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Phillies (18-14, 1 LB):
The Phillies will face ’some serious piching’ in Arizona as the begin their seven-game west coast road trip, writes Jim Salisbury of the Philadelphia Inquirer.
Salisbury also notes SS Jimmy Rollins may be ready to play this weekend in San Francisco.
At his blog Beerleaguer, Jason Weitzel praises the Phillies ’surprising good’ pitching staff and credits them with the team’s early season success.
…their bullpen, which has pitched to a 2.66 era (2nd in the nl), has been outstanding this season, but their lineup is full of grinders…from Chase Utley to Jayson Werth, they never seem give up, no matter the situation…the thing is, their ability to come from behind is actually quite impressive…and yes, i just complimented the Phillies and i hated every second of it…
Marlins (17-14, 1 LB):
Clark Spencer of the Miami Herald profiles the eclectic group of relievers that make up the Marlins bullpen.
this is a great piece and worthy of a look…also, check out the article’s accompanying photo…anyone know why a man in a sombrero and donkey would the Marlins bullpen…
Over at FishStripes, Craig wonders why C Matt Treanor, despite having better numbers than his counterpart, Mike Rabelo, is only starting on Sundays?
Braves (15-15, 2 LB):
David O’Brien of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reveals a startling disparity in the Braves production at home and away in his recap of the Braves 14-7 rout of the Reds yesterday.
Nationals (14-18, 5 LB):
Mark Zuckerman of the Washington Times takes a look at Nationals starting rotation, which was a weakness at the beginning of the season is now becoming one of their biggest strengths.
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What “serious pitching” will the Phillies face? They get Max Scherzer making his first ever major league start today, Randy Johnson tomorrow, and Micah Owings on Wednesday. They miss thier best two (by far) starters. What the Mets dealt with this weekend was “serious pitching”.
It’s a four game serious, they face Brandon Webb on Thursday.
and keep an eye on scherzer.
My bad, thought I checked the thursday schedule. My response was more out of frustration that the Mets got two of the best pitchers in the league and it looked like the Phillies were missing them. I feel better knowing that they have to deal with Webb on Thursday.
Don’t forget, it’s Max “The Next Lincecum” Scherzer.
Welcome to the hype!
Also, his first appearance, while not a start, did last 4 1/3 innings, in which he allowed 0 baserunners and struck out 7.
I’m glad the Mets aren’t facing him… we tend to struggle a lot against rookie pitching.
And old veteran pitching. the mets just seem to suffer against pitching.
You’re right. This team would go 162-0 in wiffle ball…
Hopefully we can lock up some quality pitchers… like Sheets, CC is prob a long shot.. but Mets are going to have a good amount of money coming off the payroll…
Carlos Delgado 16,000,000
Pedro Martinez 11,813,351
Moises Alou 7,500,000
Orlando Hernandez 7,000,000
Oliver Perez 6,500,000
48,813,351
I’ll take it.
The Phils have done a great job of getting players who approach the game the right way. Anyone who didn’t see the difference in head-to-head matchups last year wasn’t paying attention. Fortunately at times this year, it’s looked like the Mets learned a lesson.
yes, serious $ will be available. We are still going to need Pelf to progress this year and be a reliable starter next year, so I hope he can show some improvement and hold on to his spot this year.
Hopefully most of that $48 Mil goes to Texiera
I dunno… we currently have four 1Bs putting up pretty good numbers between Binghamton and Port St. Lucie.
Maybe going after CC might make sense after all… at the start of the season it seemed highly unrealistic, but the way things are progressing it might just work out. For it to happen, we would probably need Niese and Pelfrey both to look like major-league pitchers in ‘09, and to fill at least one of 1B and LF from the farm, preferably both. So, it’s still a longshot, but right now it’s kind of plausible.
If we get Tex, the back end of our rotation next year might look a little shaky.
Well the problem is that there really is no solid pitching that will be available via free agency this year, and I don’t see CC as an option. I think Opie stays with the team, and I think Omar makes a run for Tex.
Don’t forget that with a new stadium next year, the Met revenue stream figures to increase even more next year, which is great news, considering that they were they had the highest net profit of any team last year.
no thanks on sheets. not giving beaucoup bucks on a guy with his injury history and he’s not even 30 yet.
i’ll take teixeira or cc and use a couple of the 1b wannabes as trade bait.
