Daily Archives: August 24, 2007
The Mets (72-55) beat the Dodgers (66-62) tonight at Shea by the score
of 5 to 2. With the Phillies losing, the Mets now lead the NL East by
six games.
For a recap and boxscore, go to Yahoo! Sports.
…right back on the horse…way to get to Brad Penny early tonight…
…the game ball goes to David Wright
who not only shined with the bat by going 2-for-3 with an opposite
field homer in the fifth, but also made several spectacular
plays defensively, including a bare-handed put out to first…
…Oliver Perez pitched
very well tonight…he went seven innings and gave up six hits and no runs
while striking out six…he did walk five batters, but his slider
looked very good…
…as bad as Carlos Delgado has been offensively, he has made some very good plays at first lately…Lastings Milledge also made a great diving catch to rob Juan Pierre of a hit…when Endy Chavez comes back, the right field situation should be very interesting…
…speaking of endy, great to see him in the dugout again…
…Jose Reyes also scored twice and stole his 69th base…run reyes, run…
…Billy Wagner made things way too exciting again and gave up three singles to
load the bases, but got out of a huge jam in the ninth to secure the win for perez…very scary…
…good win against their best pitcher…way to not put a damper on fiesta latina night…
Tagged
Regis Courtemanche |
Before tonight’s game against the Cardinals, the Braves announced they designated RHP Bob Wickman for assignment.
Wickman, who was 3-3 with a 3.92 ERA, was 20-for-26 in save opportunities this season.
Tagged
Mike Nichols |
The Game:
The first-place Mets (71-55) take on the Dodgers (66-61) tonight, starting at 7:10 pm EDT.
The Dodgers are five losses back of first place in the NL West, and trail the Padres by three losses for the NL Wild Card lead.
The Lineup:
For tonight’s lineup, and other on-field, pre-game notes, check out John Delcos and his blog for the Journal News.
The Pitchers:
Oliver Perez (11-8, 3.52) will start for New York. Perez allowed one run over seven innings to beat the Dodgers on July 20. He is 4-4 with a 3.97 ERA in nine career starts against Los Angeles. He has given up 17 runs in his last 21 innings pitched.
Brad Penny (14-3, 2.59 ERA) pitches for the Dodgers. His ERA is second-best in the National League. Penny is 4-0 with a 2.01 ERA in his last six road starts. Moises Alou is 10-for-21 (.476) against Penny.
The Notes:
The Dodgers have won four of seven games against the Mets this season - all in Los Angeles.
Carlos Beltran is 8-for-13 with three homers and 13 RBIs in his last four games
The Dodgers have won six of their last eight games.
Juan Pierre is batting .417 during an 11-game hitting streak.
David Wright is 10-for-28 against the Dodgers this season, while
Jose Reyes is 10-for-30.
For more insight on the Dodgers, scroll down and check out DJ. Short’s
Blogger Beat with Jon Weisman of
Dodger Thoughts.The Bleachers:
To chat during the game, head over to The Hot Foot Bleachers. If you are IRC savvy, log on to irc.echo34.com and enter channel #metsblog.
…enjoy…and as always, let’s go mets…
This season, at the beginning of each series, MetsBlog
will attempt to get the perspective of the opposition and their fans. From this,
we hope to be better educated on the opposition going into a series. It also
gives us a fine opportunity to highlight some of our favorite team
blogs.
As the Mets welcome the Dodgers to town, we catch up with our friend Jon Weisman of Dodger Thoughts.
The last time these teams met, the Dodgers were in a fine position in the division race. They’ve taken quite a dive since then. What went wrong?
Injuries at one time affected the entire starting rotation, with Jason Schmidt, Mets nemesis Hong-Chih Kuo and Randy Wolf going down for the season by the time the All-Star break arrived. Then, the offense went into an almost historic slump, going something like 4 for 100 with runners in scoring position in one stretch. Arizona got hot at the same time, and suddenly the Dodgers went from first place in the NL West to 6 1/2 games out. Since then, the Dodgers have started bouncing back a little bit.
The RISP situation has basically self-corrected, as most flukes do. But offense was never the only key to the Dodgers’ success – the team’s instability in the starting rotation continues to be a worry. (D.J.’s Note: Since this interview, the Dodgers signed David Wells.)
Brad Penny‘s struggles at Shea Stadium have been well documented. Is this year’s “edition” of Brad Penny simply better?
