Daily Archives: May 23, 2006
Prior to tonight’s game, Willie Randolph told reporters that either RHP Jeremi Gonzalez or LHP Darren Oliver will get the start on Thursday. Either way, RHP Alay Soler will go on Wednesday…
According to Randolph, both Gonzalez and Soler will be available from the bullpen tonight and tomorrow. Whomever is capable of starting on Thursday will start on Thursday…
…is it me, or is this not the best way to approach a game that could potentially see first place up for grabs…i mean, i know the options are slim, but this wait-n-see approach has me a bit nervous…
…i’m thinking this also has something to do with the fact that the phillies have so many left-handed hitters in their lineup, and that some place along the line it occurred to the mets that it may make sense to toss a lefty out to face these guys, hence oliver…
In either case, if Olver starts, he will most likely return to the bullpen regardless of his performance…
…something just doesn’t sound right to me about all of this…i’ll guess we’ll just have to wait and see…
…the opinion columns must come to an end for the day…i need to attend to some administrative metsblog business up until game time…
…have fun tonight…
…i’ll see you after the game…
The Game…
The Mets (26–17) remain in New York to take on the Phillies (23–20) at Shea Stadium tonight starting at 7:10 pm EDT…
The Phillies have lost five of their last six games…
The Pitchers…
RHP Steve Trachsel (2–4, 4.33 ERA) starts for the Mets … Trachsel has allowed two runs or fewer in five of his eight starts this season … Trachsel has allowed just three runs in his last 11.2 innings pitched … In one start against the Phillies this season, he is 0–1, having allowed two runs on six hits in four innings … In 48 career at-bats, Pat Burrell is batting .208 against Trachsel with four home runs … Bobby Abreu, Chase Utley and Jimmy Rollins are all batting under .210 against Trachsel, as well …
RHP Gavin Floyd (4–2, 5.71 ERA) starts for the Phillies … He is 3–0 with 3.52 ERA over his last four starts … the Phillies are 10–6 in Floyd’s 16 career starts … On May 11 against the Mets, he allowed no runs on two hits with four walks over fine innings for a victory … Julio Franco is the only Met to have more than one hit against Floyd …
The Notes…
Alay Soler, who will start on Wednesday, is wearing No. 43…
The Mets are 8–0 in the first game of a home series this season…
The Mets are tied with the major-league lead with 42 stolen bases, of which Jose Reyes has 17 of them…
Carlos Beltran is just 3–for-14 on the team’s current home stand…
Cliff Floyd is batting .280 over his last eight games…
Kaz Matsui has just two hits in his 20 at-bats…
Paul Lo Duca has thrown out just six of 34 runners attempting to steal second base…
The Mets are 13–2 when their starter goes more than six innings…
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…
Rick Peterson, regarding the new-n-improved Tom Glavine, as quoted by Murray Chass in the New York Times…
“He never prepared for opposing hitters, because he threw fastballs and changeups down and away. It didn’t matter who the hitter was. That’s what he was going to do. Now he studies film and looks at about 45 minutes to an hour of the opposing lineup before he faces them. His preparation has been tremendous…
“When he made that transition in his game, you could see hitters going back to the dugout talking to their people, almost like, ‘I thought this was going to be away and his pitches are inside.’ Now the preparation for the other team had to totally flip because this is not the same game.”…
…i don’t know if it’s peterson’s metaphors, or what, but something got into glavine, and good for him, because he’s been tremendous for nearly a full year now…and good for me, as well…but i’m a geek like that, in that i’ll grab a bowl of popcorn and watch glavine pitch like it’s a movie…i have always enjoyed his style of pitching, and getting to watch this newer version, as a met, which makes it all the better, has been a treat for me…
…by the way, peterson’s quote is so long, he talks so much in these type of interviews, his words make up roughly 50 percent of chass’s 900 word column…too funny, man…
At the same time, Pedro Martinez continues to roll along as well, having gone 20–8 with a 2.83 ERA in his 40 starts since joining the Mets…
…as such, the team has two aces, which is quite uncommon if you look around the league…for all the problems being caused at the back of the rotation, glavine and martinez have a lock on the front end…
…though the mets have lose each of pedro’s last three starts, the team is still 14–5 when the two take the mound this season…
Since returning from back surgery last season, Steve Trachsel is 3–8 with a 4.24 ERA in 14 starts. However, since hitting a rough stretch in back-to-back starts against Atlanta, he has allowed just three earned runs in his last 12 innings…
