Mulligan

Can we call a do over? At some point, hearing the Mets say a few games do not matter is going to get old. The collective baseball world is resuming their usual positions, which is bent over in laughter at the Mets.

"Just four games, man, just four games," shortstop José Reyes said. "Nothing to worry about."

and

"I've been around baseball a long, long time," Randolph said. "Streaks, good or bad, don't affect me that much. You have to grind it out every day and keep playing. We've shown some fight."

Just like you want to get your first hit of the season out of the way and the first homer out of the season out of the way, you want to get that first win badly. On top of it all, you want to get that first win before the home opener. Heading home to a series in which the Mets are slated to fact Andy Pettite and Roger Clemens, there is no way the Mets want to head there 0 - 6 or 1 - 5. While calling any games must win situations this early seems absolutely stupid, they kind of are.

No pressure Heilman. It's only what could be your last chance the impress the Mets and a pivotal game for the team early in this season. Heilman may get as many as four starts. If by some miracle of miracles he can succeed, do not think for a second that when Benson comes back, he won't have a shot at the rotation later in the year. With little invested in Ishii and his propensity to walk, Heilman can look at this as a great opportunity.

Finally, although I'm sick of looking at the bright side of things, Victor Zambrano looked great. Sure he went five innings with a Leiter-like pitch count, but for anyone watching his first inning strikeout to Chipper Jones, that is what he is capable of. He threw a nasty pitch to Larry in the first for strike three. It was a fastball that started inside and came back in over the plate. It was not minimal movement either. The thing looked like a screwball and it was his damn fastball. Obviously walking four guys in five innings is horrendous, but us Met fans will accept baby steps at this point.

In one minor insignificant complaint that had no bearing on the outcome of the game, I'm confused why Willie would pull Aybar in favor of Koo in the 7th inning. Aybar was looking good and touching 94 mph on the gun. There were two outs, a guy on second with Adam LaRoche up. Willie pulls out his "Art Howe Guide to Management" and calls for the lefty Koo out of the pen. Promptly, Bobby Cox goes to Julio Franco who absolutely causes people fits. The ageless wonder has hit .288 against our Mets in 118 at-bats with 16 RBIs and as a manger you had to foresee him coming in. Koo is not a lefty specialist and can get righties, but why you take Aybar out who was facing a young lefty in favor for a Koo facing a veteran righty who likes to beat up on the Mets is beyond me.

* * *

Man-Ram says he will play three more years, then he will be done.

The D-Backs still remain intent in signing Stephen Drew.

Diamondbacks officials have been trading calls with agent Scott Boras in an effort to continue negotiations with unsigned first-round draft pick Stephen Drew and the sides could meet face to face next week in Los Angeles to speed up a resolution.

The B-Mets fell to a stacked Akron team 6-5. Bobby Malek went 3 for 4 in the loss.

I've seen heaven and it's at Burger King.



Wake up to a mouthful of breakfast with the Enormous Omelet Sandwich. Two slices of melted American cheese, two fluffy eggs, three crispy strips of bacon, and a sizzling sausage patty, piled high on a toasted bun. The Enormous Omelet Sandwich from BURGER KING®. So big, breakfast will never be the same.

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, bacon and sausage...

CJ Sullivan is a Genius

In start contrast to me, CJ Sullivan is brilliant. CJ wrote an article entitled The Mr. Met Beatdown that is simply on the money. I always knew the Mets were NY's team, but I was not quite sure why. Now, I can stop wondering. This town belongs to Mr. Met.

The Mets are more like New York because Shea Stadium—the house the Mets built badly—is a mess in constant need of repair, much like most city apartments. Even the bathroom plumbing is decrepit. The workers are rude. The Mets also have bad season after bad season, losing more than they win, just like most of us. When was the last time you won anything?

The Yankees, on the other hand, are like a small leafy town in the far reaches of Connecticut. They have all this faux history and myth and ghosts that haunt the stadium. If M. Night Shyamalan made a film about the Yankees and their Babe Ruth/Lou Gehrig/Mickey Mantle/Thurman Munson legends, the lead character would be some spoiled kid from Westchester, sitting in his box seat telling his father, "I see dead Yankees…"

A must read...

