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The Mets are scheduled to host the Nationals at 1:10 p.m. today at Tradition Field.
The game will air live on SNY, and on MLB.com.
Pedro Martinez makes his second start of the spring after holding the Detroit Tigers to four scoreless innings last Sunday. Martinez allowed just four hits and struck out four.
Brian Schneider won’t be catching for the Mets, according to The Record’s Steve Popper, but Paul Lo Duca will be catching for the Nats, according to Newsday’s David Lennon. Lastings Milledge is not starting.
The Mets are hoping Martinez can give them five innings in front of Pedro Feliciano, Matt Wise and Scott Schoeneweis, according to John Delcos at the Journal News.
…let’s say pedro (martinez) pitches great again, but does so without lighting up the radar gun…i have a feeling we’re still going to hear people say, ‘well, that’s good, but i still don’t know if he’ll be able to get by with a fastball like that in the regular season’…
…and let’s say pedro pitches badly today, without the good cheese…can you imagine the reaction, particularly with just one tune-up start remaining?…
…pedro won’t be able to convince everybody that he’s still capable until he’s successful in the regular season, making these games kind of a lose-lose situation…but just remember that if any pitcher deserves the benefit of the doubt, it’s pedro…
Lets go pedro! Anybody know if milledge/duca is playing today lol ought to be fun to watch.
I don’t think LoDuca is due to be back for a while.
David Lennon over at Newsday says “the early word is that Paul Lo Duca will be in the Nationals lineup, batting second.”
The Nats are shopping Felipe Lopez, who’s said he wouldn’t be content on the bench. Rosenthal says the Nationals have their eye on awful shortstop Angel Berroa as a possible replacement, which is strange on multiple levels. Not only is Berroa not a Major Leaguer at this point, but the Nats plan to use Cristian Guzman at short.
That organization is frightening
Good god, that’s some dumb baseball decision making right there. Poor Manny Acta. Hopefully, one day he’ll have a chance to manage a team with half a brain. Or at least one not run by Jim Bowden and his Segway.
That is one rock stupid team. Although to be fair, MLB did everything it could to drain it of any semblance of brainpower while it was still in Montreal.
I hope Milledge hits for the cycle. Not that it would matter, though, since he listens to that rap music that the kids take a liking to, and we can’t have that…
wtf.
Seems sarcastic to me, and I love it.
I hope Milledge gets caught looking and walks himself back to the dugout 2 or 3 times. But I like rap, so I’m not sure if I fit into your stereo-type of people who dislike Milledge.
Milledge is not expected to be in the lineup
thats sounds more like what church is gonna do, and has been doing…and i dont wanna hear the newborn baby bullshit excuse either….he had a career year in 07 and he still couldnt hold the starting job!!!!(IN WASHINGTON)
keep trying to tell yourselves that milledge is a bust. Minaya already traded a similar player in grady sizemore and here is the second coming.
It’s not the rap music that bothers me its the fact that he’s a mediocre pompous f’n idiot.
agreed
I listen to rap, and I hate Milledge!
“let’s say pedro (martinez) pitches great again, but does so without lighting up the radar gun…i have a feeling we’re still going to hear people say, ‘well, that’s good, but i still don’t know if he’ll be able to get by with a fastball like that in the regular season”
I really haven’t heard anyone complain about Pedro’s velocity, if anything the questions have been more about El Duque and his lack of velocity. I could be wrong, but I thought the scouts were raving about Pedro’s last outing, he may have even hit 90 or 91 on the gun. Just as long as Pedro’s in the 87-90 MPH range, he’ll be fine, Duque on the other hand throwing 77-80 is pretty scary stuff, more like BP stuff.
Yeah, I haven’t heard anyone mention Pedro’s velocity either. I mean, Pedro hasn’t thrown in the mid 90’s in over three years. We know Pedro is going to stay in the high 80’s and occasionally, when he needs to, dial it up to low 90’s but that doesn’t matter. Pedro will be successful no matter how hard he throws. He is a genius out there and he knows how to get hitters out because he can outsmart them. He still has a devastating changeup and his control is pinpoint. Picasso…
Pedro already proved himself last year when he went 3-1 coming off missing nearly the whole year and the previous year’s play offs.
If mediocre pitchers like Glavine can pitch into their 40s I would think someone like Pedro can do the same and ikely have more success.
Im not worried about Pedro winning, Im worried about him staying injury free. That should be everyone;s concern.
OK, I understand the hatred for Glavine, but you can’t call him a mediocre pitcher. You don’t win 300+ games if you are mediocre. Has he declined with age? Yes. Did he stink in his last Mets game? Hell yes. But he’s not mediocre.
As for Pedro, like he said a week or so ago “Don’t wish me good luck. Wish me good health. With good health I will make my own luck.”
Good quote, God I love Pedro!
