Category Archives: Mets
This, via MetsBlog, appears to be classic Shane Victorino stuff:
First off, is that two separate plays? Second, what’s he trying to do? Stop Murphy from running into him? Push Murph’s left foot out from under him? Try to throw Murphy off by weirding him out a little?
Yes, and I don’t think they’ll be far off. Presumably by the time the apocalypse rolls around, a good portion of the human population will indeed worship Giancarlo Stanton.
Seriously though, I think about what future civilizations will assume about us a lot, even though it’s utterly pointless because whatever they think will be filtered through their all their future-people frameworks and we have no idea what those will be. This especially happens whenever I go to DC and tour the monuments at night, since our memorials to great leaders look a bit like those from earlier civilizations that we assume and/or know to be temples to religious figures — at least in their stateliness.
And of course, the way future civilizations perceive us all has to do with how much of our information survives, and we’re documenting everything much more thoroughly (and archiving it all better) than we ever have before. Basically, as long as there’s no dark-ages stuff, some massive worldwide event or series of event that prevents the advancement and preservation of technology, future people are going to know more about us than we know about anyone from the past. But will the people of 3012 have a way to play Blu-ray? Will they even have the right cables? Because if there’s no way to watch Crank 2: High Voltage in stunning HD quality, the future sucks.
There were a couple of questions about Mejia, who’s set to make a 75-pitch rehab start today in St. Lucie. It’ll be interesting to see how the Mets handle him. For all the hype around him dating back a few years now, he’s still only 22 and he’s still only made six starts in Triple-A — he is younger than Matt Harvey with less experience starting at the highest level of the Minors.
Mejia’s got the Jerry Manuel-fueled taste of big-league mop-up duty under his belt, so it’s unfair to call him less experienced than Harvey. But it’s worth noting that he’s yet to throw more than 100 innings in a season at any level. I have to imagine the Mets will want to proceed cautiously with him for that reason, and he’ll wind up starting games in Buffalo. This article from the Daily News suggests Mejia could see a spot start at Citi at some point before Chris Young is ready, though.
Everything out of the Mets seems to suggest they’re bullish on the prospects of Young returning, which is weird since he’s coming off shoulder surgery and has spent most of his last three seasons on the disabled list. But I have not seen Young throw and presumably the Mets have, so maybe they’ve got good reasons. And ideally, they just need Young to stay healthy until one of Harvey, Familia and Mejia proves ready for the Major League rotation later in the summer.
Well I definitely don’t think the division is bad: There’s only one team in it below .500 (and it’s the Phillies, everybody! The Phillies!) and it has the best collective winning percentage in the National League. I do think many people underestimated the Mets before the season, what with the silly 60-win predictions and such.
But I wouldn’t read much into the Mets’ record against their division. It’s nice and it’s a great way to start the season, but it’s also a small sample. They happened to play the Braves before the Braves got hot and the Marlins before the Marlins got hot. All credit to the Mets for beating those teams when they did, but at some point they’re going to run into some divisional opponents playing at their best and their record against the NL East will balance out a bit. The good news is they probably won’t put up an ofer against the NL Central all season.
Presumably you know about this already, but last night Josh Hamilton went 5-for-5 with four home runs and a double. I’m posting it here for posterity: Four home runs in a game is easily my favorite single-game accomplishment, because it requires four home runs in a game.
Now you join the ranks of Mark Whiten!
Other awesome things include the Mets’ come-from-behind win over the Phillies last night. Here’s how this goes: When the Mets lose a series to the Phillies, I say, meh, just another series, sure it’s a division rival but it’s only a couple of games. When the Mets take a series from the Phillies, it represents not just a notch in the standings but a triumph of good over evil, a victory for the human spirit in the face of adversity.
A sweep would be the best thing.
Over at HardballTalk, Craig Calcaterra links to a series of Tweets from Giants beat writer Henry Schulman about the way Dodgers fans may or may not have treated the hobbled Matt Kemp during last night’s game.
I wasn’t watching the game and can’t speak to the particular incident in question, but at the single Dodgers home game I’ve attended in my life, Clayton Kershaw threw nine innings of two-run ball, struck out 11 Angels and walked none. He left on the short end after allowing a home run to Vernon Wells to put the Angels up 2-1 in the top of the ninth, but as he walked off the mound I stood up to applaud his effort anyway. And practically no one else did.
No way that happens at Citi Field, right? I have to figure if the Mets had a young, homegrown ace of Kershaw’s caliber, the fans that didn’t irrationally blame him for everything would harp on just about everything he did, and would certainly notice and appreciate a stellar outing like that one.
The Dodgers came back and won the game in the bottom of the 9th and the place went nuts. But am I wrong to say that, based on one game’s worth of evidence, most Dodgers fans are not like most Mets fans? Is Schulman wrong to suggest as much based on years of covering the beat in the NL West?
Because it sure seems like there are cultural differences: Mets fans are one way and Yankees fans are another way and Phillies fans are a whole different way, but there’s certainly a lot of confirmation bias in play, and obviously plenty of fans who don’t embody their team’s fanbase at large.
Not really much else to say. Beating Jonathan Papelbon while he’s on the Phillies is like sausage wrapped in bacon.