Thanks to Mikey H. for pointing the article out.

The Enigma That Is Victor Zambrano

No one doubts Victor Zambrano's nastiness. The guy can make people swing and miss and that cannot be taught, but his major problem has actually been getting players to lift the bat off his shoulder and swing the bat. People have been a bit uneasy about Victor's performance this spring and rightfully so. The Mets have a lot invested in Victor's success as a Met and they hope he can be something other than an erratic starter that cannot find the plate.

Victor was not signed as pitcher, but he was converted to pitcher by the Devil Rays. From 1996 to 2001, he only started six games out of 236 games pitched. In that time, he compiled some pretty solid stats.

W   L   ERA   G  GS   IP   H/9   W/9   K/9  K/BB  WHIP
20  20  3.73 236   6  349  8.59  3.38  9.57  2.83  1.33

Victor never exhibited great control, but his w/9 of 3.38 over six years is certainly acceptable and should give people a glimmer of hope. In his first year with the D-Rays in 2001, he pitched solely in relief. He posted a 6.66 H/9, 3.16 BB/9, 10.17 K/9, and 3.22 K/BB ratio in 51.1 innings. Overall in 2001, between AAA and the Majors he posted the following line:

W   L   ERA  G    IP   H/9   W/9   K/9  K/BB  WHIP
7   4  2.77 65  81.2  7.05  3.31  9.64  2.90  1.15

Of course the wheels fell off the bus in 2002 for whatever reason. He began the 2002 season in then pen and was getting horribly beat up by opponents and lost all control and was eventually moved into the starting rotation.

2002 numbers out of the pen:
W   L   ERA  G    IP   H/9   W/9   K/9  K/BB  WHIP
4   4  7.21 31  48.2  9.25  6.47  5.73  0.89  1.75

It does not get much uglier than that. However, judging by his past, it is not out of the question that he straightens himself out since he had to much work before that to be ignored. It is possible he can decrease his BB/9 to at least enough to be a lot more dependable. Since 2002, it is a real big mystery as why his control went from "needs to work on it, but not horrible" to "walking in on your roommate having sex with the dog" bad. Obviously he could be pitching differently to Major League hitters, but his rookie season had a good enough body of work to prove otherwise. His BAA also tells me he has that swing and miss factor which means the mere idea that he moved to the major league is probably not the reason he cannot find the plate since when he is on, he controls the outcome. It is possible that he is somehow more effective out of the pen in short stint, but he has the tools to dominate as a starter over the course of a game. We know his pitches have serious movement on them, but at one point, he was able to work more effectively with that movement.

Here some numbers according to ESPN.com's three year splits:

               AB    BB   AB/BB   BAA
Inning 1       234    28    8.36  .218
Innings 2 - 3  454    87    5.22  .247
Innings 4 - 6  613   103    5.95  .237
Innings 7 - 9  129   18     7.17  .279

I am still holding out hope for Victor to able to get his control, well, under control. If he can get his BB/9 to around 4, which is still well above league average, he could be dominant. Most of Victor's problems seem stem from the first pitch. Since 2002, when the count is 1-0, 24% of the batters reach base by not taking swing as opposed to 12% when then count 0-1. It also seems he has better results in his first inning of work in terms of control and it spirals downward from there. What can we expect out of Victor this year? Optimistically I'm hoping for a hard throwing right hander that is virtually untouchable when he is one and I’m hoping he will be on more than not. More realistically he will continue to be a frustrating pitcher that will leave fans drooling about what could be. However, there is reason to be optimistic. If he always hovered around 5+ BB/9 I would have a bleak outlook, but Victor has done it in the past and may still be able to do it again.

