Notes for a Monday

Notes for a Monday

• SS Ruben Tejada raised his batting average 71 points while in Colorado. He came into the series batting .239 and heads to Houston hitting .310, good for top 15 in the National League.
• The Mets have 5 hitters in their lineup hitting .310 or above: Ruben Tejada, Daniel Murphy, Kirk Nieuwenhuis, Josh Thole, and David Wright.
• In case you missed it from the above two points, the Mets have 5 of the top 15 hitters in the NL through 22 games (13.6% of the season).
• Starting the week off against the Houston Astros, the Mets get to face fastball-slider hurler Bud Norris, former Phillie J.A. Happ, and Wandy Rodriquez, owner of a 2.91 ERA against the Mets in 43.1 innings.
• The New York Mets are one game out of first place in the East and still own a playoff spot if the season were to end today.
• Yes, Bryce Harper made a fantastic play in center field yesterday but the less-than-efficient route he took to the ball made it necessary to make that fantastic catch. Carlos Beltran could still make that play look smooth and effortless. Or Kirk Nieuwenhuis.
• Speaking of Kirk, the current center fielder in Flushing owns three plays on Sports Center's web gems. He has been a major league player for three weeks.
• The Mets are 2-1 in extra-inning games and 7-1 in 1-run ballgames to start 2012. Last year they went 7-7 in extras and 21-28 in 1-run affairs.
• Some bloggers, many fans, and even some experts predicted the Mets would lose (or would be in grave danger of losing) 100 games in 2012. In order to fulfill that prophecy, the Mets would have to go 49-91 the rest of the way to the tune of a .350 winning percentage. The only team in the major leagues with a lower winning percentage last year was the 106-loss Astros.
• Some early season stats just do not surprise you: Stephen Strasburg leads the NL in strikeouts, Matt Kemp in average, and Josh Hamilton in RBI for the AL. Others…do: Jake Peavy leads the AL in ERA, David Ortiz in average, and Jose Altuve, a 21-year old 5’7” second baseman from Venezuela who plays for the NL’s second worst team (Houston), is third in the league in batting.
• While I understand that this practice is more widely accepted in the game these days, the strutting, bat-flipping, and long-watching-of-home-runs by Todd Helton, Carlos Gonzalez, and Dexter Fowler rubbed me the wrong was as a fan. At least Helton’s tied a game and was late in the outing (but his team still lost). A note to the Colorado Rockies and those hitters: You are now sub-.500 team and you lost two of three in the series. Just keep that in mind.
• I wonder if the Mets would let Nieuwenhuis change his jersey number to NCC-1701.

LGM