…as i see it, though his control is solid, he does not appear as confident with his off-speed pitches while deep in the count as he had been in years past…as such, batters are sitting on his fastball and getting more hits than usual…in the past, those batters would flail at his curve, or change-up, and hit a weak pop-up and ground out…that has started happening again in the last few starts, so hopefully things are turning for him…
David Wright, as quoted by the New York Post and Journal News…
“The thing we can’t do is let ourselves become emotionally drained by the Yankee series. The off day is good for us . It gives us a chance to relax and focus on the Phillies…
“Every game is important, but the games we need to start winning are these NL East games. We can’t look past that…
“We can’t pat ourselves on the back for beating a quality team in the Yankees. We need to refocus, we’ve got a team that’s a very good team in their own right coming in.”…
…if you read this site, you know i like wright…oddly, he is not my favorite player on the team to watch, though…that honor goes to Jose Reyes, who i can’t take my eyes off of simply because i can’t wait to see what he’ll do next…
…in a way, that is a compliment to wright…i know what he’s going to do, because he is poised, and solid, and attentive, and inspiring in many ways…i know he’s gonna boot a grounder, only to come back with a key hit in the next inning…i know he’ll strike out on an outside fastball, learn from it, and then knock that same pitch to the opposite field in his next at-bat…i don’t worry about wright in the least…
…i do, however, worry about reyes, and yet that is what makes the little guy so intriguing…he’s like a ferret, hopped up on espresso…sure, he may run full steam into a wall at times, then again, he may knock it down, steal second, freak out the pitcher, steal third on a wild pitch and score on a shallow pop-up to left…in short, if you blink you may miss his burgeoning brilliance…
…they are both still so young, though…i know some fans have grown tired of this statement, seeing it as stale rhetoric…it may be, actually…but it’s all relative…when i say it, i don’t do so in a general way…i am simply referring to what i see…
…for instance, wright still allows the ball to play him in the field, especially in a big spot…he still triple-clutches the ball when he’s nervous…and when he struggles, he presses, which though common, is a guarentee from a youngster…and yet, amidst all of this, while right-handed pitchers are wise to throw him curve-balls off the plate, he’ll pretty much crush anything else he is thrown, regardless of situation, and especially if you try and get it by him more than once…
…reyes, on the other hand, is wild on the bases…he’ll miss picking up his base coach, he’ll get jumpy and steal in a bad count, go for the extra base when the situation dictates he stay put and swings the bat from the left side of the plate the same way no matter the count, whose on or what the score is…twist and uppser-cut, or slap and bail out…that’s all you’ll get…yet, when he gets on base, the team’s offense comes alive…it’s like a switch is flipped, and every one gets off their seat, be it his teammates or the announcer, or a fan or the other team’s defenders, every person becomes alert…on defense, he runs down nearly every ball hit near him…if he doesn’t get an out on the play, he tends to keep the ball from rolling to the outfield, usually containing any runners on the base paths…and his arm is an absolute cannon…
…the more these two play, and learn from their mistakes, and the more they become totally comfortable and confident in their skin, they are going to be a dream to watch…
…so far this season, at ages 22 and 23, i’m not sure what else you can ask from two kids learning to play major-league baseball alongside one another in the bright lights of new york city…
As Don Burke pointed out in the Star-Ledger today, two of Paul Lo Duca‘s three home runs this season have given the Mets the lead while the other tied the score…
…seriously, right now, if i have to pick any single player on the team to be up in a situation when a hit is absolutely necessary, i’ll choose lo duca…
…with runners in scoring position, he’s batting just .231…however, put runners in scoring position along with two outs, and lo duca’s batting .357…
…he hits the ball to all spots in the outfield, and, though he can get a bit pull-happy, especially on ground balls, he has shown a strong ability to go the other way when the situation requires him to do so…over the last six weeks his average has never dipped below .286…since the start of the season, he has struck out more than once in a game only once…in fact, he has only struck out once during the month of may…in 143 plate appearance, he has grounded out into just four double plays…
…this ability to control his bat, put the ball in play and remain consistent is why he is batting in the second slot of the batting order…
…meanwhile, Carlos Beltran, who many fans complained would never hit in the order’s third spot, though batting just .252, has 11 HR and 29 RBI, while sporting a .385 OBP, despite missing the second half of april with an injury…