* * *

How fitting was it that !sh!! (I'm taking ECA Mike's lead on this one...) walks the first two batters on eleven pitches? He did come back to eventually strike out five in row and pitched as good as you can while giving up five earned runs, but anytime you give up more runs than hits, you've done something very wrong somewhere along the line. The Mets did a good job making Harang look like he was Roger Clemens circa 1988 and only got one hit off of him in 6+ innings of work. Thankfully the Mets managed to not get shut out and at this point, I'll take what I can get.

Victor Diaz's gaudy .750 average was not going to last long as it dipped to .429 with an 0-3 performance. The Mets anxious bats could not get anything going. David Wright is awesome and three walks in one game for a guy who we all know will get his walks eventually is a great sign. Wright got one hit as well and accounted for four out of the combined nine hits and walks for the team.

Phil Humber lost his first professional game. The Dodgers beat the Mets 1-0 and Phil went five, striking out six, and gave up his lone run in the top of the first inning. Milledge got a hit in the game and the Mets only got four total.

Possible first overall pick in the upcoming draft Alex Gordon is on fire.

Gordon, 6 foot 1 and 210 pounds, has hit .486-9-26 during his last 20 games while slugging .986 and posting a .617 on-base percentage.

Bill Pulsipher has a piece up on BA written through Alan Scwartz.

I spent the 2000 and 2001 seasons pitching for seven teams in four organizations, usually in the minors. I was throwing complete slop. I was freaked out all the time. I wasn’t taking my medication. Every time I thought I had hit my low point, I hit another one. When I hurt my groin with the Yankees’ Triple-A Columbus team in 2002, I said, “That’s it. I can’t do this anymore. I’m done.”

I went back to my home in Port St. Lucie, Fla. and took a job, if you can believe this, tending the minor league fields at the Mets complex. There was something peaceful about riding the mower for hours across that grass, not feeling the inescapable pressure anymore. I was building mounds on the same fields that once made me a top prospect. It was masochistic, I suppose, but I needed the eight bucks an hour. That was life.

My old groundskeeper friend from the Mets, Tommy Bowes, gave me the job on one condition--that I keep working out. So every other day I threw to another guy there, Randy Mitchell. I gradually felt the love for the game again. I thought of my young son, Liam Hayden Pulsipher. I made his initials LHP for a reason--also my son born later, Leyton Hale--so they could be reminded of who their daddy was, what made him special. Out there on the mower, I decided that I wanted to try being special again.

For those of you without a subscription, Pulsipher had been suffering from depression and anxiety since coming back from his Tommy John surgery. He fought a hard and almost a decade long fight to get back to this point and hopefully he sticks for while.

Brian Bannister and the B-Mets have to feel good about beating CC Sabathia. Rehab assignment or not, he's one of the top lefties in the majors.

Gabriel Hernandez, who befuddled Power hitters to the tune of 6 strikeouts and only 2 hits including a stretch when he retired 10 consecutive batters. Hernandez went the first 4 1/3 inn.

All in all, a good day for three of the Mets most promising pitching prospects.

Rivera Blows Two

..and we are not talking about Jeter and A-Rod.

I never quite understood how Mariano absolutely dominated with throwing cut fastballs on the left side of the plate almost exclusively all these years. Gagne keeps batters off balance with four nasty pitches that change drastically in speed. At Mariano's advanced age, he may want to try and reinvent himself like Pedro. The Red Sox have him pretty figured out. His 3.70 ERA and .286 BAA since 2002 against the Red Sox is not exactly dominating or in line with his career numbers.

One funny thing that came out of the blown save was Michael Kay's accusation that the Red Sox were cheating. His reasoning that they were cheating was because they lefties were opening up so they can get a good hack at that inside cutter that he throws 99% of the time instead of having it in on the handle. I did not hear it since I hate the show and avoid it at all costs, but a person familiar with the show said Kay repeated the world cheating about hundred times. The question is was he refering to this cheating like when a third baseman cheats in when a bunt is expected, or was he is refering to this cheating as in the sense of the femme slap heard around the world. If he was referring to it as cheating as in modifying the stance because they batter knows where the pitch is coming, he probably would not of felt a need to harp on it.