Big game today guys, we are only a game behind the grapefruit division leading devil rays, and a game away from the best record in spring training, which is good especially after our slow start. I personally thing spring training record means nothing, but some people were complaining about it for some reason early on. Some interesting facts from the spring training standings:
Mets have let up the least amount of runs this spring training out of any mlb team at 83.
Mets have scored the 4th least runs this spring training at 100.
Thought that was interesting, lets get these bats going already, or at least get healthier.
No big surprises there – our top hitters missed half the spring, and our pitching’s been healthy, bar Duque. This team is more like the DBacks than Phillies – expect a few 2-1 wins this year.
I personally hope Milledge has a great year.
25% of his games are against Philly and Atlanta with only 12% against the Mets.
At best Milledge will be the second coming of Carl Everett. in other words…nothing special.
you should definitely be working as a scout or something because you seem to know so much about the development of players.
wow. It took me a good minute to figure out the logic there. I was thinking ‘don’t they all play eachother 18 or 19 times a year? Do the Nats play the Mets less this year?’
It must be Friday..
yeah, it’s funny because all the Milledge haters will be rooting for him in a big AB at some point this year when the Nats are playing Philly or Atlanta.
I still like Milledge and his passion. I think he will be good, but not great. He may make an All Star team while playing for Washington but will never start. if FMart is a full time player in 2009, we won’t even be thinking abut Milledge anymore anyway.
in the end, he is still a guy I followed through the minor leagues and will follow now that he is gone. he is only 22 and has plenty of time to turn his career in a great direction. I just don’t think he would have done it with NYs distractions and media frenzy.
I don’t hate Milledge, but I still think it was a good trade. With Pedro, OP, Duque, Delgado & Alou all being in contract years, this team couldn’t afford to let him develop in the major-league club.
Will he eventually outperform Church? Yeah, I’m sure. Will he outperform Church offensively this year? Probably not. Will his defense in RF ever be as good as Church’s? Doubtful. Is he a lock to be a 30/30 guy year-after-year? No – he has a lot to learn about stealing, and many Mets fans greatly overestimated his speed.
Plus we filled another hole with Schneider.
Also, Washington’s probably a better place for Milledge to learn the game anyway, they make a specialty of dealing with talented players with off-the-field “issues”. Manny Acta has already apparently managed to get him to calm down a little, or at least stop shooting his mouth off to journalists for the time being, something Willie and Omar never managed.
I think it’s a good trade for everyone involved.
I couldn’t care less what Pedro does today so long as he does it healthy.
Even does not mention the scenario of him having a good line and lighting up the gun. that is a win-win
It eased my concern that Pedro addressed his velocity and said he wasn’t worried about it. I’m sure the guy has a gameplan for getting his velocity where he needs it to be..
El duque hitting 81 is a little nerve-racking though. He is going to start having to throw his eefus pitch underhand to get the desired differential in velocity
“…let’s say pedro (martinez) pitches great again, but does so without lighting up the radar gun…i have a feeling we’re still going to hear people say, ‘well, that’s good, but i still don’t know if he’ll be able to get by with a fastball like that in the regular season’…
…and let’s say pedro pitches badly today, without the good cheese…can you imagine the reaction, particularly with just one tune-up start remaining?…
…pedro won’t be able to convince everybody that he’s still capable until he’s successful in the regular season, making these games kind of a lose-lose situation”
Isn’t this kind of worrying for the sake of worrying???
I forgot Pedro throws today woohoo…If Pedro’s bad today I’m sure that’ll be the storyline until the season starts but personally, I’m not worried about it. My confidence in Pedro is as high as it was goint into ‘05. My instincts could be off, but I think Pedro’s gonna be very, very good especially early. The key for me is whether we get enough offense early to couple with the good starting pitching we’re going to get. If so, watch out we’re going to get off to a very good start.
Woooh. Just watching the Davidson/Gonzaga game, Damn if Dell Curry’s wife isn’t hot. She’s gotta Vanessa Williams thing going there, sorry back to baseball.
anybody doing a play by play today?
also, Smoltzie was scratched from his start today…
wonder if lo duca gets booed
nope..got a nice applause
Sit down Dmitri. How about that curve on 1-1.
recap anyone?
Guzman popped out to SS. Lo Duca hit a slow tapper in the hole that Reyes couldm’t come up with cleanly. Zimmerman solidly lined a 1b to RF, Church threw him out trying to extend it and he got Dmitri on a K. Overall typical Pedro-great change, one beautiful curve to Yound and good velocity on the FB (Good for Pedro I mean, 86-88).
As for the Mets, DelKado left 2 on base with a little grounder to 1st, in which the 1B fell, the pitcher fell, and CD still made an out.
Pedro is getting hit pretty hard. Lucky that only 1 run scored. His changeup looks great and getting swings and misses on it.
