Left-hander Hisanori Takahashi struck out four over two innings, but also allowed a homer to lefty Jason Pridie and a single to lefty Mike Jacobs. "[Takahashi] threw strikes," Manuel said. "He seemed to have a feel for in and out, especially against the right-handed hitters. Those left-handed hitters you would like to see a little different, but the main thing is he threw strikes." - link
Bay was our traditional 1 big splash in the off-season. Bay so far has stepped up as a team guy. Bay along with Francoeur have taken a lot of pressure off of Wright as far as the media is concerned. Everybody who has played with has said nothing but good things about him and I look forward to seeing him play this year for the Mets. Bay will bring much needed power to the lineup as well as support for David Wright in the lineup. - link
A highly ranked prospect coming into 2010, UCLA's Rob Rasmussen had a very tough outing to start his season. With 50 scouts in attendance, the junior left hander lasted just 3.2 innings, yielding four earned runs on five hits and three walks. UCLA was down 4-1 when Rasmussen left the game, but rallied for a 15-4 win.
Despite allowing a leadoff single, Rasmussen seemed like he'd be ok after striking out the side to end the threat. In the second, however, Rasmussen had trouble keeping the ball down and changing speeds and was roughed up for two runs. His outing didn't get much better in the 3rd or 4th inning as he was lifted before the fourth was over. The only bright side to Rasmussen's day was his seven strikeouts , a total that was largely buoyed by three in the first inning (followed by four in the next 2.2 IP). - link
Only now in the big city, Francoeur is suddenly back to being the media darling. He is absolutely beloved by the New York press. They are completely fascinated with him, as if they've never seen anything like Jeff Francoeur before. There is an unassuming charm to him - his at-bat music is country music, which . . . well no one does that in New York City. No other Met from the South or the heartland uses country music. I don't think there is even a country radio station in this area, so it can be a little jarring when he comes to the plate, but it works for him. It fits. Francoeur seems to have the same kind of draw as Dizzy Dean, a bubbling optimist who can go on and on with his anecdotes, batting tips, and just being affable. He's willing and ready to talk to anyone and has consequently emerged as the go-to quote machine for beat reporters. It's an odd scenario, where the workers in a dying media are enamored with a player of a dying breed. One day, they'll both be replaced by something else. - another friggin link
After researching this opposite field stuff, I e-mailed our good friend Greg Rybarczyk of HitTracker to see if he could validate a theory of mine. Earlier in the offseason, Greg had said that Wright would have hit nine extra home runs in Shea Stadium that were robbed by Citi Field.
As you can see in this image (constructed by Greg for an article by our friend Tristan Cockcroft at ESPN), the biggest difference in dimensions between Citi Field and Shea Stadium is in right field. So if David Wright (a right-handed hitter who hits most of his HRs to LF) is hitting more balls to opposite field (RF) than ever before, it makes sense that he's losing home runs. Right field in Citi is cavernous!
Not only is it more difficult (generally speaking) to hit home runs to the opposite field (you get more of your body weight and power behind balls you pull), but for Wright, this is compounded by the fact that the opposite field fences are deeper than the pull field fences!
Greg was kind enough to provide us data on Wright's nine lost home runs, and sure enough, right field was a big culprit. hardball
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