Kay went on to say that you'd understand if you were a baseball fan, but I have no idea what he is supposedly talking about and I would consider myself a baseball fan. I guess the Yanks are not allowed to just lose and Yankee cronies are more intelligent than me.

* * *

Tom Glavine never ceases to amaze me. How a guy can just throw fastballs and changeups and work in the mid to high 80's is on the major league level is nuts. However, he was not successful yesterday. Joe Randa 6, Mets 5. I'd love to blame the shoddy umpiring, but the Mets did not do good. Despite Glavine's two strike threes that were called balls and resulted in all his runs, he was not sharp and did not pitch good enough to win. That Cincy lineup has some firepower and balls seem to fly out of the park. Mets are still looking for that ever elusive first win. No pressure Kaz, you only have millions of rabid New York Met fans watching you today looking for you to pick the team up and go at least six innings and bring back a win. A confident Kaz said, "I think I'm ready". I hope you are.

"I have no idea (what happened)," said Mientkiewicz. "I know one thing: I'm dumber for having gone through that. I thought I knew the game. I'll get a rule book tonight and see what's going on."

Dave Miley is a dick.

Victor Diaz is as cool as the other side of a pillow.

"It felt good," said the 23-year-old Diaz, who batted .294 in 15 games for the Mets last season. "I wasn't pressing. I was just playing."

Victor can rake. I was not up on the idea of him batting eighth due to his propensity to K, but the kid is bad ball hitter. He'll never be up there to take a walk, and he's not looking to cheat himself, but he can hit balls pitched anywhere.

"If Mike Piazza does not catch tomorrow, it will probably be Ramon Castro."
~ Fran Healy

Probably? Fran, who else would it be?

What?

Right-hander Gaby Hernandez, who is rated the Mets' No. 3 prospect by Baseball America, heads up the Suns pitching staff. Hernandez has a sinker that reaches 94 mph.

A 94 mph sinker, a mid 90's fastball, and great command.

Kevin Kernan has seen enough. However, being a Met fan means being part masochistic. I have not seen enough. I've seen that Koo looks like he can be good and an instant fan favorite, Hernandez actually looked really sharp, and Aybar could be a decent 6th or 7th inning guy. Why give up already? I think the pen deserves more than two shots. It was ugly, but it's not the end.

Some Bold Predictions

Norm just did his fearless predictions, and they are much better than mine, so feel free to skip all mine. Obviously if all these things happen, the Mets just may find themselves in the World Series, but they are not all going to happen and I’ll take just a few.

(Here was a Victor Zambrano prediction that I removed)

Pedro Martinez will put up better numbers than Tim Hudson (I'll bet the farm on this one) and win the CY Young award.

Quiznos will add a third sandwich to their menu in the right field concession stand.

Kris Benson will have the best year of his career under the tutelage of Rick Peterson and the spacious Shea outfield behind him and finally start to resemble the pitcher everyone thought he could be. Think 15 wins.

Yusmeiro Petit will be in the Majors after the All-Star break.

Jose Reyes and Cliff Floyd will be healthy this season and each log 140+ games.

Jose Reyes will steal at least fifty bases and Floyd will steal at least twenty bases.

Mike Piazza will top 400 homeruns for his career this season.

Art Howe will still be unemployed.

The Mets will have two position players make the All-Star team and one pitcher make the All-Star team.

Fred Wilpon's face will continue to appear like it is melting off his body.

Douggie Fresh will win a Gold Glove.

Felix Heredia will find himself unemployed by June.

Cliff Floyd will profess there is a actually some light at the end of the tunnel.

Willie make annoying comments related to the Yankees like, "I don't feel too good, but there aren't many Mariano Riveras around" way too many times.

Beltran will finish in the top five for MVP voting.

Kaz will have a fielding % of .980 or better.

I will find myself inebriated on many occasions at Shea Stadium.

The Mets will score over 750 runs for the first time since 2000.

The Mets will make the playoffs.

* * *

MinorLeagueBaseball.com does their review on the Florida State League. Looks like Kevin Czerwinski is moonlighting on our Mets.

