That was Livan Hernandez’s advice to Mike Pelfrey in regards to the pitch he taught Mike to throw.  Good to see Hernandez is taking on a bit of a leadership role already.

The Mets beat the Nats yesterday and it was a really great game to watch.  It wasn’t a particularly exciting game (no more than most anyway) but the way the game was played–the line-up, the pitchers, etc, was very close to a regular season game.  Santana pitched 7 beautiful innings (I think he threw something like 10 balls….ridiculous!) and K-Rod and Felciano took care of the other two innings.  The line-up is a line-up we will probably see often, with almost all the starters in, Tatis in RF for Church and Castro catching.  There weren’t too many replacements until near the end of the game, so for about 7 innings, I saw players I’m expecting to watch all season.  It was just really nice to see a game that could actually have been a regular season game.  And nice to see Santana pitching so well (not because I was worried about him or his elbow or anything, just that it looks like he’ll be off to a strong start, and that’s always good).  Anyway, I was satisfied with last night’s game, and can’t wait for the season to start!

Has anyone discovered Minor’s Moniker Madness?  Now, I’m not a big college basketball fan, so I just made a bracket for fun and kind of guessed random teams to win (and apparently I’m doing pretty well…who knew?) but when I discovered this adaptation of the NCAA tournament, I had to get attached.  If you haven’t heard of it, it’s basically the same NCAA bracket but instead of 64 college basketball teams, there’s 64 minor league players’ names.  And these aren’t your boring, everyday names.  The point is to select your favorite names and then see who wins the tournament.  The winner gets the “Wonderful Terrific Monds III” award (who I believe is a former minor league player.  Past winners include Will Startup (2008) and Houston Summers (2007) but I think this year’s names are so much better.  I was devastated to see this morning that my favorite, Smelin Perez, was knocked out in the sweet 16 but I still have a few favorites in the Elite Eight.  Still in the tournament are” Dusty Napoleon, Given Kutz (2nd favorite), Rowdy Hardy, German Sacks, Beamer Weems (favorite), Rocky Roquet, Shooter Hunt and Maverick Lasker.  Be sure ot vote, I think this next round closes sometime later this week.  Anyway, if you’re interested, here’s the link.

Anyone else can’t believe there’s only NINE DAYS until Opening Day?  It’s been a long enough season, so I’m very glad to see the light at the end of the tunnel.  Oh, and yesterday was my mom’s birthday, and her friend gave her the Mets page-a-day calendar that I have…guess I won’t get to stump her on the trivia questions anymore!