The Marlins defeated the Mets, 2–1, in Miami today.
For a full recap and boxscore, go here.
The least you need to know…
- Johan Santana pitched seven innings, and allowed just three hits.
- Daniel Murphy dropped a routine pop-up with two outs, and two men on, who, when the ball dinked off his glove and rolled through the grass, rounded third and scored the Marlins only two runs.
- The Mets were 1 for 5 with runners in scoring position.
Murphy, following the game, said:
“Inexcusable… Johan threw the ball really well and deserved a lot better than that. I’m better than that. It won’t happen like that again. I was lazy to the ball and I got exposed for it. I didn’t get back. I got exposed, and it cost us.”
The Mets play their first-ever regular season game in Citi Field tomorrow against the Padres at 7:10 pm.
In case you missed the game…
Here is SNY.tv’s Post Game Extra, featuring clips and quotes, as well as analysis from Gary Cohen and Keith Hernandez, from today’s loss:
I believe him when he says it won't happen again. He's young, but he produces.
dolla billz millz woulda caught it
Haha no he wouldn't have
Too bad he didn't produce a catch in that spoy
Write your comment here…
ONE RUNNER was on base when he dropped the ball. It was the biggest play in the game. Is it THAT HARD to get these facts right? wow!
you guys are really broken up about this. why dont you go out and gather your own information instead of coming to this blog and complaining. you arent the blog police.
Good idea. Maybe I will
If he's going to get paid to write a blog about baseball, he should at least get his facts straight. I can go all over the place to get info and this is one of the places I go to get my information as the writing is getting shoddy and boring.
If he's going to get paid to write a blog about baseball, he should at least get his facts straight. I can go all over the place to get info and this is one of the last places I now go to get my information as the writing is getting shoddy and boring.
Tough loss, but I like what I'm seeing for the most part from this team so far.
Such as? The struggles with RISP? The shaky middle relief? The incredibly inaccurate Ollie? Wright's pressing?
You LIKE this? OH LORD
i think what he was referring to is that the mets dont roll over and die in the latter part of the game like they did for most of last year. The RISP is a problem but im sure everyone has the same thing. We knew what we were getting with ollie and we knew he was behind in being ready for the year. Wright just doesnt look confortable yet but he will come around
The struggles with RISP are a mainly a result of Wright's struggles at the plate. However, Wright will correct himself and become the most dangerous hitter in this lineup again, Ollie will go on his streaks where he allows one or two runs for three starts straight, and this team will be rolling on all cylinders again.
Just relax, man. It's a long season, and a lot can change from day to day. No need to stress anything right now.
I love the just relax line. People like you been saying that since '07. When you goona get it. Apriil games count the same as September games. Just relax, another overpaid team will dissapoint, and mr just relax wil say same line next April.
Such as the starting pitching is better than people have been expecting(outside of perez). The bullpen is much better. And the offense has a lot more potential than last season. I like the bench as well. Things will click and this team is much better than last season.
It isn't that big a deal, but considering this site has been inexplicably abandoned for most of the weekend, they could have at the VERY LEAST given a semi-accurate recap of the game. You know, 6 hours after it ended.
Dude, it IS a holiday weekend.
Touche, but then again… it IS the first weekend of the season… An added summary of weekly performances would be a nice touch…. All I know is, if you're running a business like this, you can't sleep on it… You gotta get ahead, and if he can't update it, why not get some backups as someone mentioned earlier?
Oh well, I need to stop, I'm gonna sound like I'm whining now… Ugh.
Yeah, people who make their living off MLB should definitely get weekends off during the season, just like the players, broadcasters, coaches, stadium personnel, etc etc
No disrespect to anybody here – or Daniel Murphy for that matter – but to think that Murphy won't "get exposed" again is a little naive. He's just not THAT good in the field … yet. But, on the plus side, he appears to be a very hard worker so, in time, I believe he'll eventually be at least good – solid in the field. But this is part of the pains that come with growing up with Daniel Murphy.
I don't think that anybody is more broken up about the error than Murphy.
