Daily Archives: May 18, 2006
Appearing on SNY, while addressing the media following this afternoon’s loss to the Cardinals, the team’s manager, Willie Randolph, had the following to say 
regarding…
…the state of the team after a 3–6 road trip…
“Tough trip, but we’ve been playing well at home. We ran into one of those trips where we didn’t very timely hitting and situationally we didn’t capitalize a lot, but the pitching was decent. But, you regroup at home. get back home and look forward to the next series.”…
…Jose Lima, who allowed five runs over 4.2 innings for his third loss in three starts…he has allowed five runs in all three starts this season…
“I thought he did a pretty good job. He had one or two innings there where he was a little bit shaky…but, he kept us in the game and did a pretty good job.”…
…whether Jerry Manuel, the team’s bench coach, was tossed from the game, while in the dugout, for arguing balls-n-strikes…
“Yes. Before we go any further, I’m not gonna comment on the umpires, okay. You wanna talk about the game, we can do that. I’m not gonna comment on the umpires. Period.”…
…the team’s poor defense during the game…
“Eh, it’s part of the game, man, it happens some times, you know. You play defense,m you’re gonna make errors every once in a while. I don’t really get disappointed in my guys as long as they keep working hard and they give the effort. It’s part of the game. Sometimes it hurts you. Sometime you get away with it.”…
…whether Lima will get another start, since Brian Bannister re-injured his hamstring during a rehab start in Norfolk today…
“Well, right now, most likely. We’ll look at things as we go. But, if, you know, you wanna play the numbers game, I guess, maybe. We’ll see. There’s no need to make a decision about that right now, though.”…
…what he takes away from this 3–6 road trip…
“[Jose Valentin] getting going is nice. You still have to maintain that and keep going…you know, he’s on our bench, and it’s always good when those guys feel good about themselves…
“Overall, it was a tough trip, but if you look at the games we played in we’re right there in most of the games. A little bloop here, a little break there could’ve been the difference for us. You don’t like to lose three series in a row, but the bottom line is that we’re still playing pretty good baseball. I have no concerns. I’m looking forward to going home. I’m looking forward to getting back on track. We’re doing fine. We’ll be all right.”…
…whether Carlos Beltran should have thrown to second base, instead of to home, in the first inning…
“Yes.”…
…whether the series against the Yankees can be a ‘shot in the arm,’ following a long road trip…
“(With a big smile on his face) Not necessarily. No, we’re just playing the season, playing the games. Whoever comes in front of us we’re going after. It’s nice to get a little excitement going around the ball park, it’ll be packed crowd and the fan’s will be loving it, and we’re looking forward to the next challenge, which is the Yankees.”…
…there has been a lot of talk about Cliff Floyd lately, and whether he should be platooned, is he in a slump, is he tired, is he too old, is he this and is he that…i have been saying he isn’t slumping physically, just statistically, in that he isn’t striking out a lot and is putting the ball in play, he’s just not reaching base…
In his first at-bat during today’s loss to the Cardinals, the first pitch to Floyd was intentionally up, and he laid off of it. With the count at 1–1, he was thrown an outside fastball, in the dirt, which he pulled his bat back from swinging at. Ultimately, he pulled an outside fastball to first, to ground out in a fielder’s choice…
…not swinging at the two balls that were designed to get him to swing is a sign, to me, that he isn’t pressing, and has not lost his eye, which is usually an indication of a mental slump…he’s on the ball, but seems pull-happy, in that he isn’t looking to drive the ball up the middle…
…he’s using a higher leg kick, and if you watch, he seems to have his timing off…as such, he’s lunging at the ball and getting odd swings…not enough to result in a swing-n-miss, but enough to keep him from squaring off on the ball…
In his second at-bat, in a 1–0 count, Floyd took a huge, monstrous cut at a high fastball and missed with vigor. He then took three fastballs out of the strikezone, most of which were low and in, to reach base with a walk…
