April 2009
Good News in Gloomy Times
I can’t even read some of my Mets blogs (not you guys, of course, I’m talking Matthew Cerrone’s blog, etc). It terrifies me because they all seem like they’re starting to lose hope on this season. I still have faith that the Mets will turn the season around (hello, 2008 season and that 10 game win streak?), so I can’t let myself get too depressed.
Plus, I have great news! Well, not really for Mets fans in general, but certainly for me. So if you’ve read my early entries, you know I currently go to college in the Midwest (aka Cubs town) and Mets fans are hard to come by. That’s why I started this blog, so I’d have someone (or a lot of someones) to take Mets and baseball in general with. Well..
We have this section in my school newspaper called the “Question of the Day,” and they just ask random students random questions, such as what’s your favorite meal in the dining hall or something like that. Well, Monday’s question was “What is going to be the highlight of your summer?” One guy wrote in, “watching my Mets beat the Phillies on the 4th of July.” WHAT??? Confession: my roommate saw this, and then showed it to me. I joked with her that I should totally message him on facebook or something. She thought I should, but that is totally unlike anything I would ever do, so I decided to leave it up to fate. I told her that if the Mets won tonight, then I would message him. A six-run first inning was a pretty big sign… So I did message him and tried to make it sound as not-creeper as I could. We have now messaged/wrote on each other’s walls/facebook chats several times since that night! Turns out he’s as die-hard a fan as me, probably more so. Want to be jealous? He went to the Citi Field home opener…!!! Also, he went to Game 7 of the 2006 NLCS, and had tickets to 3/4 playoff levels for 07 and 08. It’s funny, he realized how big of a fan I was when I responded to his comment that JJ Putz went to Michigan with noting that Tom Seaver went to USC, but we just have to look past these things (for those not aware, Michigan and USC are the two biggest rivals for Notre Dame, and I mean HUGE rivals, you can see our Muck Fichigan and FUSC shirts around campus regularly). Anyway, I’m so glad to have found a die-hard Mets fan on campus, yay!
And I apologize for being the worst blogger ever, but in my defense, finals are next week! I am two papers, three finals and one project away from SUMMER!
Optimism…haha
Surprise, changed my title! I’ve been thinking about it for a while (never really intended on sticking with “Procrastination,” I just wasn’t creative when I first made my blog), but with the recent happenings with the Mets, coughsuckingcough, I felt that it was time to make a switch.
Speaking of Optimism, and changes for this matter, there are reasons that I will not let myself freak out.
A) It’s April. There are 5 more months of baseball, so not even Washington should be worried at this point…ok, well maybe they should, but we should not!
B) We played a couple teams that got off to really hot starts: Florida, St. Louis, San Diego…it was unfortunate that we had to play them while they were hot, but we, too, will have our hot streak and we’ll also play some bad teams throughout the season. No worries.
C) Things will change. David Wright is not going to maintain this strikeout rate or this average. Carlos Delgado will get better. Mike Pelfrey will return to his dominance. The rotation WILL change. Honestly, I love the idea of sending Ollie down to AAA and letting him get some work in. He is the guy I am most worried about. Hopefully he’ll see that some time in the minors is to help him improve, not a punishment. Bring Tim Redding up and let him take over Ollie’s spot. The scariest thing about Ollie is that it’s not Inconsistent Ollie from last year, who pitches really well against good teams and really bad against bad teams…he’s just plain bad. Finally, Daniel Murphy’s defense will improve. He just needs some more time for work, and the experience is helping. Gary and Keith were talking over the weekend that his arm is almost getting too strong for the relay they’ve been doing with Murphy to Reyes to Casto/Santos. Plus, did you see his awesome catch/double play?!
I think it’s not fair to blame Jerry or any of the coaches. Things will come together and we’ll start winning more games. Starting tonight. 
Ok, I should probably do my three papers, project, prepare for my presentation and study for my three finals….10 days from summer!!!
Gah
Still super busy with the final weeks of classes, so gotta be quick:
METS??? REALLY???
The loss tonight goes to Carlos Beltran…don’t you learn to slide in like, little league? Sorry, J.J., you don’t deserve it statistically.