Gabby, Ambiorix, Gomez, Durkin, etc. will be in New Jersey playing the Lakewood Blue Claws April 18th through the 20th, May 17th through the 20th, June 21st through the 24th, and more times that I do not feel like writing out. Get there and see a pretty damn good Low A team.

John Smoltz's ERA stands at 32.40 after getting knocked around on Tuesday. 'Tis a beautiful thing. Though I hate to see Delgado and Co. do good, this was somehow very, very satisfying.

More Cammy rumors are surfacing, but I hope Omar realizes that Cammy is worth a good amount in return. A Gold Glover, coming of a 30 homer season as a CFer is worth more than two relievers who's W/9 were over 5.00 in 2009. Imagine Parrish or Julio coming in after Ishii or Zambrano? Not that both do not have talent. They are 26 and 27 respectively and Parrish gets into the low 90's as a left and Julio gets into the high 90's. Does this move really make the Mets better when they have/will have some good in house options? I hope Omar sees how this plays out internally first. Hey, maybe Omar can admit that Heredia needs to go and Bell needs to come up sooner rather than later. To trade right now when all in house options were not looked into for people who are anything but sure things would be rash to say to the least.

FlushingFutures.com goes over the St. Lucie roster. There are some exciting players there (for now) and a really impressive outfield. Between Humber, Milledge, Bowman, and Hill, I'm sure a few of us will be following the St. Lucie squad.

Brian Bannister takes the hill against CC Sabathia tomorrow in Binghamton's opener.

"We're going to go as far as Jose takes us, for the most part," Doug Mientkiewicz said. "He has the ability to win games by himself. That's how much talent he has. He can beat you in so many ways."

Looks like Jose Santiago is in line to get tuned up by the Braves this Saturday. I guess they do not want to rush Petit, but is there any doubt he has the best chance out of the current options to be effective?

A career reliever -- no starts in 225 Major League appearances -- Santiago was "stretched out" during an afternoon session as preparation for the unassigned start against the Braves in Atlanta Saturday. He threw about 60 pitches, more than a pitcher usually throws in a relief appearance.

The 30-year-old right-hander has started merely six times as a professional and not once since making five Minor League starts in 1999.

Kazmir had a great debut this season, though it does not appear he dominated.

"If he throws strikes, he's awfully tough," said Blue Jays manager John Gibbons before the Blue Jays' 6-3 win in front of an announced crowd of 9,144 Tuesday night at Tropicana Field. "When we saw him last year, he was wild. If he pounds that strike zone, you don't want to wait around too long. But he's got to prove that to us first."

          IP   H   R   ER   SO    ERA
Kazmir   5.0   3   1    1    2   1.80
McClung  0.1   4   5    5    2 135.00

Seth McClung did not fare quite as well as Kazmir did.

Rick Ankiel was placed on waivers. He should pass through since he already said he is done as a pitcher and really does not have much value as a hitter at this point.

Steve Phillips was drinking the silly juice again.

He predicts Corey Patterson should hit close to 40 homers and steal close to 40 bases. He also says that it is not unrealistic for Sean Burroughs to hit 20 homers, 40 doubles, and 90 RBIs. For anyone keeping score at home, he has 55 doubles, 10 homers, and 116 RBIs in 340 games in his career.

Potentially, I could be wrong on some of these picks. Oh, there's that dirty word again. You know what that means for a general manager. The reality is that not all of these players will fulfill their potential this season. Some will be on next year's list, just as Beltre must have been an annual nominee.

The good news is that if these players don't reach their potential, it won't be my fault. Come on, what could possibly happen – I get fired?

What was the dirty little word? "Potentially", "I", "could", "be", "wrong", "on", "some", "of", "these", or "picks". I'm a bit lost. I also have a newsflash, you are not a general manager and you could get fired anyway. ESPN may wake up one day and realized you are nearly useless. How did you get a GM job again?