…again, restraint…
In his third at-bat, he hit a fly ball the other way off a high-n-tight fastball…
In his last at-bat, facing a new pitcher, he took a straight fastball down the plate for strike one. He appeared to have no intention of swinging, which makes sense. He then took a big, upper-cut swing and missed on a cutter thrown below his ankles. With the count 0–2, he stepped out, and then ripped a weak, outside curve-ball over the head of the right-fielder…
…it was a solid hit, ripped hard, but, again, he appeared to lunge at the ball…
…all in all, it seems like he’s seeing the ball well, while not over-thinking his at-bats…if he were pressing, he’d have certainly swung at those balls out of the zone, and he’d most likely hit a weak pop-up off the curve ball, as guys in slumps are usually looking for a fastball…
…he just needs to play, and hit and play and hit, and take a lot of batting practice where he works on keeping his elbows in to his chest and his swing short, so he gets in a groove where he’s swinging more steadily through the hitting zone…
The Mets lost to the Cardinals by a score of 6 to 3 in St. Louis this afternoon, concluding a 3–6 road trip…
For a recap, check out the always-reliable Associated Press…
…a few thoughts…
…first off, and this has nothing really to do with why the mets lost today, but, i am starting to buy into the conspiracy theory about the league’s umps having it in for the mets…i jokingly made a similar comment a couple of weeks ago, then addressed it more realistically with friends over the weekend…but, now, after seeing Jerry Manuel, a bench coach, get ejected from the dugout, by a third base coach nonetheless, i’m afraid i’m starting to believe the hype…in addition to manuel’s ejection, Jose Valentin made a fantastic shovel pass to Carlos Delgado in the fifth, for what should’ve been an out, but the ump called the batter safe, and he did it before delgado even got the ball in his glove…come on, are you kidding me…the runner was safe and eventually scored, though the inning should’ve been over on the following ground out…something’s fishy…
…anyway…
…i can’t believe Jose Lima actually has Lima Time stitched into his glove…dear lord…i’m all for having a few characters on the team, but this guy’s ego doesn’t come close to matching his talent, so the whole thing is just a little sad, quite frankly…as for his ability, it’s weird, because he can still pitch…he has good velocity, his ball still moves pretty well, and he doesn’t look a whole different from the guy who won 13 games for the dodgers in 2004…except that he makes at least one mistake per batter, and it always seems to be a meatball left up over the plate, which all get turned-on and ripped for hits…that’s fine when you’re pitching for the royals against the devil rays…however, against teams like the cardinals and phillies, it’s not gonna fly, and it hasn’t…
…and then, as if lima’s pitching wasn’t weak enough, he takes his eyes off the ball to find the bag, while receiving a throw to first base from Carlos Delgado in the second inning…naturally, the ball whizzed by lima, to the dugout and allowed David Eckstein to score with ease…i know he made a nice play, at least i think it was a nice play, with a on-his-back-hook-toss to first later in the game, but it doesn’t make up for the earlier error by any means…
…anyway, enough about lima…
…i know he hit a homer, but as smart as Carlos Beltran is on the bases, he isn’t all that slick in the field…he takes odd routes to the ball, he plays way too deep and he is making a habit of either not hitting the cut-off, or not recognizing the situations at hand, such as, today, when he hummed the ball home, over the cut-off’s head, to catch a speedy eckstein who scored with ease, allowing the hitter to swipe the extra base and pulling a potential double-play for the next batter off the table…little things, gentlemen…little things like this cannot be missed when a guy like lima is on the mound…you know, an interesting debate is going to occur in the next year or two, if doesn’t happen sooner, about whether to move beltran to left field so Lastings Milledge can guard center…it’s too early for this discussion, but it’s coming…i can feel it…