I had trouble deciding who should get the win, but I finally decided upon Beemer Weems, who lost out in the final round of Minor’s Moniker Madness to Dusty Napoleon. Sorry, Beemer, better luck next year. (And no WAY does St. Louis deserve a win, they didn’t do anything tonight to warrant it!!!).
PS, I was at dinner tonight with a bunch of people, including a Cardinals fan. He had a Cards sweatshirt on, I had my Mets shirt. It was super entertaining, but only for the two of us, not the rest of the group. Now the Mets have to win the next two, otherwise I won’t be able to face this guy for the rest of the year!
Can’t Blame Me
Well, it’s looking like it was just a coincidence that every game I missed part of, we won. I took my walk during the middle of the game today, and yet, the Mets still lost… So unfortunate because if it wasn’t just a coincidence then the Mets would have gone 157-5 (no way would I have watched another game in entirety!). Alas, I no longer have control over the outcome of Mets games. Although, I still think that if I watch the entire game, the Mets will lose. Geez, baseball fans are SO superstitious!
I wish I could write a longer post but it happens to be the second last week of classes at school, and for a Psychology and Sociology major such as myself, that means ridiculous amounts of projects and papers due in the next two weeks (but very few finals, yay!).
And if anyone is wondering, I will be missing a majority of Tuesday’s game, so if my watching the game in entirety does mean that we lose, can’t blame me for the outcome that night. I’ll also be going to dinner with a diehard Cardinals fan that night….should be interesting…
Why, You’re Welcome
That’s right, it’s all thanks to me that the Mets won tonight. Like I’ve said before, every game I watch in entirety, the Mets lose and any game that I miss part of, they win. Well, I finally took the hint. Tonight I skipped the 2nd and 3rd innings and took a walk around campus. I’m totally serious! I went to the grotto on campus (although I have to admit, I didn’t exactly pray for a Mets win…oops). Luckily, it was GORGEOUS outside today, so the walk was lovely and I wasn’t stressed out at all. Anyway, by missing two innings of tonight’s game, I ensured that the Mets would win. No worries, folks, I plan on doing the same during tomorrow’s game!
Also, I’ve been saying for 3 games now that we need the first walk-off at Citi. I guess third time’s the charm. Also, couldn’t have asked for a better guy to get the winning hit. I’ve really jumped on the Luis Castillo bandwagon (is it a bandwagon? Anyway, I’ve been rooting for him) this off-season. I feel like he really wants to be a better player for the team, and he’s working really hard. I also felt like people haven’t really given him too much of a chance this season, so I was really hoping he could win it. And Gary Sheffield???? WAY TO GO!!! Omg, couldn’t be happier for the guy! I love how they used the hollogrammed balls every at-bat of his, and it just kept reminding him he was so close. And can we talk about this hit? Not only is it his 500th homerun, but his first homerun with the Mets, his first HIT with the Mets and….the first time he got to rise the apple! Bet it was pretty special for him, congrats Gary!
Other tidbits from tonight’s game: 10 game hit streak for Wright…excellent! And he seems to really be going for 30-30 this year. Yeah, he did get caught stealing, but at least he’s more aggressive on the base paths. Daniel Murphy shouldn’t be allowed to bunt….ever. Seriously, he’s like the worst ever! Haha, ok, he’s young, I get it, but really, he needs a lot more practice before bunting in an actual game. And what is up with Mets pitchers doing great in all but one inning, and that costing us the game? It’s getting pretty annoying. Luckily, Luis, Gary and co. were able to take Livan off the hook and win it.
I do have a few reactions to the Padres series too:
All I can say is the NL West better watch out! No, this isn’t because the Padres won two of three. Actually, I’m basing this off the game that they lost. If you remember correctly, Ollie only pitches well against good teams. Well, he looked pretty good Wednesday! So I’d be pretty scared of the Padres if I were you. In all seriousness though, Ollie, you need to pitch like that every game. Seriously, how hard is it to be even a little consistent??? Oh well, like one of the blogs I read wrote, I’ll take the bad Ollie as long as he’s good just as often, if not more often.
