MySports Today

It looked like the Mets were going to pull off the upset against the best team in the NL on their home turf, but just like that, the Ryan Church was called out on an appeal play at 3rd base in the top of the 11th ining and the Mets defense deserted reliever Brian Stokes in the bottom of the inning to cost the team the win.

Top of the 11th – With 2 outs Ryan Church singled to left field and appeared to score on Angel Pagan’s triple to the give the Mets the 3-2 lead.  However, Dodgers Manager Joe Torre appealed the play and the 3rd base umpire called Church out for failing to touch 3rd base.  Not good.

Bottom of the 11th – Brian Stokes issued the dreaded lead off walk to Mark Loretta.  Xavier Paul then reached on an erros when Pagan interfered with center fielder’s Carlos Beltran’s view of the ball on a routine fly ball – 2nd and 3rd nobody out.  Not good.  Manager Jerry Manuel ordered the intentional walk to Juan Pierre and Stokes induced Rafael Furcal into a short flyball out to left field.  When Orlando Hudson hit a weak groundball to 1st baseman Jeremy Reed, it looked like the Mets would get out of the inning, but Reed threw a horrible ball towards home plate and Loretta scored with the winning run.

After beating the Giants on the 1st 3 games of this 7 game road trip, the Mets lost the finale to the Giants on Sunday and the 1st game of the 3-game set in L.A.  The Mets will rely on John Maine and Livan Hernandez to try to salvage the last 2 games of the L.A. series.

It did not look good.  The Mets trailed the Giants and reigning Cy Young Award-winner 5-1 heading into the 6th inning.

The Mets have won 8 of their last 10 games and have opened up a 2-game lead over the Phillies and Braves in the NL East race.  Lets Go Mets!!!

The New York Mets defeated the Phillies 7-4 on Friday night in Philadelphia.  If ever there was a big win on the 1st of May, this was it.

The Mets have been struggling of late, sitting at 9-12 and 4.5 games behind the 1st place Florida Marlins.  The Phillies have been the Mets’ nemesis the last 2 years, and the last thing the Mets needed was a sweep in Philly over the weekend.

The bullpen creation of J.J. Putz / Francisco Rodriguez hasn’t always worked this year for GM OMar Minaya, but everything was set up perfectly for Minaya and the dynamic duo on Friday night in Philly. 3-run lead at 7-4, bottom of the 8th inning, Putz getting ready to take the bump – would it work?

Fortunately it did for Minaya and the Mets.  Putz had a 1-2-3 uneventful inning in the 8th and K-Rod took care of the rest by mowing down the heart of the order for the Phillies.  Although he did issue a 2-out walk to Chase Utley, he ended the game with a strikeout of slugger Ryan Howard.

Look out for Mike Pelfrey as well.  Although his numbers aren’t great – 6.00 ERA and 1.86 WHIP – Pelfrey is now 3-0 on the season and he even had a single and 2 RBI’s in the Friday night win.

Dan Murphy got the Mets off to a good start with a 2-run homer in the 1st inning.  Fernando Tatis and David Wright each had 2 hits for the Mets in the win.

Oliver Perez will face off against Jamie Moyer in Saturday afternoon’s FOX Game of the Week, while John Maine and Joe Blanton will battle on Sunday afternoon.

Check out this cool article about a girl pitching a perfect game in Little League and then getting to throw out the “1st Pitch” at Saturday’s Mets-Nationals game at CITI Field.  What a great story!  Can’t believe there are actually 50-60 perfect games thrown in Little League each year.  Wish we would hear more about them, so it’s great to find about this one.  Enjoy – Mackenzie Perfect Game – and pass it on…

So much has been said about the New York Mets’ collapses in September in each of the last 2 seasons.  With a bullpen that just blew way too many saves too be reliable each of the last 2 seasons, Mets GM Omar Minaya made it his off-season mission to make sure that did not happen during the 2009 MLB schedule.

How did the moves pay-off in the Mets opening day game against the Cincinnati Reds on Monday?  It was a one word answer:  perfectly.

Johan Santana – the Mets ace acquired in free agency a little over a year ago – pitched well enough to give the Mets a 2-1 lead into the 6th inning.  Newly acquired Sean Green came into the game with 2-men on and 2 out and his job was to preserve the Mets 1-run lead.  He did just that – getting out of the jam with a soft line drive to left field and then retiring the Reds 1-2-3 in the 7th inning.  Next up – - newly acquired J.J. Putz.  1 walk and 1 strikeout later, the Mets still had the 2-1 lead heading into the 9th inning.  Next up – - Francisco Rodriguez – or K-Rod as he is affectionately known throughout all of baseball.  10 pitches later – 8 of which were strikes – K-Rod had his 1st save as a Met and the Mets were 1-0.

Now I know it is just 1 game, but this is exactly why Minaya signed K-Rod to a 3-year deal and exactly why he traded for Putz and Green.  If today’s game is any indication – 3 1/3 innings, 0 runs, 0 hits, 1 walk, 2 K’s – these guys can pitch.  And as long as they stay healthy, you won’t see these guys collapsing late in the season.  Will it be enough for the Mets to overtake the defending World Series Champion Philadelphia Phillies to win the NL East Division Crown?  I guess we won’t officially know that answer until October, but I like my odds with the bullpen Minaya has put together.

