Does A One Legged Duck Swim In Circles?

Mr. Billy Wagner had one of the wildest outings he ever had on Saturday but did not let that get to him.

"Does a one-legged duck swim in circles?" he said when someone asked if he was available to pitch in this one. Truth is, he was more than available. Wagner wanted the ball yesterday -- needed it, really -- to erase the memory of that miserable outing.

You have to have thin skin and a bad memory as a ballplayer because dwelling on bad outings will get you nowhere. As for him pitching in the game last night, the Yankee fans should have been careful what they wished for.

"Yeah, I was pretty shocked," Wagner said. "I don't know if that was Yankee fans happy I was coming in or what. Whatever. It was great."

Mr. March, Alex Rodriguez, was 0-for-4 with a walk and stranding seven runners out of the fifteen runners stranded overall by the Yankees.

"We had them on the ropes," manager Joe Torre said.

Tell yourself whatever you need to in order to get through the day.

"It's not just another series," Glavine said. "As much as we try to downplay it, we know the importance of it. It's hard not to get amped up for the Yankees. They are who they are. Regardless of how many people they have injured, they're still the Yankees and they are a measuring stick."

The series should have been a sweep, but the Mets are flying high regardless because they outplayed the Yankees for three games. With last night's victory, the Mets took their third game of this rough nine game stretch and ideal outcome for me was the Mets going 5-4 and they have three wins so far. The only problem now is that the Mets are throwing out Trachsel, Alay Soler, and Jeremi Gonzalez in the next three games and two wins seems like a tall order. The Mets need two starters to step it up and put two wins on the board against their division rival.

* * *

Sorry Mike.

MikeinSpain said...

Mike, you´re killing me with all this Kazmir talk. Seriously. It´s like finding out I could have had a nymphomaniac lingerie model that night I decided to stay home drinking Busch light and watching the TNT Karate Kid marathon.

For my sake, just let it go...

I cannot.

The way Wes Helms described Scott Kazmir in pregame meetings was, "a young Randy Johnson that doesn't throw as hard."

That Kazmir's fastball comes in around 92-94 mph instead of 96-98 was of little consolation as the Marlins rode a seasonlong six-game losing streak into Sunday's series finale against the Devil Rays.

Helms' evaluation proved to be right on as Kazmir confounded the Marlins through eight innings and delivered his team to a 3-0 win at Tropicana Field. In outdueling Dontrelle Willis, Kazmir helped the Devil Rays record their first home shutout since July 29, 2004.

DG Has been a wealth of information lately.

DG said...

Little more in regards to Beato from Baseball America's preface to their first mock draft:

"Three weeks before the draft was set to kick off, here's our best guess as to what will happen on June 6. We're assuming that potential first-round righthanders Pedro Beato (Mets/St. Petersburg, Fla., CC) and Bryan Morris (Devil Rays/Motlow State, Tenn., CC) will sign as draft-and-follows rather re-enter the draft. We expect righty Luke Hochevar, now with the independent Fort Worth Cats, will turn down the Dodgers and be eligible for selection."


Hmmn, that makes him the first round pick we don't have. Not bad at all. Still beginning to think that last year's draft was not as bad as it was layed out to be...

The draft was not horrible. The Mets walked away with Pelfrey, Niese, and maybe Beato, while picking up Fernando Martinez and Deolis Guerra on the international front, but they had a weak year for position players. The system does not have anything outside of some five tool outfielders and some nice arms, but not very deep at all. The Mets need to be very active this year on the international front and need to get creative in order to stock some solid talent.

As good as Delgado as been, he has the fifth highest VORP in the National League among first baseman.

Top 5 2006 NL First Basemen, by VORP
Player           Team    EqA    VORP
Albert Pujols     SLN   .362    33.4
Nick Johnson      WAS   .327    17.8
Lance Berkman     HOU   .320    16.9
Nomar Garciaparra LAN   .332    15.2
Carlos Delgado    NYN   .307    14.8

Not good news on the Fernando Martinez front.

Mets outfielder Fernando Martinez' thumb injury might be worse than originally expected, as the Newark Star Ledger reported that he could miss up to four weeks. Martinez hasn't played since May 9. The club has not yet placed him on the disabled list.

David Wright smashed an epic blast last night.

Carlos Delgado said "that's about a $20 cab fare. That was far."

Floyd might not be able to hit very well at this point, but he can throw down some quotes with the best of them.

"I hope nobody thought they were safe parking behind the bullpen," Floyd quipped. "That was a shot."

"He even tried to pimp it," Floyd said. "He's got no pimp."

Note to Wright: Work on pimping it.