Oh, and if we’re keeping track, 4 of our 5 losses are what I call. “shoulda-won” games. With Florida, we lost it in the 9th in the first game, and the second was lost on an error after Johan pitched spectacularly. The first Padres game was lost on another outfield error and yesterday’s game was another one-run game. Oh, and of our 5 losses, we’ve lost by a combined 6 runs…not cool.
I should focus on the positive though: the bullpen has the lowest ERA in the majors (um, can we compare that to a year ago? Thank you Omar for overhauling the bullpen this off-season). Wright and Delgado both have decent hit streaks going. Johan is doing A-mazing. Love him, by the way.
If you haven’t heard, Schneider went on the DL today with a strained muscle in his back….eek! My older brother is a huge Ramon Castro fan, so he’s pretty happy that Ramon’s going to get more playing time, but I’d still rather see Schneider back soon. Meanwhile, Omir Santos was pulled up, and if you don’t remember him, he had a stellar spring, so hopefully he can carry that over to the regular season. Also, Big Pelf has tendinitis in his forearm, so he’ll probably sit out his start on Sunday (looks like we might pull up Figueroa for it) but I think Jerry’s going to try to avoid putting him on the DL and I agree with that.
Oh, and I cannot believe I forgot to put this in my last post, but CONGRADULATIONS to Johan and his wife Yasmile. They welcomed baby #3 and boy #1 Tuesday morning, Johan Alexander Santana Jr. (when I heard they were having a boy, I told my mom I was hoping for a Johan Jr.!!!). My prediction is that he will grow up to be an incredible pitcher, and will spark a little family rivalry to see who will win more Cy Youngs. Big Johan, that means you better win a lot now so that your son has quite the task ahead of him. You can win them with the Mets, it’s ok with me! Haha, anyway, if you remember, I absolutely looove children (especially babies) so stories like this thrill me. Baby Mets watch is down to two, with Brian Schneider’s wife, Jordan expecting, and Mike Pelfrey’s wife Angela also expecting (she’s due in mid-August). Johan Jr. joins Joselyn Reyes (born on Valentine’s Day) and Joseph Putz (born February 25th). Aww, so many new Mets fans!
Tomorrow’s match-up is the new daddy, himself, Johan against Yovani Gallardo. Both pitchers are 1-1 this season, but the glaring difference is Johan’s 0.71 ERA versus Gallardo’s 6.94…ouch! No worries, Mets fans, I’ll be sure to take a walk during tomorrow’s game as well, to see if we can win two in a row!
Shoulda Won….
First off, I’m blogging while trying to watch the game on MLB.tv (I know it’s on ESPN2, but I just love watching Gary, Keith and Ron so much more!) so sorry if this is a little scattered, but I’ll probably be taking a bunch of breaks to watch.
I know I haven’t blogged in a while (OK, it was just a few days, but now that we’re into the season, missing a few days is missing several games!) so I’ll try to include my thoughts on the past two games.
Easter Sunday, Mets lose to Marlins, 2-1. SERIOUSLY??? I’m sorry Johan! Hey Major League Baseball, can we give Johan a no-decision with an asterisk for stellar performance, and transfer that loss to Murphy? Don’t get me wrong, I looove Murph, but that loss was all on him. He completely flubbed a routine fly ball, and that cost us the game. However, I guess Mets fans can look for the bright spot and say that Josh Johnson was really good (and he was!) but I can’t help but think of last September, and how any one loss we had all season cost us October. We really can’t afford those “shoulda-won-but-didn’t” games. Of course, it IS still early in the season, and the Mets can still get it in gear and win the division by a mile (if only!).
Home Opener, Mets lose to Padres, 6-5. DEJA-VU, SERIOUSLY??? Well, no “I’m sorry Pelf” here, but apologies to Brian Stokes, it wasn’t your loss to take. I will say this though, the balk by Feliciano did not lose us the game, don’t forget the next batter hit a double that would have scored the run anyway. Still, definitely a big disappointment on an exciting day. Of course, that’s not to say that the game was totally “unenjoyable.” (Is that a word?) First off…Mike Pelfrey tripping off the mound? First, I shot straight up terrified he was hurt. When I found out he was fine, I joined the rest of the Mets infield laughing really hard! Was anyone else recounting Big Pelf’s golf cart incident early in Spring Training and the helmet he wore to practice the next day? I certainly did! And Wright’s homerun lead to me jumping and dancing around my dorm room (good thing I was alone, I was pretty excited!). Too bad the bullpen couldn’t hold onto the tie and give the Mets a little momentum for the rest of the game. Again, I’m trying to stay optimistic and keep in mind that this is the beginning of the season, but I can’t help but think how it can come down to one game for October ball.
