|
Today’s Game:
- The Mets (1-0) defeated the Reds (0-1) by the score of 2-to-1 today.
On the Mound:
- Johan Santana earned the victory, allowing one run on three hits and four walks, while striking out seven over 5.2 IP.
- Sean Green, J.J. Putz and Francisco Rodriguez combined for 3.2 hitless innings in relief.
At the Plate:
- Daniel Murphy drove in both Mets runs going 1-for-5 with a
homerun. Murphy’s homerun in fifth came after a terrific nine-pitch at-bat against Reds starter Aaron Harang. - Carlos Delgado and Ryan Church each had two hits.
Random Thoughts:
- Wow, what a difference an off-season makes. Each of Omar Minaya’s three key bullpen acquisitions were dominant in their first appearances of the season. I’d like to know the last time the Mets bullpen allowed three hitless innings. It certainly didn’t occur last September.
- I don’t know where I heard it, but Daniel Murphy mean business.
- Santana looked as if he was struggling with the frigid weather, as he uncharacteristically walked four batters; but he managed to pitch through his wildness. I was surprised Jerry Manuel pulled him with two outs in the sixth, but with Santana’s history against Edwin Encarnacion, and being on the verge of 100 pitches, it was the right move.
Game Ball:
- Today’s Game Ball is cut in quarters and given to Daniel Murphy, Sean Green, J.J. Putz and Francisco Rodriguez.
Tomorrow:
- The Mets are off tomorrow. The Mets return to action on Wednesday against the Reds in Cincinnati, with Mike Pelfrey facing Edison Volquez.
 |
 |
 |
RSS 2.0 Both comments and pings are currently closed.
I know this is just game 1, but this certainly feels like a fresh start from the last two years.
Go Mets
A fresh start, yes, but same old offensive struggles with RISP. I’m not gonna pas$ serious judgment on them for it, but it brought back flashes of our lack of key hits to blow open games we should have had without trouble. Either way, I have a lot more confidence now than I did this morning. Watching Green, JJ and K-Rod was refreshing. If we don’t overuse Green early, I think he’ll be an important piece of the pen for us.
Yes, but we won the game as the pen shut them down for 3+ innings…that is why the problem last year was the pen, not the hitting….the offense can score just 2 and leave a zillion on, and we can still win…..that is the difference with a great pen.
A-FRIGIN-men to that!
Omar for Exec of the Year!
OK, a little early, but I have been waiting almost four long months to see this new pen in action, and even without JJ’s best stuff, it looked AWESOME.
KRod actually looks even better than in the past.
Gas and food to Great American Ballpark…..$50, ….Tickets to game………$125,….Not having to use half the bullpen to close out a 1 run lead…….PRICELESS!
And having the pen pitch 3+ scoreless innings–almost unbelievable!!
first the mets win, and now the old comments is back? can this day get any better?!?
old comments are back*
What have u done Nichols!! No more post game for you!
Haha!!
We WILL do this in 2009!!(c)reilly.
That is the kind of pen championship teams have.
Let the Negative Creeps (c)Cobain
beware! Even a 1-run lead and a game with a zillion men LOB can be a win!!
Yankees could lose. That would make the day perfect.
If UNC wins tonight I’ll win $400, so for me it can get better.
I usually hate grammar nazis, and those who nitpick over small things as useless as a misspelling, but wedbesday and “they were dominate” made me lol
Sorry, just trying to get it up as fast as possible.
we all appreciate it Mike. timely pre and postgame threads are part of what makes mets blog the best fansite on the internet
Agreed, and Mike, thank you and please keep up the fine work.
And thanks to everyone at Metsblog for restoring the older comments style…..
I went on the espn website just in time to see that the Mets were winning in the bottom of the 9th (don’t have cable in my apartment). Being a Mets fan, I naturally thought they’d blow a one-run lead and begin the season 0-1. I don’t know what it was like watching the game, but was seeing K-Rod close nerve-wracking at all?
Also, 9 hits and only 2 runs to show for it? What is this, 2008?
Regardless, thank goodness for a Mets win. Go get’em tomorrow, Pelf.
Not at all – K-Rod was awesome. 10 Pitches – 8 of the there were strikes!
Nice easy outing. Green-Putz-KRod is going to dominate.
KRod was AMAZING, and looked unhittable. JJ did not have his best stuff, yet still allowed just one baserunner and got out of it, and Green looked very, very good.