Well, Penny has been good overall in the past even when he has had a bad start at Shea. But certainly, he’s having his best year. He’s not only a Cy Young candidate with his 2.59 ERA (173 ERA+), but he’s worthy of MVP votes thanks to the fact that he’s also batting .260. Penny has allowed only four home runs in 167 innings this season – that’s probably something of a fluke in itself, so that’s something to keep an eye on.
I see so much young talent on this team and in the pipeline, but they are often blocked by underachieving veterans. Case in point, I noticed Shea Hillenbrand in the cleanup spot the other day. Is this frustrating to watch?
Well, yes. Hillenbrand isn’t the best example – he is on the team only because Nomar Garciaparra and Andy LaRoche got hurt within days of Wilson Betemit getting traded. (Tony Abreu has also been hurt for much of July and August.) I try not to get too caught up in batting order – I’m just happy if the best possible guys are in the lineup. On the other hand, Ramon Martinez got a start Thursday at third base and Hillenbrand moved to first, while James Loney (.835 OPS) sat for the third time in a week. Matt Kemp and Andre Ethier are sharing time with Luis Gonzalez, while Juan Pierre plays every day. Even when Pierre is at his hottest, he still isn’t the hitter that Kemp and Ethier are. Roberto Hernandez, whom I’m assuming is no longer wanted on the Mets’ roster or anyone else’s, is blocking exciting AAA reliever Jonathan Meloan. So yeah, it gets frustrating.
You recently named Russell Martin as the “Face of the Dodgers” for ESPN.com. How long before people actually start to notice?
Oh, if they haven’t noticed already, I think it’s pretty imminent. Martin doesn’t draw attention to himself, but if you watch the Dodgers it’s hard not to see his value.
Did Ned Colletti simply give up on Wilson Betemit or did he believe Scott Proctor had something left in the tank?
A combination of both. Betemit had a terrible season-opening slump and strikes out a lot. Both seemed to dominate Colletti’s thinking, rendering him unable to grasp that Betemit was still one of the most productive hitters on the team and one of its few home-run threats. Colletti and/or manager Grady Little clearly undervalued Betemit. That being said, I believe Colletti fully intended for Little to be working LaRoche into the Dodger lineup at third base in August, until LaRoche’s ill-timed back problems postponed that plan. So there was a thinking at the time of the trade that whatever Betemit was, he was excess.
I don’t think Colletti thinks he was dumping Betemit. I think he felt he was getting a quality reliever in exchange, and that the Dodgers needed a reliever more than they needed a guy who was, rightly or wrongly, a backup infielder. What Colletti should have done was given Meloan (87 strikeouts, 2.18 ERA in 62 2/3 innings in the minors this year) or Eric Hull (77 strikeouts, 3.09 ERA in 64 2/3 innings) a chance in July to show that one or both could do the job as well as Hernandez or Proctor. There’s little reason to think the Dodgers couldn’t have improved their bullpen without sending Betemit to the Yankees.
A brief hypothetical: Which team would scare you the most in the first round of the playoffs and why?
Facing a healthy Jake Peavy and Chris Young in a postseason series should be enough for any team to want to avoid the Padres – so that’s whom the Mets should worry about. But since the Dodgers couldn’t face a division rival in the first round, a rematch with New York would be high on my list of undesirable matchups.
…thanks again for your insight, jon…
At his blog for the Journal News, John Delcos notes 2B Luis Castillo is out of the tonight’s lineup due to a knee injury and 1B Carlos Delgado has been dropped to sixth in the lineup.
For tonight’s starting lineup head on over to Delcos’ blog.
Tagged
Mike Nichols |
Check out Zoe’s Pick Me Up Some Mets to catch Jose Reyes and the interesting rally cap he wore while joking around with Ruben Gotay last night.
Tagged
Regis Courtemanche |
…last night, with the Mets already down four runs in the top of the fifth, Tom Glavine allowed a single to Josh Bard with one out, which scored another run for the Padres…
…SNY’s camera caught Willie Randolph from the dugout muttering, “God Damnit,” while shaking his head and looking quite irritated…
…not long after, another run scored off a triple by Marcus Giles…glavine was removed after the inning…
…from what i can gather, willie is a pragmatic and realistic man…so, i have to think that this subtle display of frustration was not necessarily directed at glavine, per se, but, instead, directed at having to bring on his bullpen prior to the sixth inning again…and with the way the bullpen has been pitching, i understand his frustration…
…in other words, and this is total speculation and arm-chair psychology, willie can say what he wants about having ‘supreme confidence’ in all of his relief pitchers, but, i think that moment last night suggests otherwise…
A reader sent in the following question, as have many of you in the last week or so…
“I was wondering why my posts often need to be approved before they show up? Am I on a watch list, or am I saying certain words that cause this to happen?”