And for those of you wondering, yes this “curse” is still going. I watched all of both Sunday and Monday’s games, and we lost both. I tried to miss some of Monday’s and after Wright homered to tie it, I ran and took a quick shower, but I guess missing 4 outs doesn’t count as missing a significant amount of the game. I’m seriously considering taking a walk during the middle of this game…thoughts?
A few thoughts on tonight’s game so far:
Is it just me, or is SNY putting up a really negative broadcast? I mean, Reyes comes up to bat and the graphic states that he doesn’t have a steal this year. Then Murphy comes up and it notes how he has one hit in his last nine at-bats. Last inning, Sheffield comes to the plate and the graphic reads, “No player has every hit Homerun #500 in a Mets uniform.” Seriously, guys, we Mets fans have already had a rough season so far, how about putting up some uplifting stats?!?! Is that really too much to ask?
The San Diego pitcher can’t bunt….three foul pop-ups in a row??? Scheider caught the third one, and that denied Ollie the K….karma hurts, doesn’t it?
After Ollie pitched 2 scoreless innings, I was about to text my mom and say that maybe we got good Ollie, but my recent memory stopped me. Three decent innings so far, but I’m not counting on ANYTHING. Get me to J.J. and Frankie and I’ll show you a little faith on the mound.
OK, I’m going to give my full attention to the game now, I’ll try to blog later. Let’s Go Mets and win the first of many, many, MANY wins at Citi!
An Unfortunate Coincidence?
After the first 5 games, the Mets are 3-2. Not bad, right? Well, I realized something this morning, and I’m hoping this is just a coincidence. I’ve only been able to see two games in entirety, Thursday’s game and Friday’s game. Monday, I had class, Wednesday, MLB.tv blacked me out (I had to listen to it) and yesterday, I missed most of the game for the Easter Vigil at my church. The two games I’ve seen all of? We lost. The three that I either didn’t watch or only saw parts of? We won. I plan on watching most games in entirety, so this better not be some trend that is going to continue!!!
Happy Easter Everyone!
Ouch Ollie Part Deux
Well, the first series of the season is over, and all-in-all, it was a great series for the Mets. A few notes:
Watch out J.J.: there’s another prankster in the bullpen. Frankie thought he’d joke and kid with the fans in the 9th yesterday and loaded the bases with one out. Then he decided to close it quickly, striking out one and then (in dramatic fashion) getting the final batter to fly out to the warning track. Nice that you’re easing us into this whole idea of being comfortable with any size lead in the 9th.
I hate Indiana: apparently, my area of Indiana is close enough to Cincinnati so that I get blacked out for all the Reds games, even though you’d never find them on TV. I was forced to follow the game via radio, and although I loved listening to Howie, it just wasn’t the same.
Big Pelf: It was nice to see him settle down after the first. Yeah, he did give up four early, but he was able to get out of it and follow up with four scoreless innings.
Kevin Burkhardt fails at life: pre-game he interviewed Bruce, post-game it was ’09 Met killer Votto…can you not find any Mets players to talk to???
Difference from ’08-’09: a bullpen that can actually save games (even the ones Johan started), come from behind wins…with all these changes, it’s nice to see that there is some consistency between these two years (because regardless of how ’08 was portrayed, we were pretty good): Ollie is still…well, Ollie. Oh geez, 8 runs in 4.1 innings? Against the Reds? Yep, that’s the Ollie I lost my beautifully manicured nails to last season. Don’t worry, nails are gone already in 09! His next start should be against the Padres…looks like we’re in for another rough game (remember, he pitches to the competition).