…hey, is Billy Wagner still on the mets…i haven’t seen him in a while…
…sny’s Chris Cotter referred to his head of hair as the Golden Dome…which, i admit, was worth a chuckle…
…speaking of hair, the mustache is on fire…seriously, whatever Jose Valentin has been eating for breakfast, he should give some to the rest of the team…wow…
…well, dropping two of three to the cardinals in st. louis is not the end of the world…the key to this is balancing it by taking of four of six from the Yankees and Phillies at Shea…
…tell your boss that you’re taking the rest of the day off to clear your head, and i’ll see you back here in the morning…
A reader of MetsBlog, whose 2–year-old son currently suffers from lymphatic malformation, has asked that you check out an auction currently running on eBay, on behalf of the Vascular Birthmarks Foundation…
The auction features over 125 items personally signed by members of the sports and entertainment community, including several baseball items donated by Troy Glaus, Roy Halliday, Grady Sizemore and Mike Lowell, among others…
In addition they are auctioning off tickets to Mike Piazza’s first game back at Shea, as well as, the Red Sox vs. Mets series in Fenway…
The actions, which you can find here, end today, so act NOW…
In his first start for Triple-A Norfolk, while rehabbing an injured hamstring, Brian Bannister was removed from the game with an ‘injury,’ after facing just two batters…
Bannister will undergo another MRI on Friday…
…the word from norfolk is that bannister left the game because he felt ‘discomfort’ in the recently injured hamstring…the trainers will treat it, and the team will most likely assess the situation later today, and again come tomorrow morning…from what i understand, though, typically when a player does this it means they will have to restart their rehab from square one…
…gotta love that old r.i.c.e. treatment…oh how i know it well…
The Game…
The Mets (24–15) conclude a three game series against the Cardinals (25–15) in St. Louis this afternoon starting at 1:10 pm EDT…
The Pitchers…
RHP Jose Lima (0–2, 9.31 ERA) starts for the Mets … Lima has allowed five earned runs in each of his two starts for the Mets this season … He has allowed 18 runners to reach base in 9.2 innings pitched … Jim Edmonds is batting .318 in 22 at-bats against Lima, while Albert Pujols is 6–for-16 with a home run, and Scott Rolen is 3–for-13 with three strike outs…
RHP Jason Marquis (4–4, 5.33) starts for the Cardinals … Opposing teams are batting .000 in the first inning of his four wins this season, and .474 in the first inning of his four losses … Ramon Castro is 5–for-8 against Marquis, Floyd is batting .381 against him in 21 at-bats, while Jose Reyes is 3–for-10 and Carlos Beltran is 1–for-9…
The Notes…
Carlos Beltran has just six hits in his 31 at-bats on the team’s current road trip…
Ramon Castro is as a starting catcher this season…
Cliff Floyd is batting .308 over his last four games…
Kaz Matsui is
David Wright has not a home run during the month of May…
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…
At Sportszilla.com, Ben makes the case to shift Aaron Heilman from the team’s bullpen to the starting rotation, writing, “Heilman is the Mets second best pitcher and should be in the rotation.”…
Ben goes on to make a solid case, citing all sorts of stats, and defending each counter-argument, such as, “Why mess with a good thing,” and, “He’s more valuable out of the pen than as a starter.”…
…the missing piece to all of ben’s comments is that there are a lot of people, some with the mets, some with other teams, who feel heilman’s style will not hold up in the rotation, in that batters tend to adjust quickly to him the second and third time they see him in a game…this doesn’t happen when he pitches out of relief, for the most part…
…the counter to that is that we’ve not actually seen this occur…i mean, looked pretty good to me as starter last season…
…to me, though, it’s just not wise to mess with the bullpen…the opposing team knows how strong it is, and that creates a sense of urgency when they’re up at-bat…also, guys like Tom Glavine and Pedro Martinez take tremendous solace in knowing they have a strong pen behind them…to mess with that is a risky proposition…