…beltran has had hot streaks, and he’s had cold streaks…this is fine for batting third, especially with a strong order behind him…consistency, however, is the less talked about element of batting second in an order with a speedy leadoff hitter, like Jose Reyes…the more comfortable reyes can be in knowing what to expect from the batter hitting behind him, the more comfortable he can be stealing a base, or advancing half way, knowing that his punch-partner will control the at-bat and keep him on his feet…
…here are my favorite numbers, though…
In 33 at-bats against the Phillies and Braves, Lo Duca is batting .363 with four RBI and just three strike outs…
…lo duca gets it…he knows what time it is…maybe it’s because he grew up rooting for the team he is playing for…maybe it’s because he genuinely enjoys playing in new york…he clicks with what it means to be a met, at least in the way most mets fan see the job…he’s tough, he’s a bit cocky, he’s clutch, he hustles, he sticks up for his teammates and he wants to win…
…if reyes is the team’s fuel, and Carlos Delgado is the team’s crutch, and Pedro Martinez is the team’s star, then lo duca has been the team’s heart so far…
Carlos Delgado, on May 22, as quoted by the Daily News…
“I want us to be better. I think we can be more consistent. Maybe I’m too much of a hardass, but I’ll be the first one to point the finger at myself.”… …the mets are in first place, they have the second best winning percentage in the national league, and they’re 14–8 within their division… …yet, delgado is pushing for the team to be better… …given his fantastic start, delgado is hitting just .278 with runners in scoring position, more than half of his home runs have come with nobody on base, he sports a .208 average against lefties and he’s averaging at least one strike out per game, his personal worst since 1996… …yet, he’s clearly the team’s m.v.p. at this point in the season, mostly because of his failures and his desire to compete and improve… …i keep coming back to him and his notebook, actually…as we all know by now, delgado returns to the dugout after each at-bat and jots down notes on the pitch sequence he was just thrown…he records this, enters it in a computer at home, and tries to determine how pitchers are throwing him… …as i mentioned recently to lee jenkins, who wrote a fantastic column about delgado’s notebook for the new york times last week, it’s as though the notebook is a symbol for structure, success and the idea that no matter how good you are, there is always room for improvement…these are not the first qualities i think of when remembering the last few seasons at shea…delgado, with all his home runs, with all his power, has brought a different feel to this team…he has brought a sense of confidence, and cool, and almost acts as a crutch, in a way, for the rest of the lineup…as a fan, just knowing he is in the lineup makes me feel like no game is ever out of reach…i can’t recall the last time i felt this way…from what i gathered out of jenkins, delgado has the same effect on his teammates… …yet, all the while, he wants the mets to be better… …this, whether he wants to admit it, is the definition of a leader…
Mets GM Omar Minaya as quoted by the Journal News…
“You have to think about both. We have to think about ’06 because we want to win. But, we also have to think about ’07 and ’08.”…
…minaya has made one of two types of moves…he’s either lured the big, necessary free-agent in with a boat load of cash, or his traded away extra parts and expendable minor leaguers for younger, major-league ready talent…his one mega-trade, where he acquired Carlos Delgado and Paul Lo Duca, it was sort of a hybrid of the two types of moves, actually, in that he swapped out position players, and sent off young, inexperienced pitchers, all while taking solace in the potential of Alay Soler, Mike Pelfrey, Philip Humber, Lastings Milledge and the team’s organizational camps in the dominican republic…
…look back, the one trade that appears to be a potential mistake was dishing off Kris Benson, but who knew the team would lose four starting pitchers in the span of a week, which is the only real reason that trade hurts so much…
…yes, i trust minaya…but i have seen no reason not to…
…i don’t even doubt that he’d pull the trigger on moving milledge…but i even trust him in overseeing this, becaise if he does trade the kid, i sense he will only do it in a move that nets another, even younger, more exciting player…for instance, such as a 20–game winning, left-handed pitcher, under the age of, say, 25, with an already huge cheering section and a slew of endorsement deals in his pocket…
…from what i can gather, the team put a lot of effort into understanding what it’s customer base was looking for…no surprise to the gang at metsblog, the team has come to realize that its fans hope for not just a winning team, but one centered on pitching, speed and defense, featuring hard working, marquee veterans, along with young, exciting, home grown players who the fans can get behind long before day-one…
…so far, this is what they’ve done, and i see no real reason to think they’ll stray from it…
