Mets:
A Mets fan stops his team from scoring a crucial run when he interferes with a ball in play. The Mets end up losing by one run in a 6-5 ball game. You may have noticed that a guy in a hoodie standing behind the Beltran fan touched the ball first but he quickly blended in with the rest of the crowd after the incident. Beltran fan couldn't hide, his nervousness and the fact that he ended up with the ball gave him away. He was later escorted from his seats by security.
It's easy to forget that (Oliver) Perez is still only 27 and could be getting better. He could cut down the rate of the Bad Ollie starts and so further weight the odds in his favor. But if relying too heavily on a small sample size is a mistake, so is ignoring a large one, and Mets fans now have two-plus seasons of healthy Oliver Perez in Flushing to judge him by. The Bad Ollie who showed up in Cincinnati last week and the Good Ollie who pitched at Citi Field on Wednesday are the same man, and I'm convinced that there's no better way to predict the outcomes of his starts than by rolling the dice. So I can continue making myself crazy trying to figure out Perez like I did last year at Shea, but I think I prefer the 2009 plan: I'll just suffer through the bad starts and know that they'll eventually make way for good ones, and be thankful that Citi Field serves hard liquor.
The other thing that immediately stood out: As predicted from ticket pre-sales, the upper deck was packed, while the $60-and-up seats down below were half-empty, an odd sight at a baseball game. It’s hard to say if this was more a function of overpriced seats going unsold or season-ticket buyers staying home on a chilly spring night (it actually wasn’t bad for Flushing — I didn’t put my gloves on until the 6th inning), but looking at StubHub, there are plenty of seats availablefor most games for below face value. (Last night, for that matter, I sat in $30 seats that I paid $24 for on the Hub.) If we see a similar scenario after Yankee Stadium opens for business today, it seems likely that the New York teams are going to need to adjust their ambitious pricing plans to reflect the new economic reality — either that, or Mr. Met is going to need a stronger T-shirt cannon.
Minors Thoughts:
Bisons:
C Omir Santos was promoted to the Mets once Brian Schneider went DL… that leaves the Bisons with two catchers, Robinson Cancel and Rene Rivera.
That’s two steller outings by SP Casey Fossum… 6.0 IP, 1 ER, 9 Ks… that’s 1 run in 11 innings… 0.82 ERA… 31 years old… ex-1st rounder… lefty… hmm…
RP Eddie Kunz gave up his first 2 runs Friday night for the loss.
Eight games into the 2009 season, and the Buffalo Bisons are seven games out of first place. The Herd ended an ugly homestand with another loss, 8-7, to the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees on Thursday afternoon at Coca-Cola Field. It's the worst homestand to open a season in team history and the first time since June 1999 the Bisons have gone 1-7 during an eight-game home stretch. So much for getting off on the right foot with a new affiliate. "It's very frustrating. You hate to let games like that get away," Bisons manager Ken Oberkfell said. "That's a team that's red hot right now and you don't want to get too far back. I know we've only played eight games, but when you've [played] eight and you're seven out, that ain't good."
-don’t worry Ken… we’re used to this at the AAA level…
B-Mets:
Everybody seemed to be quite happy with SP Fernando Nieve’s first start this season. Josh Thole said that his fastball really had some zip on it, plus had some cut, that resulted in five strikeouts over his strict 56 count.
Lucy:
RP Edgar Martinez had an impressive return to the active Mets roster, throwing three scoreless innings in Thursday night’s win over Charlotte. Martinez has been a starter all his Mets career, and this just might have been a relief stint due to the fact that the game was running long and Lucy was running out of pitchers. We’ll see.
Gnats:
RP Rhiner Cruz is off to an almost perfect start: 3G, 5.0 IP, 0ER, 6K, 0BB, 0.00. Cruz was a free agent pickup by the Mets last year, after being released by the Detroit Tigers. The 22-year old went a combined 2-2, 4.73 last year for Brooklyn/Savannah, in 21 appearances, which included 46Ks in 40.0 IP.
Pitching continued to be the highlight Friday night. I’m not sure what the rotation is for the Gnats, because two of them were used in this game. 2008’s 11th round pick, Jeffrey Kaplan started… 5.0 IP, 1 ER, 6 K… after two starts: 0.90 ERA.More importantly, 19-year old Jeurys Familia pitched the last 4 innings, all scoreless, maintaining his 0.00 ERA for the season. “Family” spent the 2008 season with the GCL Mets, starting 11 games, and carding 2-2, 2.79.
Mets Alumni:
Brett Harper, 1b, Las Vegas (Blue Jays). The son of former Twins catcher Brian Harper has always shown that he can hit for power from the left side, but his lack of a comfortable position defensively and the misfortune of being blocked behind Carlos Delgado and, for a time, Mike Jacobs, in New York has turned him into a minor league lifer. Harper came into his ninth minor league season with career numbers of .299/.357/.497, and most of those stats have come in four seasons in the pitcher-friendly Eastern League. But that has never been enough for a big league cup of coffee. Now given a chance to hit in the Pacific Coast League for the second straight year, Harper is taking advantage to the tune of .350/.435/.850 with three home runs in his first 20 at-bats
Xavier Nady - Several pitchers have come back from a redo of Tommy John surgery. The replaced ligament breaks, much in the same way, and for much the same reason, as it did in the first place. As far as I can tell, no position player has needed a redo, largely because few players put the same kind of repetitive stress on their arms that a pitcher does. Nady looks to be the first, a unique spot I'm sure he didn't want to be in. He's headed for at least one more opinion before surgery, but multiple sources report that he's telling teammates that's where he's headed. He'll be done for 2009, but there's a small chance he could play late in the season, and no reason to think he won't be 100 percent by 2010. That sets him up as an interesting free agent.
Ironic that when the Mets first called up Lastings Milledge he was called up with a player by the name of Ambiorix Burgos. Burgos was sentenced yesterday to nine months in jail for beating up his girlfriend on September 8th. His girlfriend testified that after the pummeling Burgos said to her “The police won’t do anything. I’m a baseball player.” I suppose things could be worse for Milledge and he could be Ambiorix Burgos right now, spending nine months in jail rather than three months in Syracuse.
Draft:
Patrick Schuster – (previously unranked) – LHP - Mitchell H.S. (FL) – threw 3rd consecutive no-hitter on April 12… 8-0, 0.66 through 4/15… committed to Florida.
General:
After Nick Adenhart's death in a tragic car crash last week, many fans have reached out and paid tribute, setting up makeshift memorials at places like Angels Stadium, the "accident" site and even Dodger Stadium. But as reported by Deadspin today, those wishing to honor Adenhart in a more permanent way by purchasing a customized t-shirt or jersey from the MLB.com shop are being flat out denied. Indeed, type in "Adenhart" and "34" into MLB's customizer and you're greeted by this message: "Your current entry cannot be processed. Some entries are prohibited due to guidelines for past and present player names. Please create a new entry."
Curious where Shaquille O'Neal went to college? How many seasons Mickey Mantle played? ESPN wants to break the Google-to-Wikipedia flow chart that so many sports fans turn to for those kinds of answers. So, it's set to launch ESPNDB.com (the DB stands for database) -- a site it hopes will serve as a sports encyclopedia-archive- statistical compendium. On one level, the goal is simply an ESPN-opedia -- although the content would be thoroughly fact-checked and would come from professionals. (Like Wikipedia, however, there will be some user-generated aspects.) ESPNDB will debut sometime in the next few days in what is being termed a "pre-beta" stage. The venture has been in development for more than a year, and its operation falls under ESPN's digital media group.
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