Call it karma…

This has never happened before in the New York.

On Friday night (April 3rd), the New York Yankees and New York Mets each opened new baseball stadiums.  And although they were only “exhibition” games, each team pulled out the victory, marking it the first time that 2 teams playing for the same “city” opened new stadiums and won their respective games.  Does this mean we are headed for a Subway Series?  Probably not, but it is an odd first.

The New York Yankees defeated the Chicago Cubs 7-3 at the new Yankee Stadium behind home runs from Hideki Matsui, Robinson Cano and Cody Ransom.

The New York Mets defeated the Boston Red Sox 4-3 behind solid pitching from Livan Hernandez, Pedro Feliciano and Francisco Rodriguez and clutch hitting from the ageless Fernando Tatis and newly signed, Red Sox cast-off Bobby Kielty.

2 teams playing for New York.  2 new stadiums.  2 rainy nights.  2 victories.

The Yankees and Mets faced off in a Subway Series back in 2000 – the Yankees took the crown in 5 games.  Will 2009 bring another Subway Series to the Bronx and Queens?  We’ll have to wait about 6 months to find out…

The New York Mets have signed Gary Sheffield to a 1-year deal.  The recently released outfielder/slugger will split time in right field with Ryan Church.  Daniel Murphy will continue to start full-time in left field against both right-handed and left-handed pitchers and will likely be spelled from time to time by either Church or Sheffield.

The Detroit Tigers, who released Sheffield earlier this week, will pay $13.6 million of Sheffield’s $14 million contract for 2009.  The Mets will cover the additional $400,000 – nice deal for Omar Minaya and the Mets.  This isn’t Sheffield’s first stint in the Big Apple – he played for the Yankees from 2004 through 2006 and put up monster numbers in his 1st two season for the Yankees.  Sheffield battled injury issues through the 2006 MLB season and was later traded to the Detroit Tigers.

Sheffield is one home run shy of reaching the 500 home run plateau.  Sheffield is a career .292 hitter and he has 1,633 career RBI’s – good for 27th on the all-time list.

This is a nice pick up for the Mets.  He is cheap and he still has the ability to hit the longball in a reduced reserve role.  Limiting his play should also reduce the risk of injury on the 40-year old ballplayer.  Kudos to Minaya for going out and making the deal with Sheffield and his handlers.

Johan Santana looks ready to start the regular season.  The Mets defeated the Nationals 4-1 on Friday night.  Johan Santana went 7 strong innings – the 1st Met to pitch past the 6th inning this spring.  Santana needed only 75 pitches and allowed only 4 baserunners all on hits.  He gave up 1 run and had 6 strikeouts – 3 of which came when he struck out the side in an inning.

This is great news for the Mets.  After a slow start for Santana this spring, he appears healthy and ready to shoulder the load for the Mets rotation in 2009.  The Mets will need 110% from Santana if they expect to dethrone the defending World Series Champion and 2-time defending NL East Division-winning Philadelphia Phillies.

The New York Mets defeated the St. Louis Cardinals 9-5 on Thursday behind a big 7-run 7th inning and a solid pitching outing by John Maine.  Maine pitched 5 innings giving up only 1 unearned run on 6 hits.  While Maine did have 5 strikeouts, he also had 3 walks.  But overall, it was a good outing for the Mets #2 right-handed starter.

As for the Mets bats, the team racked up 13 hits and scored 7 runs in the 7th inning to pull off the come-from-behind victory.  Mets regulars Jose Reyes, Carlos Beltran, Carlos Delgado and Jose Valentin each had 2 hits.  Reyes even had 3 RBI’s.  The Mets should continue to have one of the most productive offenses in the National League this season, so let’s hope the bats continue to stay hot once the season starts.

It’s great to see John Maine pitch an efficient 5 innings at this point in the spring.  Let’s hope he can finish off strong and be ready to carry over the momentum into the 2009 MLB schedule.

Woo hoo!!!!!

Despite giving up 2 runs on 6 hits against minor league players, Johan Santana emerged from his 56-pitch effort “pleased” with the results.  Santana had this to say:  “Game situations.  You want as many different game situations as possible to be ready.  You want to face all kinds of hitters in all kinds of situations.  I did that today.  It’s good when you have baserunners.”

Really?  What are we talking about here?  Santana is glad that he allowed 6 minor league players to reach base in 4 innings of work so that he could pitch from the stretch more often?  This is unbelievable.

Now I know that he threw 40 of 56 pitches for strikes; and I know that he had 5 strikeouts.  But at this stage of the spring, I want to read about Santana retiring 14 of 15 minor league batters faced in a 5 inning effort.  This leaves a lot to be desired for me and let’s hope the Mets get their act together before the season starts.  The best thing that they have going for them is that Cole Hamels could miss some regular season action because of left elbow issues.  Hip Hip Hooray…