Was-Top of 2nd:
Pedro plunks Kearns with 82mph FB? E. Dukes solidly strokes a 2b runners on 2nd and 3rd, nobody out.
Lopez grounds out hard to 1b, nice play from CD to get the out 1 run scores. K’s Langerhans swinging on a 73mph change, runner on 3rd. Pitcher grounds out SS.
Was 1-0. Laboring a bit more in this start, location is not pedro-like, a few harder hit balls, but nothing to be alarmed about. Velocity is good he touched 89 with one FB-popping the glove.
Apparently SNY thinks singles are solo home runs.
anyone else find that your 2007 mlb.tv subscription has run out? they want me to rerup for 2008 before letting me view the game.
I seem to remember there were these festivities a couple months ago, and during that time, 2007 ended and 2008 began.
funny.
my 2007 subscription worked up until last night. i seem to remember last year, the prior year’s subscription worked all throughout ST.
Mine still works. . .
well, it’s probably because yours auto-renewed. the message i get is that the credit card on filed has expired, which it has.
MLB boxscore sux!
i know…thats why i was pretty much begging for am inning recap here….MLB Live Boxscore has had the game listed as being completed thru 1.5 innings for the last 20 minutes
Top of 3rd:
-Top of order again. Guzman K’s on another beautiful change.
-Lo Duca flies out to CF.
-Zimmerman flies out to CF.
FB is his best pirch today, just like on Sunday he’s spotting where he wants, Pedro’s gonna be good this yr-God please no injuries.
what happened in the bottom of the 2nd?
Pagan single, Church K’d, Casanova GIDP
Bottom 2nd:
-Pagan dribbled up middle for 1b.
-Church k’s looking
-Casanova grounds into DP.
I thought I was only doing Pedro’s half-someone wanna pick up the slack?
hahah thanks…you guys are helping me to cope with being in the office today
Bottom 3rd:
-Pedro pops out.
-Reyes pops out to LoDuca.
-Castillo 1b to left.
-Wright lines a soft 1b to CF.
-Beltran lines out to LF.
Top 4:
-D. Young grounds out to 2b.
-Kearns crushes HR to RF, 2-0 Was.
-Dukes smokes a sinking liner to LF, nice play by Pagan to make semi-diving catch.
-Lopes K’s swinging.
Struggling to spot his off spead stuff, thus FB is more predictable and getting hit harder than when he’s on
Bot 4:
-Delgado slow grounder up middle right into the shift, 1 out.
-Pagan BB, nice patience. Easily steals 2b-weak throw from Paulie won’t miss those this season.
-Church weak ground out to SS, Pagan still on 2b.
-Casanova pops out to CF.
I don’t get it. If’ your’re an All-Star caliber player. How can you allow a team to put a shift on you? It kills me.
who said he was all-star caliber? he’s only made it twice and the last time was five years ago.
THE TRAIN HAS SAILED!
I believe the Train has derailed.
austin powers reference, sorry…
Oh I missed that, sorry.
you mean like the shifts against Ryan Howard, David Ortiz, Barry Bonds, Jason Giambi, Ted Williams?…
Top 5: Pedro’s last inning presumably.
-Langerhans 1b to CF off of one to many change ups.
-Pitcher pops up sac attempt, runner on 1b was running on a bunt? Thus DP.
-Guzman ground out 2b.
Should be it for Pedro. FB was good early. Went away from it in 4 & 5. Concentrated on off-spead stuff. Change was good. Curve wasn’t, don’t remember too many sliders.
If U want me to continue let me know if not, I’m out.
thats alls we need…thanks
yea, thanks.
I missed almost all of Pedro’s work so it was nice to have your recaps.
Schneider will play in the real game tomorrow in Winter Haven, after playing in one of the back field games today. SNY snuck in some peaks of his AB’s against one of the Nat’s minor league teams. He had a HR and a double.
Boy, Church has just looked awful this spring. Hopefully he gets into a groove before the season starts.
dont count on it…. this guy looks like hellen keller with a bat.
watch out guys, there are folks on this site that would have your head for speaking negatively about church!
don’t care that it’s negative talk about church, it’s just that “thrilledge 4 prez” is either lastings or his brother and it’s annoying
metsftw: sometimes the truth hurts and the truth is this guy sucks.
i bet you’re still whining about the tom seaver trade, aren’t you?
At least the Seaver trade was worth whining about.
This time around, we got two everyday players for a prospect who was not liked in the clubhouse.
Maybe it is newborn baby syndrome. Those 2 a.m. feedings can be rough!!
1-212-246-0416
call now to talk to ron and gary
well sny has technical difficulties
how did that DWright Homer look?
i’m sorry but that little call-in segment was so self-righteous and idiotic that i hope they realize right now it was a mistake, not to be repeated in spring again and definitely not to be attempted during games in season. it just cheapens it for me.