RBI, while not instantly factoring in what it must have been like to layup on a hit to the wall because i was unable to push my quad, or what it was like to bat with a headache as though my face was run over by a truck…
…i have a hunch i speak only for myself on this, but i plan to cut him a tremendous amount of slack this season…from the shift to new york, the expectations off of last year’s post-season, the injuries and the collision, i have no illwill towards beltran…am i disappointed…of course…but i understand…and i also understand that that’s what a team is for, to have other players for him to fall back on for support, who do so, busting their asses, because beltran is the type of teammate worth supporting…has he been as valueable as he could have been this season had he been ripping the cover off the ball…maybe not…but he’s been more valueable than fans and media will probably give him credit for…
Comments Off
If you’ve yet to do so, be sure and vote in this week’s MetsBlog Fan Confidence Rating by using the poll to the left…
Comments Off
…much of the press honors ramon castro and carlos beltran from last night’s tremendous win over the phillies…
…also give credit to the bullpen, who we spend a ton of time ridiculing on a daily basis around here…
Trailing 4–1 when Jae Seo was bounced from the game, the Mets bullpen allowed for a comeback by working four innings of scoreless relief, with Aaron Heilman working the sixth and seventh, Juan Padilla going in eighth and Braden Looper pitching a perfect ninth…
Comments Off
The Mets are 18-4 in the first game of a home opener, which is tops in baseball…
…this is such a huge stat…and i say this will due all respect for the task at hand, but this is an even bigger stat in the month that follows september…
Tagged Stats |
Comments Off
In the middle of this team’s first playoff run in five summers, The New York Post’s Lenn Roberts shifts to warming up the Hot Stove, writing that Billy Wagner, who can become a free agent after this season, said the Mets are a team he would consider signing with…
…frankly, i could care less about this right now…
…hey, did you hear that ramon castro hit a huge homer to bring the mets tied in the loss column for the wild card…
“Looking at how Mr. Randolph and how their organization has brought in a lot of talent and they’re very competitive, it’s a very competitive division, they’re only going to get better,” Wagner said before last night’s game…
…tied in the loss column, i said…tied…
Comments Off