Hey, At Least No One Got Hurt

Yesterday's loss sucked, but last time I checked it was one loss. I love being in the NY area since the NY Media provides plenty of coverage on my team. All winter, there was no shortage of stuff to read. However, days like yesterday bring out all the ridiculousness and idiocy of many people in the media. I had the unfortunate luck to hop in my car after the game while the radio was tuned to 1050 ESPN. Of course, right after the game, Michael Kay was on.

Kay was talking about how the Mets could have this problem all year with Pedro not being able to go deep into games and the bullpen wasting a good pitching performances. Yeah they could, but they also could not. Forget the fact another mindless drone spewed out the notion that Pedro does not go deep in games, but what is there really to complain about? He brought up the bullpen as a concern, but what I saw was completely positive.

I saw Aybar come in and touch 93 on the gun, having the ability to reach back and overpower someone if needed. I also saw Koo come in and fool two batters and a catcher. He K'd the first two batters, one of whom was Griffey who just walked away as soon as it hit the mitt, and Piazza dropped both third strikes. The last guy trickled out to the mound for a successful one, two, three inning. The guy who faltered is not a question mark. Brad Lidge he is not and this will happen, but he's not one that I'm worried about and two relative unknowns flashed some positives.

Was the game a horrible let down? Yeah, but Pedro was downright nasty, Beltran was unreal, Reyes was scampering all over the place, Matsui knocked one out, Floyd is swinging great, and Piazza looked good as well. Kay goes on to allow Yankee fan after Yankee fan to call in and ham it up and have a great time, which is fine if we know he is an unabashed Yankee crony. The funny thing is Yankee fans call Met fans sorry for enjoying when the Yankees lose, but Yankee fans love when the Mets lose too, though they try to claim to be above it.

He did say he felt bad for Willie, which is not really a surprise since he is an ex-Yankee that is unfortunate enough to be on the side of the losers now after being a winner for so many years, but it is unreal. The guy annoys me more than Fran Healy and Mike & the Mad Dog put together. If you ask me, I'm more concerned about the Mets getting on base this year than the bullpen. The Mets have three guys waiting in the wings when they get healthy in Moreno, Strickland, and Fortunato as well Bell who is better than their current options who will be ready to step up when the Mets need it. As far as I see it, lots of things went right, and one thing went wrong.

Basically, what I'm trying to say is that Michael Kay is a blubbering vagina. It is just ridiculous how happy he was that the Mets had a tough loss. How about some objectivity and creativity in your show?

* * *

If Blogger was not free, I'd definitely complain about it sucking.

So many horrible headlines, so little time:

Looper Delivers A Blooper
Thrown For A Loop
Thrown For A Looper
One And Oh, What An Opener!
Two Hrs In Ninth Have Closer Feeling Like A Little Looper
Willie Needs Mo, Instead Gets Woe

Someone remind me again, was this the first time someone blew a save? Besides, I'd rather have it happen here than, oh I don't know, the playoffs against the Red Sox in 2004.

Yankee crony #2...Buster Olney:

ANSWERED: Do we have confirmation that the Mets' bullpen will be a serious problem? Yes, we do. And Braden Looper is supposed to be the most reliable guy in this group. But Pedro Martinez was excellent, as Adam Rubin tells us. He struck out the world, Looper said.

How does he tie his shoes in the morning?

Omar on Benson:
"It's a nagging injury and it's going to take time, unfortunately," general manager Omar Minaya said. "There's still some discomfort and we're going to wait until he totally heals before we get him going again. It's so early in the year that we want to be conservative."

Never pitch to Dunn again.

Do it Omar...

That leaves only two options for Saturday: use one of the relievers or promote a pitcher not on the 40-man such as Juan Padilla or Jose Santiago. Yusmeiro Petit, the 20-year-old prospect, will not be used.

Do you really have a choice?

Got juice? The entire Angels system does. Not only do the Angels have one of the top farm systems in the majors, they have 5 of the 38 minor league players that failed testing on their team.

Ryan Zimmerman is unreal.