…as you may know, the comment section on this site can often get totally out of hand, complete with 
random, unrelated remarks for the sake of writing to this blog, swearing, racial slurs, violent remarks, and hateful comments directed towards me, my readers and the team…also, the site is hit with a variety of spam…for many technical and advertising purposes, all of this hurts my business as a whole…as such, i implemented a moderation system that screens through comments and either automatically deletes them, or holds them up for review…
…the thing is, while i may know why i physically delete a comment, i do not have any idea why some comments are automatically deleted or held up by the system, while others aren’t…believe me, it’s nothing personal…it’s a machine…actually, i had a Braves fan e-mail me the other day essentially accusing me of holding up his comments because he was a Braves fan…as tempting as that is, because, come on, he’s a Braves fan writing to MetsBlog, unfortunately, it’s not true…again, it’s not personal…i don’t control it…it’s automated…i try to make time to approve all in-queue comments, but i am only able to access the last 50 that are posted, and so by the time i get around to it i am way too late…
…yes, this stinks, i agree…but, i have no choice given the large number of readers who post comments to this site, and the fact that MetsBlog is my job and pays my bills…
…i hope you understand…
…also, for those of you who see this as some form of restricting free speech rights…i’m not congress…until congress passes a bill saying you cannot post to MetsBlog.com, believe me, you’re free speech rights are totally in tact…you’re more than welcome to open a window, yell to the streets, start your own blog, etc…your rights are just fine…
In case you forgot, the following is MetsBlog’s policy on posting comments, which can always be found in the upper left-column of this site…
The comment section of this website is for adding your own commentary to a specific post at MetsBlog.com. I highly encourage you to challenge me, your fellow readers and to engage in a polite and intelligent discussion about the initial post.
However, should you personally attack a fellow reader, in any way, your comment will be removed. If you are making random, unrelated remarks for the sake of writing to this blog your comment will be removed. Swearing, racial slurs, violent remarks, and hateful comments directed towards me, my readers or the team, as well as irrelevant babble, are not welcome on this site. Also, altering the way words are spelled, such as adding symbols and random letters to disguise the remark, will not allow the comment to stand. If a reader continues to behave in this manner, he or she will have their posting privileges revoked.
The overwhelming majority of this site’s readers utilize and read the comments to get varying opinions about the subject at hand.
I understand that it’s your right to swear, express your thoughts, tease people, and so on, and you should most certainly exercise this right. Just do it on another website. It’s that simple – if for no other reason than this is a blog, and not a message board. They are two very different forms of communication.
…thank you for your time, loyalty and understanding…i greatly appreciate it…now Lets Go Mets…
…well, it only took five months, but i finally got around to cleaning up the blogroll on MetsBlog.com…in that time, more than 100 different people e-mailed me asking that i link to them 
from my sidebar…amazing…the blogosphere is alive and well, to say the least…
…meanwhile, in addition to ones that have been added, i deleted old blogs that had not been updated in 30 days…
…also, i have singled out and updated all newspaper blogs…so, guys like the Bergen Record, Newsday, the Star-Ledger, New York Times, and the New York Post, a reciprocal link would be appreciated…
…of the blogs i added, take note of the following, who are doing an outstanding job…
The always-amazing Mets By the Numbers, now in shiny new blog form.
Eddie D’Anna’s Ya Gotta Believe, who ends every post with Tug’s line, “Ya Gotta Believe.” Nice.
My Summer Family by Coop, who is well-written and super passionate.
Blastings Thrillege, which may be the best title of any blog I am aware of, with it’s subtitle, “All Up in Your VORP,” which makes me laugh every time I read it.
Maury Brown’s Biz of Baseball, which is without a doubt the definitive blog about contracts, media, and off-field issues.
Do Me Wright, by Trey Coppola, whose creativity and insight are always impressive.
Dave’s and Bryan’s Mets Lifer, complete with a cool-looking logo.
Cyclones Nation, and Tornadic Activity, both of which will keep you posted on all things Brooklyn Cyclones.
The Metwork, which is what might happen if MetsBlog and Maxim had a baby.
Last, but not least, Save the Apple, which you are hopefully well aware of, as they blog their quest to bring the current home-run apple to Citi Field.
…from what i can gather, the Mets are currently sending out post-season invoices 
to the privileged fans with ticket plans…by the way, they sent out similar invoices on the exact date last season…
…for people like me, who do not have a ticket plan, you will have to buy potential post-season tickets by registering with the standard online lottery, like last season and opening day, when the team makes it public in a few weeks…
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