I always read the post-game recap, Matt. I like that you do a little bullet point summary and that you post the SNY clip. I do wish you'd update it a little faster though…
murphy will get better, he made a mistake and will learn from being lazy and black pedaling instead of side running. But thats not the worst, we had men in scoring position 5 times with decent opportunities to do something. WIth delgado and beltran hitting well, we need to focus on david wright. He is trying to pull everything, which is stopping him from being a .340 batter and a deadly hitter all together. Hes trying to pull and get the long ball, but pull hitters get hurt with outside pitchers. Thats why all the pitchers that do their own scouting on right throw him sliders and changeups that hit the outside corner. Once wright learns to hit like he did as a rookie and early last year, he will be a .280 hitter with 35 homeruns but 120 k's and a .240 average with men in scoring positions especially with 2 outs.
I'm not sure why but I think I actually liked this site better a couple of years ago. Sometimes things get too big. Not much news on here anymore. Mostly videos and links to other blogs and news sources. Do other blogs ever give links to this blog?
Anybody know if either Extra Innings or MLB.tv will carry the pregame ceremonies tomorrow? They usually only bring up the feed just prior to first pitch, but Extra Innings has covered post-game Pennant celebrations before (in 06).
it'll be broadcast on espn, also. they start at 7, so we might get some of it.
Does anybody know what time the Opening Day ceremonies will happen? I always like seeing the pregame roster introductions, seeing how the crowd reacts to each guy
6:30pm
idk but I know the pregame starts at 6
you guys are absolutely ridiculous, if you are so fed up with the errors in the recap, the pace at which the site is updated, the quality of the content, then LEAVE the site and find a new place to get your NY Met info. there are plenty of people on here who plug their site, go visit those sites and complain there
leaving this blog doesn't exactly help Matt. I think his goal is to try to build readership, not have people not come back.
Exactly… That's why I don't get why people aren't comprehending that…
He's not trying to pull everything. It seems like that, but let me explain.
Wright is behind on the fastball right now. When opposite field hitters are behind on the fastball, they're pretty much defenseless. So, rather than shortening his swing (which he will do sooner or later, im sure), he tries to muscle his bat through the zone faster, causing him to fly open with his top half.
So basically, he is pulling everything, but not on purpose. It's a domino effect from his timing just being off, that's all. He and HoJo will work it out soon. Keep in mind Wright is only a .286 (give or take, counting today) hitter in April, while batting over .300 in every other month of the season.
But u just hinted indirectly another problem he has, which is trying to muscle the ball and that comes with guessing on the ball, and guessing wrong. I understand wright is a great hitter the rest of the year, but he does become more of a pull hitter. When ur an opposite field hitter, or taught to hit the other way, ur supposed to let the ball come to you, as opposed to jumping on it. Once u wait on it, u drive it better the other way. Wright cannot do this when he guesses, and missteps and misses swings. Watch when wright bats, and watch a batter like manny ramirez. Manny shifts his weight once hes right about to hit the ball. Thats why manny's mistake swings a lot the time become hits because he doesnt guess. He shifts his weight accordingly. Throw me a slider on the outside corner, okay, ill shift my weight and push it, and let if come to me. Throw me inside, which wright likes, im gonna open up and pull that ball to left field. I agree with u on ur point, but wright is trying to pull too much. I know hes an opposite field hitter, BUT, hes not truly trying to. Just watch how he steps, how he uses his weight, and how far his bat is from the ball on outside pitchers. If he is defenseless against fastballs that beat him, his bat ( from our pitchers view from the tv) would be aligned or even slightly ahead on the left part of the catchers mitt, not the mitt sticking out.
You say you agree with me, but then go back to disagreeing with me? I understand opposite field hitters have to wait on the ball and let it travel, but like I said, his timing is off and he is getting beat by the fastball. This means he cannot let it travel anymore and must find a way to speed his bat up.
I'm telling you, he is not TRYING to pull everything, only the inside pitches obviously. But when your timing is off the way his is, sometimes you tend to fly open with your top half and end up pulling it any way. Wright is a good hitter and will correct this soon, you watch. For some reason, these tend to be things hitters like to work on mostly when they are at home (don't ask me why, I guess it's because they have more facilities…idk). This next week or so will tell if Wright has been working on this problem or not.