This year is going to be VERY different than 2008.
We blow a zillion scoring chances and we win a 1-run game for Johan. This game is a microcosm of 2009.
Don’t forget the catch Church made – what a catch! and that arm – I hope he plays everyday and Sheffield is not taking away his playtime. Church’s defense is off the hook – definitely above average despite what Sporting News think.
For an in depth look at the game, check out Metsopolis.com for the inning by inning breakdown. Check out the Aflac Question of the day too!!
Cool. Love the Keith comment of the day,too.
aw..what happened to the new setup. Anyway
“My Name Is Daniel Murphy And I Bat Second”
This kid is great! He worked a 0-2 count to a 3-2 and then hits a homer…he is going to pi** alot of pitchers off and i love it. Its great also to see the combo of JJ and Krod going….flashes of things to come! Santana is on his game…i cannot wait for wed. LGM
good news everyone! thanks to matt reverting back to the old (better) system, i can actually log in now. ryan church is fired up. no one’s taking his job as long as he hits, and he knows it.
Thank you Matt.
I agree, that old format stunk!
Gas and food to Great American Ballpark…..$50, ….Tickets to game………$125,….Not having to use half the roster to close out a 1 run lead…….PRICELESS!
NICE.
Ditto. Now if he would just reverse the sort, or put the reply box uptop, after the latest comment, life would be good….
Way to go Murph !
Solid team effort, I’m certain the 11 left on today will be the exception rather than the rule.
One thing I will say is that wright looked like he was pressing at the plate just a tad.
I’d like to see him more relaxed in situational hitting scenarios.
Johan was the man today a true freaking ACE
under harsh conditions a true warrior.
I’m glad Murphy had such a good game.
I’ve been pulling for him (like so many of
us) from day 1.
Pulling for Ryan Church too.
Schnieder looked good behind the plate too.
Doesn’t it feel nice to smile after a baseball game. Doesn’t it feel like a long time since you have?
So good to have them back. Go Mets!
That felt really good i have to say for the first time in my life i wasn’t that excited about the start of the season. Living near Philadelphia my life has been a living hell. I’m back! i feel so alive! I love baseball again!
It went just the way the script was written
Could not have asked for a better script for today’s game. The bullpen was more than solid, and picked up the slack for Johan who had a strong (if short) outing today.
I thought it was odd to take Johan out in the middle of the inning like that, with 2 outs, but it worked out ok, and I understand wanting to limit his pitches early in the season, especially with the bad weather.
How soon until I can get a “Daniel Murphy Means Business” t-shirt?
ORDER IS OFFICIALLY RESTORED IN METDOME.
i wouldn’t go there yet, but it’s sure nice not to have the shakes when 9th inning comes
Actually Flushing I still had the shakes……..
It’s going to take awhile.
wow what a difference an efficient bullpen makes
Couple of top pitchers from last year getting rocked pretty hard today, Lee against Texas and then Webb gets yanked after giving up 6 in 4 IP against the Rockies.
I think there were some fly balls (for both teams) that might have carried over the fence today if this was during the summer.
Don’t forget CC, who has given up 4 runs, with no out and runners on 1st and 2nd in the 5th inning.
great….and i mean GREAT! win for the Mets give it up to the bullpen and Murphy and a great play by church in the outfield. but next game were going to have to score some more runs. only the first game and there was horrible weather but hopefully those are goo excuses as to why we couldn’t really hit the ball hard today. great win great refreshing to see the bullpen shut um down!
i agree. scoring two runs behind johan might fly, but i have feeling that won’t work out so well with pelfrey, main, ollie and livan.
I think you’re right. We’re gonna need at least 7 runs for each of the other guys.
That home plate umpire was starting to tick me off.
i agree, just so inconsistant with his strike, he was killing me, but its ok lets go 162-0 LETS GO METS
putz and k rod and johan did a really good job puls sean green and dan murphy did good to now lets go mets
1 Down 99 Wins To Go!
Ah Mr Case!
I am imagining you are liking the Mariners East setup situation!!
And did KRod look great or what??
That’s one that would have gotten away last year. The old nerves were back in the 7th-9th for sure with only a small lead.
Thank God we have a bullpen this year to bag most of the games when we don’t score a ton.
Great game! Good time at the Public House, too. Though we need to get more people there, and more stuff going on to keep them there.
Gosh, I love America – where else do you get paid to drink beer and watch baseball?!