Is there really a chance at getting Tex? The Yankees will also be shedding millions of dollars off their payroll next year and are already in need of a firstbaseman. The Red Sox wouldn’t mind putting him at first and using Ortiz as the DH, especially with Manny getting older. Oh, and it wouldn’t hurt them to keep him out of the Yankees hands. Tex will make millions from these two fighting over him, going way beyond what we should be willing to spend. The money has to be used for pitching. Pitching seems to be doing fine for the D’Backs and was very big for the Braves run of NL East championships. The offense has a solid core, with the THM in the near future, all we really need is a solid bat and glove at firstbase. Besides, we all know the Phillies will be looking for pitching next off-season and I’d rather see us keep them from getting any.
Don’t forget the bumps in salary to Wright, Reyes, & Beltran. Not sure what the final number is, but that will detract from some of the $48MM. Still, the Mets will have a good chunk of change to play around with this winter.
I was going to make the same point…Also, don’t forget that Santana will see a bump too.
And there’s a ton of deferred salary that they will start paying out. Plus we need 2 starters…man…good luck with getting top tier guys….
IT’s actually alot less than $48 mil. Wright and Reyes get big raises, Maine will get a decent raise, Santana will make alot more next year, and Beltran’s deal is really back loaded.
Do we need Tex? what if we went after someone more like Adam Dunn who can play 1B and LF. If we have Dunn on the team, we can hope that one of THM, Carp, Murphy, Evans is major league ready for next year (not impossible) instead of needing two of them to be ready (not likely). All the while, saving some coin to fill out the pitching staff.
Also doesn’t Church become a free agent this year, or becomes arbitration eligible one of the two. At the rate he’s hitting he’ll be getting a big raise.
Plus at this point it looks like we’ll have 2 or 3 spots to fill in the rotation.
He only has 4+ years of service time, so he won’t be eligible for free agency after this year. Still, a few mil in arbitration isn’t out of the question, but I am not really sure how much he is making this year.
Hes making 2 mil this yea, I think witht eh kind of start hes off to you have to expect 5 mil next year.
we are going to probably sign Perez and Wright and Reyes’ contracts will increase their pay for next year
on a smaller note Valentin and Matt Wise will also be gone
However it is to early to be thinking about players to aquire and say goodbye to…save that for the trade deadline and the winter
yeah, I’m sure the phils pitching will hold up, too.
how are they so proud of themselves for their pitching holding up this week? they played 6 against the GIANTS and the PADRES
Really? I mean, the DBacks are a better hitting and pitching team overall, and i dunno, i’m looking forward to them playing better hitting teams, overall its done well, but I can’t think its overall “good”
Nearly everyone, myself included thought the Phillies pitching and their bullpen was going to be a disaster. The longer they keep winning games on the strength of this perceived weakness, as well as without Rollins in their line-up, the more of a headache they’re going to become for us as the season progresses. I don’t know how but these guys find ways to win and we still have a tendency to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory on occassion.
when their bullpen regresses, it’s going to be so much fun
It’s called being a good team. The Mets were that way in ‘06. I still think the Phillies pitching is more smoke and mirrors than anything.
we’ll see how good the Phillies are when they get away from that softball field they play in.
Problem is, that will help their pitching more, but their hitting will also suffer…
It’s all about expectations. They expected their 3-5 to be terrible, and they haven’t been so far.
Plus Hamels and Myers have eaten a bunch of innings.
hamels hasn’t been pitching well lately at all and myers’ velocity is down. the shoe is going to drop soon.
the phillies are going to be very tough all year. the mets are not going to run away with this division. there was a small chance of that if pedro, el duque, and alou were healthy all year, but that was a dream scenario.
the phils have an excellent line-up, a #1 starter in hamels, and lidge has been great (15ip 0runs)
i think the mets take the division, but it will be within 3 games all year meaning lots of stress, but a lot of fun too.
how long can Lidge keep that up though? just like Wagner… I mean, its awesome hes doing so well, but he will hit a rough spot… difference with wags and lidge being Wags has the balls to get through it…who knows w/ Lidge
lidge has been good for 4 of the last 5 seasons. he’s also better than who they had last year. their rotation is better too with myers in it.
how could you under-estimate the phils after last season?
they are a good baseball team and will challenge the mets until the end. santana makes the difference this year with the mets taking it by a game or three.