Yea i know that was confusing what i said, i do agree he is trying to pull everything (our conflict in thought and opinion) but i agree in how he is doing (which is what u pointed out). I just hope he gets out of it, becuz delgado and beltran are seemingly useless (unless they bat first in the inning) if right can get on base with a hit or walk.
eh…sux that murph couldnt come up with that but its growing pains with him. Its going to happen again, lets just hope it doesnt happen against jj who owns us lol. Good ballgame from a baseball pov(even though the ump had a mancrush on jj for the whole first half of the game). Its early and lets look fwd to opening citi field with a win LGM
lmao at man crush but I think you are right. Santana wasn't getting the same pitches that JJ was getting. I guess Balkin Bob Davidson needed to occupy his time with the man crush since there were no base runners and he couldn't call any balks
I honestly think the more troubling thing was the top of the 8th inning; the error happened, but they were still in this game when Church led off the 8th with a double, Castro struck out, and then Luis Castillo decides to bunt for a hit. With only 5 outs left in the game, how can you attempt such a low percentage play? Castillo had a hit off Johnson already and was coming off a 4-hit night, so he basically did the opposition a favor. Jerry Manuel basically admitted after the game that in hindsight, Castillo should have hacked away, but why did it have to be in hindsight. For too long on this team, bunting in inappropriate situations has been a problem, one that both Willie and Jerry have not really addressed.
Yes, that was troubling, but still didn't hurt us as bad as Murphy's miscue. Perhaps the biggest problem with that scenario is Castro striking out after a lead off double. I mean, he couldn't even be semi-productive and hit a ground ball to the right side.
I am sick of Castro. He is a bum, and he needs to go. I'll take my chances with Schneider…at least he's better in clutch situations.
of course its hindsight because it didnt work lol….the more troubling i think is castro…he looks plain awful at the plate, he shoulda been bunting lol
Well put. We often suffer from recency effect in postgame analysis. Reyes' first pitch hack back to the box after a gritty walk by Reed got me going…
That really didn't bother me much. I mean, I wish he would've got under it a bit more and lifted a line drive to center, but I wanted him to be aggressive in that situation.
We were patient for about half the game, as we usually are. However, by being patient at the plate, hitters found themselves constantly down 0-2, 1-2. When a pitcher is dealing like Johnson was today, you don't give him the opportunity to go to work on you. Reyes got his pitch, he put the bat on it, but just missed it. Had he taken a couple pitches and gotten behind in the count, I guarantee you JJ would have made him look foolish (again) with his breaking stuff.
would agree in general- tip your cap to Johnson, but he did walk Reed- and began falling behind- he continued that into the 9th too…
I agree about the 8th. I felt a PH for Castro and Castillo was crucial there.
This if a FREE site. Shut up and quit acting so GD entiled.
couldnt agree more OB82
If you didn't notice, Matt asked for feedback of what we like or dislike about the post game recap. So relax.
Griping about the speed/accuracy is not the feedback he wants, and if you feel the need to complain about that, use the “contact” button, on the fromtpage, not this message board
heartbreaker. very unfortunate to burn an incredible start by johan, and to lose on a crucial error makes it that much worse. it frustrates me that everyone keeps saying jj outpitched johan. yes, jj got the win and johan the loss, but come on…
of course its hindsight because it didnt work….the more troubling i think is castro…he looks plain awful at the plate, he shoulda been bunting lol
I really hope we win a game 12-11 to balance this out.
everyones acting like the season is gonna come to down one game! come on, one game against the marlins doesn't make a difference! what? oh. damnit
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Why isn't anyone talking about how good Josh Johnson was? We didn't lose the game, i.e. runners in scoring position, blah blah blah.
We got beat by a great young pitcher with 3 plus pitches. Johan performed just as well, but in a pitching duel like today's, you usually dont recover from errors like Daniel Murphy's.
We'll get em next time
JJ is an ace. Agreed. Now if they start tipping their cap to Walter Silva in post game comments tomorrow night….they need to put up a 10 spot, and coast…
It's really hard to get mad at Murphy. You know the guy works really hard, he's just not an outfielder. Its taking a long time for me to get over this loss, wasting great pitching performances in a no-no for good teams but San Diego is coming in and that make me feel good, lets get 3.
I agree. The offense for the most part has been good. Could use a few more hits with RISP though. I'm encouraged by Maine's performance and Livan could very well turn out to be one of the better aquisitions Omar made this past offseason. My only 2 complaints are the the defense hasn't been great and I hope Ollie gets into playing shape very soon. Damn that WBC….lol
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Love Murphy, but he should be treated exactly as Milledge would have been with a lazy play that cost the team a game. This season may come down to the last week like the last two season and Murphy made a huge mistake.
really? Castro hit 7 hr's in 52 games last year..at least he's got some pop. Give him a break, it was his second game and he was facing a guy who was throwing 97mph fb's on the corner like clockwork. Outside of that 1 week last season when schneider went on a tear, he has shown no life from the plate. of course eventually castro will get hurt, but while he';shealthy i prefer his bat to schneiders.