I’d have to imagine there was a whole lot of drinking during the work day going on in Japan and Korea during the WBC. Might have been sake or rice wine though.
First off, thanks matt for organizing the event this afternoon ( I was in the white sweater and orange cap)..great game all around..it was nice to see a bullpen that could hold a lead too…for one day, everything went according to plan…hopefully the next 161 games follow accordingly
Magic Number: 161
Bwahahahah!
Cerrone should really put that up to P!ss a lot of ppl off.
Haha i was waiting for someone to say this.
Gotta split that game ball into fifths and give a section of it to Ryan Church. Two hits, a stolen base and that heads up play in the outfield. He really faked the runner out by bobbling that ball~:c) Seriously, he was really stroking the ball. Quick wrists, with a fast bat through the zone. Even that out to Phillips at second was a little rocket. Nice to see him come out like that.
That defensive play was ecellent – and he did have two hits….but let;s be honest, it was a bloop and bleeder. His best hit ball all day was right at the 2B.
Overall though, I think Sheff will have to wait at least one more game before kavetching about playing time after the day Churchie and Murphy had!
BTW, Daniel Murphy means business.
great pitching performances, i believe the mets struggled at the plate, for the most part, because they did not get a chance to take outdoor batting practice with the tarp on the field
By the way, wasn’t it great seeing a closer get first pitch strikes? And that off-speed stuff of K-Rod’s…a joy to behold.
Yeah, he had some nasty off-speed stuff going on. Good movement on his pitches today. He looked sharp, and it was freezing out! This guy means business. :)
I love the green-putz-krod formula, sure beats the formula of smith-feliciano-stokes-HReilman-sanchez-wagner.
With guest appearances by Ayala and Rincon.
I know it’s only one game, but 11 men left on base in the first 5 innings ?. Jeez.
Happy they won though.
neither team had a chance to take batting practice, that may be why
Oh and by the way, I liked the new comments section way better than the old. Probably in the minority, but I hope the new stuff comes back.
New format is fine, if it actually worked. Needs more tweaking if he’s gonna use it.
I liked it too. It was nice getting replies in my email when I had to leave the site.
Top of the NL East, 1 game up on the Phillies. A nice first day.
LAST PLACE PHILLIES!! HAHA!!!
Matt, I like this comment section a lot better, but why are the new comments going to the top? I mean was there something wrong with the old way? The only thing I would have changed is the picture on top, with a citi field banner , and that when someone replies to your comment, an email would get sent to you
the program you installed gave an option to get emailed, but that was for ANY comment left on that post, i received about 100 emails
Matt’s previous post said that he was going to reinstall Intense Debate tomorrow.
I’m not a fan. And I was also spammed 100s of times on Friday, after thinking I owuld only see responses to my post.
I think we could have scored more runs if we had more hits and men on base.
;-)
Good start.
No piece of the game ball to Johan?
I’m looking forward to the Peltrey v. Volquez matchup. A great matchup of two talented young guys who had some trouble before putting it together last season.
And Volquez certainly didn’t do it gradually. He came through the front door and announced his presence.
It was almost symbolic that we won the game the way we did. Like many times last year, we lacked clutch hitting and left a TON of guys on base. Yet, we still had the lead late. This time however, the bullpen came through to get Johan the win.
Let’s hope this is a sign of things to come.
Santana not with his best stuff, but basically dominated the Reds.
Green.
Putz.
Frankie.
Game Over.
Additionally, C.C. is stinking up Camden Yards like a 10 day old rotten dozen of Maryland blueclaw crabs.
Life is good.
Good to have baseball back. Mets looked good.
My overriding impression of this game was that the home plate umpire was wildly inconsistent.
Anyone else notice that?
Metsocrat
Incredibly inconsistent….but consistent in his inconsistency!
The absolutely best thing about this game as the sense of calm I felt when the bullpen came into the game. What a nice feeling to have a dominant pen.
Thanks Omar!
Comments are going backwards…wierd.
I really didn’t like shines sending wright on that bobble. Wright was running station to station he wasn’t moving to score i thought all the bad third base coaching was supposed to end
with last season.
As they said on the telecast, Shines was watching the ball (as he should) and didn;t see DWright’s double-clutch of a hestitation in leaving second base. He sent him based on the bobble. David also hestitated again rounding third. If not for DWright’s hestitations, he would have scored easily.
The tongue wagging got in the way…….it causes wind drag…….LOL
Dan the man. nuff said
Um, he hates being called Dan.
well, he will have to forgive me so it can rhyme.