HD Rocks: after an overnight train ride, I made it home in time to shower before the game, and then enjoyed my first Mets game in HD of 09…and let me tell you, it is amazing. How am I ever going to go back to watching games on my tiny computer screen? One month until I’m home for summmer!
I’m not too worried about this loss. This wasn’t one of those games that we’re going to look back on down the stretch and be kicking ourselves for letting that one get away. No team goes undefeated, and even the little guys beat the good teams many times over the season. If we can take 2/3 of every series, I will be a happy camper.
I’m home for Easter break (yay) and that means that I get to watch 4 Mets games on TV. Yeah, I watch them via MLB.tv at school, but you miss pre and post game and it’s slightly delayed…I’d much rather watch them like I watch them at home. Plus, like I said, not too many Mets fans at school (although I did get in a shouting match with a couple of Phillies fans at a party Friday…don’t worry, I held my own).
In other news, I am still sick (just a sore throat now though) and am aware that I am probably contagious. Apparently, other things are contagious too. What, you may ask? Bad bullpens. You know that one kid that comes to school sick one week, sneezing over everyone? And then the next week, he’s perfectly healthy but three or four other kids are sick and blaming the first kid? Yeah, well the Mets bullpen is the first kid, and Atlanta is one of the others (hopefully there will be plenty more to follow). But seriously, did even the 08 Mets bullpen give up 8 runs in one inning????? (if the answer is yes, please don’t tell me!) I mean, you can’t even say that the Phillies won that game, they just sucked less. Which, ironically, is exactly how I wanted this series to go. Congradulations, Phillies, you are excellent at watching Atlanta pitchers self-destruct and walk like 3 guys on 13 pitches. Trust me, I doubt Frankie and JJ will be that kind.
Hey, a .667 record isn’t bad…it got us a World Series ring in ’86, maybe it’ll do the same in ’09!
2009 is Officially Underway!
Months ago, we were speculating about the 2009 season, how the trades and signings would work out, and if the 2009 team was really that good. We fantasized about future headlines the next morning, headlines like “Open and shut case: New ‘pen backs Johan” …Wait, that’s a real headline? Seriously? YAY!
Yesterday’s game was “just what the doctor ordered” in terms of expectations for 2009. Of course, we have to ignore the 1-12 with RISP stat, and keep in mind that Johan’s walk total was partly due to the weather, but the part of the team that we were really worried about (well, not so sure if worried is the right word, more like unsure of how it would work out), the bullpen, was FANTASTIC! Greene threw 1.1 scoreless innings, Putz threw a scoreless 8th and Frankie pitched a perfect ninth, complete with a third-out strikeout. I have to admit, going into the 9th inning, I was a little nervous, but I think that’s just because over the past year or so, the 9th inning has never been secure. Apparently, that’s something I’m going to have to drop soon, as it looks like Frankie has really made this an 8 inning game (or a 7 inning game, with Putz).
With my class schedule, I wasn’t able to watch the whole game. I did bring my computer to my first class, so I could only see the first few innings on the game tracker. I made it back to my dorm for about an hour of the game. I actually had to leave for class in the middle of Daniel Murphy’s at bat in the 5th. My mom was going to text me score updates while I was in class, and I had just left my dorm when she told me he homered. Then she texted me that Wright and Delgado both had singles…I guess they were just waiting for me to stop watching! Anyway, I was lucky enough to make it back to my dorm in time for the 9th inning and Frankie’s sweet performance. Hey, forget his 62 saves last year, he’s on track for 162 this year!
I know there are some pretty hardcore Mets fans out there, but I think my cousin might take the cake for Opening Day attire, check it out:
At first I thought he was wearing a hat, but no, it’s his hair. Very impressive.
Anyway, yesterday was a great day. The Mets won, I was still basking in the Phillies loss (BTW, tying run at the plate in the bottom of the ninth with one out and two guys strike out? Who’s the choke artist now?!?!) and baseball was back! The fact that I started feeling really sick (and have been sick all day today) couldn’t even bring me down. Next game: tomorrow at Cincinatti at 7. Pelf faces off against Edison Volquez.
The Mets are undefeated! WooHoo!!!
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