Cerrown3d by WWE-style revisionist history.
Daniel Murphy dropped a routine pop-up with two outs, and two men on, who, when the ball dinked off his glove and rolled through the grass, rounded third and scored the Marlins only two runs.
what the hell game were you watching ?
He was watching the Marlins feed
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I believe Murph but I am concerned that he "got lazy" in the 6th game of the season. Considering that Church plays very well defensively, and that he's on fire with the bat, it looks like Murphy is the one who may lose some playing time to Sheffield, not Church.
Murphy is an infielder, he will be our future 1st basemen or 2nd basemen
I never criticize you Matt, you do a fantastic job. …But c'mon now…There was one runner on who scored when Murphy dropped the fly-ball by Ross. The second run came on the single (scoring Ross) by Paulino on the AB following the error. Matt – did you watch the game?
I have no problem with the occasional error. Happens to the best of us. But this kind of stuff happens regularly here, and it's extremely annoying at best.
Those who say 'stop complaining, this is a free service' obviously don't know how web business works. We're paying him in ad views and probably referrals. This is his full time job, right? Wish I had a FT job where the masses insist upon ignoring my performance.
No matter how many times he says he's not a pro journalist, 'just a fan' , the fact remains that this is basically a journalistic full-time job. That's what it is. The need for journalistic integrity comes with that, and it's not an excruciating standard to achieve.
Exactly. It's no longer an occasional error, it's pretty regular. When Matt makes mistakes he likes to hide behind the "I'm just a regular guy blogger" excuse, and he gets defensive. But what "regular guy blogger' gets the access, opportunity and paycheck from SNY and the Mets? Sorry Matt, but whether you want to admit it or not you are the big time when it comes to blogs, and it's time to behave accordingly. People turn to you for facts, and just because you don't consdider yourself a journalist you are one now. Step up.
Well, it's Easter, so let's give Matt a break. He can't spend every waking moment – including on holidays – working on the blog.
As for the game… I honestly believe nobody will be harder on Murph than Murph for this one. Yeah, it sucks, but what are you going to do? A young player will make an error every so often. A two run deficit is something that a good, veteran offense can overcome. We couldn't score two runs in nine innings against the Marlins. Ugh.
"We couldn't score two runs in nine innings against the Marlins. Ugh"
No, we couldn't score two runs in nine innings against a lights-out Josh Johnson. I'm sorry, but NOBODY would have scored two runs against him today. When a pitcher shoves like that, you just gotta tip your hat and move on to the next game.
Absolutely right. Josh Johnson was dominant, and on a day like he had today, there's no team that would have been able to get after him.
While I certainly didn't like the outcome, it was nice to see an extremely well pitched game. Great baseball.
agreed with the both of you..the game was 2hrs…that says it all
Its unfortunate that the performace that johan threw was decided in an error…wiht 0er and 13k's…definate stat booster. Too bad about the loss but a well pitched game overall. I do think however that they are learning how to get to jj…which would be a very good thing to walk away from this
I think the key to getting to JJ is to be aggressive early. If you let him pound the strike zone early and get in a groove, you'll find yourself down a couple runs in the seventh inning before you know it. It's kind of funny, but the less pitches he throws at the beginning of the game, the less chance he has at finding a good release point for all his breaking stuff.
I know it goes against conventional wisdom, but I pitched with a guy a couple years back who was the same exact way. He told me he absolutely hated it when guys were aggressive early on (unless they swung and missed or didn't make good contact) because it made him rely too much on his fastball, which good hitters will hit eventually.
Maybe he could share responsiblities with someone who could. Plenty of people watched the game. There might even be a few-non-Christians among the fanbase.
RichieHebner, Murph is human, do you not think that all players have a moment here and there when they are "lazy"? Murphy is just stand up enough to say he lost concentration and took it for granted. It happens plenty of times. Guys pop up and don't bust it out of the box. Its human nature, its not something worry about. Come on now, relax. You live and you learn. It happens. But I guess we are in every moment is worthy of panicking mode with the Mets these days. No loss or play can be overanalyzed enough. The team is going to lose a lot more, no matter how good they are, its how baseball works with 162 games, just relax a little bit, its 6 games in
The final score is the only statistic that matters.