Here’s hoping Josh Thole is OK, or at least is OK soon. Wigginton’s slide looked clean and the collision unintentional to me: Wigginton is a big dude, and if he’s coming full-tilt there’s going to be a hell of a lot of momentum behind him. Thole’s face was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
During the FOX broadcast of Saturday’s Mets-Diamondbacks game, Eric Karros said something along the lines of how David Wright is not the type of player who can carry a team.
About that: No such thing. There’s no player in baseball good enough to carry a team to contention on his own with a crappy cast around him, nor has there ever been. Obviously. The best hitters of all time fail in more than half their plate appearances, and they need guys on base in front of them to score more than one run at a time when they homer. Plus there’s all that pitching to be done.
But amounting that “carrying a team” is a part of the baseball lexicon that refers to a great player going on a torrid stretch, it’s frustrating in this particular instance because that’s pretty much exactly what Wright has been doing to date in the 2012 season.
Several other Mets have enjoyed hot streaks of up to a couple of weeks at a time, but by now, really only Wright has the type of stats that jump off the team’s baseball-reference page.
Check this out: The Mets have a collective .709 OPS for the season, tied for sixth in the National League and a tick above the league average .703 mark. But replace Wright’s 108 plate appearances with 108 plate appearances of the median production that National League teams have gotten from third basemen and the Mets’ team OPS falls to .674. It doesn’t look like a massive distinction, but Wright’s performance so far has been the difference between a slightly above-average offense and a well below-average offense.
Small samples abound, of course. And nothing about that should be particularly surprising: Wright had a fantastic first month. He’s fourth in the league in batting average, first in on-base percentage and third in OPS. And apparently nothing about that suggests he’s capable of carrying a team.
Pat Gallen from PhilliesNation.com and 97.5 the Fanatic talks Phils:
After Ruben Tejada suffered a strained right quadriceps yesterday, a Mets source told The Post that MRI exam results on the shortstop were “not good’’ and that a trip to the disabled list was “very likely” though not a given.
With two outs in the fourth inning of the Mets’ 3-1 win over the Diamondbacks, Tejada’s spike caught in the clay as he legged out a bunt single. He stumbled onto first base, laying motionless for a minute before being helped off the field and replaced by Justin Turner. The status of Tejada, who also sustained facial bruises on the play, remains very much up in the air, subject to further evaluation today.
“The final decision won’t be made until he’s evaluated. Tejada still thinks he can play in a few days,’’ a source told The Post.
- Brian Lewis and Mike Puma, N.Y. Post.
So per one source, it’s very likely but not a given that Tejada goes on the disabled list, Tejada thinks he can play in a few days and a final decision won’t be made until he’s evaluated. OK.
Tejada’s header was one of the worst-looking falls you’ll see on a baseball field without an obvious bone break or ligament tear. I was watching in a bar so we couldn’t hear the audio, and my friends and I watched the replay trying to figure out exactly which part of him seemed most likely to be hurting: Something in his leg prompted the fall, then he appeared to catch his wrist on the bag, then slammed his face on the ground.
If he’s actually bound for the disabled list, Ronny Cedeno can’t get back soon enough. Neither Justin Turner nor Jordany Valdespin is quite qualified to play shortstop at the Major League level. Turner will likely make the plays hit to him without covering much ground. Mets fans <3 Valdespin something fierce, I know, but Valdespin made 32 errors in 98 games at short in the Minors in 2011. Pro-rated to a full season, that’s about 50 errors. Maybe a first baseman of Ike Davis’ caliber saves him a few on throws, but it’s… well, it’s not good.
Cedeno won’t likely hit much, but he appears to be a capable and adequately rangy defender at short — something the Mets certainly need with Daniel Murphy and David Wright flanking the position and pitching staff that yields a fair amount of contact. The former Pirate, sidelined since April 21 with an intercostal strain, is set to begin a rehab assignment tomorrow and will be eligible to return on Friday.
If there’s a setback in Cedeno’s rehab, the Mets’ next best option is likely Omar Quintanilla. Quintanilla’s not on the 40-man roster and his career Major League offensive numbers are downright woeful, but he can play shortstop and, for what it’s worth, is off to a real nice start in Triple-A Buffalo. The 30-year-old has a .291/.378/.523 line through 28 games with the Bisons.
Also, if you’re still somehow greeting injuries like Tejada’s with a “here we go again, only the Mets, LOLMets” thing, you probably haven’t been paying much attention this season. From Wednesday-Saturday, the Brewers lost one starting player to injury every day — three of them requiring DL stints. The Nationals have Jayson Werth, Michael Morse, Ryan Zimmerman, Brad Lidge and Drew Storen on the DL, among others. The Phillies are down Cliff Lee, Chase Utley, Ryan Howard and two bullpen arms. The Yankees have 10 guys on the disabled list, including Mariano Rivera. The Red Sox have 11, including Jacoby Ellsbury, Kevin Youkilis and Carl Crawford.
Injuries suck, but they happen. Best-case scenario for the Mets, Tejada only needs a few days and Turner doesn’t hurt them in the interim. Worst-case scenario, a fireball from space destroys the planet. Most likely, the outcome will fall somewhere between those two.
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