…people like to site minaya’s quick trigger-finger back during his time in montreal, when he dumped his farm system for Cliff Floyd and Bartolo Colon…only to have it backfire…but you have to remember, that came at a time when he really had no choice…the team was on its last legs and needed to make one last ditch effort to show the product had some sort of value…
…minaya’s time in new york is an entirely different endeavor…he must think about today as much as tomorrow, given the new stadium deal and network, SportsNet New York…from a business stand point, i just can’t see how these guys will lose site of that and act in a harsh way…
While appearing on WFAN during his weekly radio interview, Mets C Paul Lo Duca and the show’s host, Joe Benigno, had the following exchange…
Benigno…
“Let me tell you right now…I am very aggravated, and very nervous…by the closer. Five games this year where he’s either blown the save or given up the lead in a non-save situation, and none was worse than Saturday…
“We’re only 40–something games into it, but they’re paying this guy $10 million and I gotta tell you…and I’m not speaking for all Mets fans, because a lot of guys are jumping on me for this…but, I gotta tell you, Paul, I am nervous about Billy Wagner.”…
Lo Duca…
“Listen, I understand where you’re coming from a little bit. But, I don’t really see the concern. I think Billy’s gonna be fine. You know, I give him credit that after he blew it (Saturday), he took it like a man, and came in the next day and went straight into Willie’s office and told him it didn’t matter if were up 20 runs or down 20 runs he was in that game that night…
“I think it was one of those things where his mind wasn’t in it, maybe because it wasn’t a save situation, or whatever other reason. I mean, it happens, it happens to the best of us…
“I really wouldn’t worry about him. And, you know, we can always get Braden Looper back if you need him.”…
…oh (said like paulie on the sopranos)…look at the pot-shot to looper, who was not even a teammate of lo duca’s here in new york…
…wow…i think this is what willie means when he says moxie…
…i dig it…
To listen to Lo Duca’s entire interview go to WFAN.com…
…as solid as Chad Bradford and Pedro Feliciano have been, and as surprising as Jorge Julio has been since the first week of the season, the bullpen’s success can be attributed to three guys…
At Always Amazin, a reader of Ryan’s points out that of the 82 outs recorded by Duaner Sanchez this season, 22 percent have come from a double play…
…what a pleasant surprise this kid has been…i think we all suspected he could be this type of pitcher, given how strong people spoke of him after he was acquired from the dodgers for Jae Seo…
…it appears he has developed a change-up since last season, and hitters just can’t touch it…the league is batting .146 off his change-up, which he tends to throw mostly to left-handed hitters…to righties, he chucks the slider, which is more of a sling-shot style slurve, and has buckled the knees of even the most proven major-league hitter…so far, he has been sensational…the key, it appears, though, is to get this kid as much work as he can…it’s odd, because he doesn’t even ice his arm after a game…but, hey, whatever works, right…
…by the way, seo is 2–2 with a 4.50 ERA with 14 walks in 46 innings pitched…
In 25.1 innings pitched this season, Aaron Heilman has allowed just 27 runners to reach base, while striking out 23 of the 103 batters he has faced…
…he’s been so perfect as a reliever, i can understand why the team has no interest in shifting him to the starting rotation…
…he performs in his role exactly how he should…he leads with his fastball, he follows with his change-up, he uses both equally regardless of the count, he keeps the ball away from both lefty and righty batters, regardless of the pitch and he’s giving up nearly three times as many ground balls as he is fly balls…he is the quintessential pitcher to act as a bridge to the team’s closer…
Out of Billy Wagner’s three blown saves, two came while working in his second game in two days…
At his blog for the Daily News, Adam Rubin reveals that Wagner is tied for sixth in the N.L. Rolaids Relief Man standings, ahead of just Trevor Hoffman, Tim Worrell, Ryan Dempster and Brad Lidge…
…the buzz around wagner is that he is still bothered by the finger injury that plagued him in spring training…the thing is, it has plagued him for years…it was an issue last season, from what i can gather, and it didn’t seem to keep him from saving 38 games, while blowing just three for the phillies last season…
…regardless, it seems to have had an impact on his slider, which i feel he is throwing more often than he did last season…regardless, nobody is hitting it, but it’s also not falling for a strike…at the same time, he seems to be over-throwing, evident by the number of balls he keeps throwing down and in and high and away…he has told reporters that he feels under-used…i don’t know what the issue is, but something is at play…
…the thing is, i’m not all that worried…he’s a tough guy, and i suspect he’ll get his act together…