We had our chances but we let them slip away.
We came up a little short.
We don't care about moral victories.
It just wasn't meant to be.
We beat ourselves.
We didn't get the job done.
I tip my hat to them.
Give them all the credit.
We can still hold our heads high.
These guys have nothing to be ashamed of.
I don't want to point fingers.
Our defense was a non-factor.
The ball just didn't bounce our way.
We didn't get the big breaks today.
We'll just have to put this loss behind us.
Yeah, it seems like it's becoming more regular now… As it seems he doesn't have as much time as he used to, for whatever reason (it IS Easter after all)… I mentioned this in the previous thread about how we can't even get a simple open thread for weekend games that they pretty much don't care to make "preGames" for… Not knocking at all, I love this site, but even something simple like that is standard on the wackest SBNation blogs… I feel these are legitimate complaints that must be addressed…
I feel bad for Johan. Last year his bullpen couldn't do a damn thing to give him victories, now we can't give him any run support. He's honestly lucky to have one win at the moment, as he's recieved a total of three runs in two games from us.
This hasn't been a very encouraging start to the season. I get a bad feeling going into this Padres series: Ollie starts the second game (likely a loss) and Maine faces Peavy in the third game (also, likely a loss). I hope I'm just letting my pessimism go a little overboard, and they prove me wrong.
What's with that. Do you think the other teams' aces are gonna lay down and crumble because Santana is on the mound. He lost a freakin pitchers duel. Despite this site's lies about how the runs scored, fact is he,Santana let up to the 3 8 guy, right after the error, threw a fat pitch and that cost the game just as much. The #8 guy shouldn't have had that hit. It was obvious from the first batter that Johnson was on his game but Santana pulled an Ollie and that's the way it goes.
I don't understand why anyone is being alled out for demanding accuracy on this site. Isn't this a full-time job?
I mean come on, unless Matt wants to be known as the John Sterling of bloggers, he'll be a little more diligent in posting reasonably accurate updates. I don't think it's too much to ask. Hell, he could get several hundred volunteer fact-checkers off his readership alone.
how does sny not put a reply of "the drop" in that post game wrap? amatuer hour.
come on matt, that post error is….
"Inexcusable… the visitors to the site deserved a lot better than that. You're better than that. I'm sure it won’t happen like that again. You were lazy to the post and got exposed for it. You didn’t get the facts. You got exposed, and it cost you.”
Let's get off of the Murphy thing for a bit because like everyone has said already, he's going to have growing pains in the field. Can we talk about how great Santana looked? 13 Ks in 7 innings is pretty good! I am definitely looking forward to a great season. To open the season on the road and go 3-3…I'll take it!!
It was all for nothing, Kevin plus Santana got the loss. Look, I am def. not one of those Chicken Little Mets fans but yesterdays loss was extrememly disheartening. Cant wallow in it too much though. We gotta home opener tonight.
Whose to blame,the man who dropped the fly or the man who put the runner on base with two out ? If the walk had not happened, then the fly would never have happened. So don't just blame Murphy.
7 IP, 13 SO, 0 ER………….. And he lost……. Damn.
One more thing, I have been concerned about Murphy's one handed catches and this time it cost us and Johan a W.
Whoever is working with Murph in outfield drills needs to emphasize this basic defensive component, had Murph had two hands on the ball chances are he would have made the snag.
i know almost everyone is pissed at murphy but the mets SHOULD BE ABLE TO SCORE MORE THAN 2 RUNS!!!!!! C'mon. Reyes, Murphy, Wright, Delgado, Beltran, Chruch should be able to score at least 4 runs….easily. Johan pitched amazing. 13K's 0ER and a loss. let's hope they turn this inconsistancy around.
Maybe Matt's being ironic with his ugly error — the dropped pop up comes right in the midst of him describing Murphy's dropped pop up. That's deep! It's post-modern journalism!
Seriously, though, the factual errors on this site are getting to be as embarrassing as errors in the field. I'll defend him all day about the hate mail he gets for the site layout or for being an insider, or his opinions on various topics — but shoddy writing and inaccurate statements is all laziness and poor fundamentals.