Now if we can learn to bring a few of those ducks home then all will be well.
12 left stranded in scoring position ain’t gonna hack it.
I must admit, all throughout the bullpen’s outing, I had that “something bad will happen” feeling that I had all through last year and the end of 2007 out of total habit.
So glad they came through, a few more outings like that and I’ll feel like I did in 2006/early 2007 where I didn’t feel the need to wear down the carpet in my room by pacing around.
I agree bigvito, I was watchig to see hat was gonna happen. I had that pit in my stomach the second they took Santana out. More out of habit than anything else. Great Opening Day win and hopefully signs of things to come in September. LETS GO METS!!
No disrespect of course but my game ball goes solely to johan…we don’t win ball games when only scoring two runs, unless he is on the hill.
agreed, but i think matt’s choices of green, putz, and krod are less literal and more a projection of the importance of the pen’s improvement
Actually, the first couple of weeks of Sept the bullpen did very well — I’d say 4-5 times they had 3+ innings of scoreless ball. It was mid-Sept that it all fell apart.
that catch by chruch was amiazing and the way he pick off the guy at first he should be are everyday starter
Are World Series tickets on sale yet? ;-)
I’m psyched about how this season has started, but I heard something today that made me want to throw up. During the radio broadcast they mentioned that Brandon Phillips had been traded by OMAR MINAYA when he was with the Expos in a deal for Bartolo Colon.
But wait, it gets worse.
As it turns out — our resident baseball genius also traded away — IN THE SAME DEAL:
Cliff Lee
and
Grady Sizemore
Why is this important? It’s important because it’s instructive. The Matt Lindstrom and Heath Bell debacles were obviously not isolated incidents.
Yes, it’s very easy to spend money on free agents. (Although, as we learned, he even screwed that up with the Castillo signing).
It’s a much different thing to make a decent trade. So when you’re giving Omar praise for signing K-Rod and trading for Putz and Green, remember the stinkers he’s responsible for and be wary of potential future bad deals he could pull off.
Yeah, thanks Albert, say hi to the whole Einstein family…this happened years ago…how bout saying THANKS to Omar for getting us a great pen Mr. Killjoy??
lol@brock.. Man some people just always have to find something negative of a good thing
He made a move based on the fact that the expos needed one last hurrah in order to not get moved. So he traded some prospects for an ace.
You should be thanking him. Imagine how good the nationals would be if they had an ace, a stud centerfielder, and a 30/30 2b. This division would be INSANE
I kinda had to do a double take when I saw Green, Putz, and K-Rod close the game out instead of Sanchez, Heilman, and Ayala. It just seems like we’re in an alternate baseball reality where the Mets have a bullpen with actual good relief pitchers.
When’s the world series?!
I’m drinking the Kool-aid!
I know there are people who’ll question Omar Minaya’s abilities, but I think it’s fair to say it’s okay to have mixed emotions on him. If you were debating whether we are a better off team without him though, I just can’t agree.
Without Omar, we wouldn’t have had great hopes for ‘09. We’ve had great hopes the past three seasons too, which we may take for granted, but he really raised our expectations. The moves as Expos manager, even though a franchise fearing being disbanded, weren’t good. Nor were Lindstrom or Bell. However, he got us Santana, Maine and other’s for little. He turned a negative problem, in Milledge’s attitude, into a positive with Church. He made the right move bringing Lo Duca here and deciding when his time was up. Overall, throughout his tenure as GM, I’d give him a B-. There’s plenty of room for improvement, but when he first came about, especially towards ‘06, people were calling him some sort of genius, which wasn’t on target. He’s still a good GM though. Without Santana, the Mets are a .500 team, so that really is a transaction that could be a difference maker for all of the next six years. I’m very happy he directly addressed what had to be done, and what he was able to do within his means. His successful off-season showed today, and hopefully, it continues to.
I don’t know if anyone else heard this, but the Scmooz on the fan brought up a good point. He said the play of the game was Santana backing up the throw from Beltran. That may be a bit much, but it is plays like that where you can see how special Santana is. The guy is a great athlete and is a true leader on and off the field. His antics before the game were too funny…..and exactly what this team needs.
This is off topic, but I was watching the Cubs Astros game and was thinking. When the Cubs come to Citi Field, do you think Pinella will use Heilman at all? I hope so so we can BOOO him out of Flushing….