Virginia junior third baseman Ryan Zimmerman went 10-for-15 as the Cavaliers were swept by North Carolina. He posted six RBIs, four steals and four runs and fell a double shy of the cycle Saturday. Zimmerman went 3-for-3 against Andrew Miller and 3-for-4 with three RBIs with a homer against Daniel Bard. He's batting .420-4-37 on the year.

Andrew Miller is next year's first overall pick for those of you not familiar with this sophomore from North Carolina.

RFK is F-ugly

For anyone worried that Shea would be considered the worst current stadium in baseball can stop worrying. Though the Mets enjoyed their trip there, RFK is a dump. It looks like Olympic Stadium from the outside in it's concrete ugliness and inside does not get much better. Obviously since it was built in 1962 for football usage and it is a temporary home, they get a free pass and Shea will eventually resume it's rightful title as the worst stadium in the majors in a few years.

The field's dimensions are very similar to Shea stadiums. However, since the field is encircled by the stadium, it will not play as much as a pitcher's park like Shea since wind will really not be a factor. It will play more like a slight pitcher's park or a neutral park. All in all the place looked probably as good as they could get it and it was great to actually see people at the baseball game. 25,453 fans showed up and they only topped that number twice last year. The Nationals should top that 25,453 mark three times in the first three home games as well. Their first three home games will probably top their highest attendance in 2004 of 31,395. There were a lot of Met fans there, but there were so many people excited about this National team too. It was just an amazing game to be at.

21,000 season tickets were sold already basically assuring solid attendances for the entire season. Washington should easily turn into a team that could spend $70 - $80 million on their payroll in a few years and should continue when they build their new stadium, which will become the jewel of the NL East. The Nationals and Orioles are also teaming up on their own network so they can share the media revenues for the area so they are no in direct competition for limited broadcasting dollars.

* * *

People think Carlos Beltran is good. I do too.

The saga and the blackout continue. Is this a disturbing trend or what? Next season Cablevision customer's will be blacked out from Mets games. Does anyone actually think Dolan will pick up their network after this and when Time Warner refused to buy his useless trio of channels after 2005?

From NJ.com:

While the Mets still have Benson penciled in on Saturday, it's unclear who might take his place if he's unable to go. Two days ago, the Mets traded long reliever Matt Ginter to Detroit and really have no one in their bullpen -- other than perhaps Manny Aybar -- who can absorb a significant number of innings.

Minor-leaguer Yusmeiro Petit, who pitched two hitless innings in yesterday's game, is a possibility. Minaya declined to speculate what he might do.

Ah, we long for Matt Ginter and his marginal versatility. Petit has certainly proved he can should/could be considered in any short term solution and be able to hold his own while being a better option than Seo or Heilman.

Vance keeps flapping his gums:

"I'm even more blown away by it," Wilson told Booth Newspapers. "It's kind of funny. I love New York, and I had a great time there, but it even put in more perspective how miserable a time we had there. And how bad the baseball was there. There's no chemistry."

Wilson also is happy to have former teammate Matt Ginter on board after the Mets traded the reliever to Detroit on Saturday. "I was very surprised the Mets didn't find a spot for him," Wilson said. "I think over there, you've got some people that I think have too much say. Because some of the people they've let go, you just don't see that."

Ummm, Vance. You were one of those people with too much to say.

From BP's this week in Quotes:

"To be released after four outings? What's four outings in the spring? Nothing. They can pay my gas money for my car, they can pay to fill up my 240-gallon tank for my 30-foot Pursuit, they can gas up my jet boat and our three jet skis."
--Koch

Tough life.

Pedro will start his Cy Young campaign today and the Mets will begin their march to the playoffs that only the highly intelligent Jim Caple and Joe Sheehan predicted that I've seen.

DC BABY!!!

DC Baby does not have the same ring a Vegas Baby. Vegas has gambling, strippers, hookers, and all around debauchery everywhere and DC has politics and museums. Regardless, that's where I'm heading. Driving hours to see a game get rained out, sound like fun?

If you have not read Norm's recap of meeting Mr. Met, check it out. He talks about "that big, white, beautiful head" and "sweet part of the palm".....we're talking about Mr. Met right?