In the nine games that have been started by Brian Bannister, John Maine, Jeremi Gonzalez and Jose Lima, the Mets are 4–5…
…that’s not the end of the world…
The Chicago White Sox have the best record in baseball. In the eight starts made by the fourth and fifth pitchers in their rotation, Javier Vazquez and Brandon McCarthy, the Sox are 4–4…
…it’s not like a team expects to get a complete game shut out from each pitcher at the back of their rotation when they start…typically, a team hopes to simply be kept in the game, in hopes that its offense comes through and carries them to the winner’s circle…
…i’m guessing here, but i would think most general managers would opt to have an effective bullpen and a weak fourth and fifth start, as opposed to a strong rotation from top to bottom with a decent bullpen…
…the mets have the strong bullpen…and they have an effective back-end of the rotation, especially when bannister and maine return…not to mention guys like Mike Pelfrey and Alay Soler are not far off on the horizon…
At Hot Foot, Anthony feels it is inexcusable to have Paul Lo Duca lay down a bunt in the ninth, to move Jose Reyes to third, as Willie Randolph elected to do in last night’s loss to the Cardinals…
Anthony writes…
“Lo Duca, as we pointed out in yesterdays post, is the second best clutch hitter on the Mets, getting it done when the game is on the line 64.1% of the time. Inexplicably, Randolph decides to make his #2 weapon sacrifice his dangerous bat with a scary bunt to move Reyes over. Granted, his #1 and #3 best clutch hitters were coming up behind him but there’s virtually no need to move Reyes over because of his speed and Lo Duca’s ability to rip the ball the other way.”…
…i totally disagree…
…it’s so easy to make these type of claims the day after, but in that situation, with Carlos Beltran, Carlos Delgado and David Wright, and Cliff Floyd, for that matter, all coming up behind lo duca, the odds of getting any one of these professional, proven hitters to simply hit a pop-up, even to the most shallow of outfield spots, is quite likely…this would’ve easily scored reyes to tie the game, on the road, which is the goal in a spot like that…
…i understand how people want to second-guess the on-the-surface move, but when a sacrifice bunt is put into play, you don’t figure the opposing team will walk beltran and accidentally hit delgado, who was the best shot at the pop-up, by the way…that’s where the inning went off track…with bad luck, which tends to happen from time to time…and it’s tough to factor that in, in advance, without a crystal ball…
…wright struck out, after having gone 2–for-3 in his previous at-bats, and floyd got stymied on an inside pitch…it’s not like he struck out looking…
…this team can hit…and they’ve hit with runners in scoring position…they’re just in a slump, and, personally, i have a hard time getting all worked up when they were facing a guy like Mark Mulder…
Speaking of Lo Duca, in the Bergen Record, Steve Popper pens a nice profile of the team’s catcher, framing Lo Duca as the their ‘every-man’…
Over at the Mets Minor League Report, Toby recaps the night in Mets minor league action…
Among other comments, Toby writes of strong performances by Tides OF Michael Tucker, yes, Michael Tucker, who was 2–for-4; Bingo OF Carlos Gomez, who hit a solo home run; and Suns IF Nick Evans, who was 3–for-5 with a double, a home run and 3 RBI. …
…toby provides a mets minor league report after each night’s action…thanks, toby…
In 149 at-bats, Evans, 20, is batting .221 with six HR and 20 RBI in 38 games for Single-A Hagerstown…
Since being signed to a minor-league deal by the Mets, Tucker, 35, is hitting .250 with eight strike outs in 44 at-bats in 13 games at Triple-A…
Yesterday, at FOXSports.com, Ken Rosenthal wrote that ‘some scouts’ feel that Carlos Gomez ‘has even more upside’ than Lastings Milledge…
In 137 at-bats, in his first taste of Double-A, Gomez, 20, is batting just .212 with a .290 OBP, along with 31 strike outs, 10 walks, 14 stolen bases and two HR…
…just realized that gomez and i are born on the same day…too bad i’m 10 years older…ugh…
By the way, in case you haven’t noticed, the Braves have won eight of their last 10, mostly against Washington and Florida, and have reached the .500 mark, at 20–20, for the first time this season…
