Smackdown

So how does the pitching situation look nowadays? Not so bad. Sure there are concerns with the two primary set-up men for the Mets, but the bullpen has enough arms that I'm confident something will fall into place. However, the big concern for the Mets (according to the entire world outside of the Mets organization) was their rotation and everything seems to be coming together.

Here's our read on the current state of the NL East: The Phillies are much more worried about their bullpen than the Mets are about their rotation. The Mets seem to have very few concerns about Mike Pelfrey or John Maine, and they'll take their chances on Oliver Perez. And Omar Minaya isn't second-guessing his lack of free-agent activity at all. "Our young pitchers at least have upside," Minaya says. "I don't know that the guys that were out there in the free-agent marketplace, aside from [Barry] Zito and [Daisuke] Matsuzaka, had upside."

While the naysayers will still whine about spring numbers this and spring numbers that, is it really that hard to envision that a 25 year old who used to be a highly touted prospect that put up a 1.13 whip, .212 BAA, and 3.60 ERA in his first full season will keep it going and {gasp}....get better? Is it hard to imagine that an elite prospect who already has one of the best pure fastballs in the league has found a handle on his secondary stuff? Is it hard to imagine that a guy that was entrenched in a poorly run franchise that screwed him up is now on the right track with a tightly run franchise?

No, no, and no. It's not that hard to see those things happening and it is not really something that needs the stars to align for that happen. These guys were not no names coming into the year. With Pelfrey, it wasn't a question of if, but when. That time seems to be now. With Maine, you just had to watch him last year to see that Omar stole him from the Orioles. He is not an ace, but has legit big league stuff. As for Perez, he was the biggest wildcard. He will still have his inconsistent moments, but his continual steps forward are enough to make a grown man shed a tear.

The fact of the matter is, Omar saw the talent that was out there. He set his pecking order and it just so happens that all his in house guys were right below the only two impact free agents on the market. First and foremost he is a talent evaluator and he seems to have a pretty good handle on that. Come mid season, people will be lauding him once again. The scary part is that he has been so right so far in his short tenure, he is due to be wrong in a big way one of these days....right?

* * *

Oliver Perez keeps up the solid pitching performances giving us all hope that the kid is back on track. Six innings of five hit, one run ball is amazing. But the best part of the night?

Jose Reyes scored four runs on three singles and a walk, with three stolen bases.

This kid is so ridiculously good it is scary.

We all know how Met fans chant "Yankees suck" arbitrarily at games that do not involve the Yankees. Lots of Met fans would get pissed because it makes the general populous look stupid since there was no relevance being the Yankees weren't even playing. Yankee fans would say that it's because Met fans are so consumed with the Yankees. It could also be that some douchebag was wearing a Yankee shirt. Who knows...it's a world of possibilities. Now? Well now it seems the Yankee fans are getting in on it.

In the bottom of the third last night, when David Wright came up, there was a chant of "A-Rod's bet-ter!"

Looks like some fans are getting a bit too consumed with the awesomeness that is the New York Mets. Believe it bitches.

Daisuke? Legit as fuck.

After watching Daisuke Matsuzaka pitch for the first time Wednesday, I couldn't tell you for sure that this guy is about to win 20 games, a Cy Young or possibly a Nobel Peace Prize.

But I can tell you this:

We've never had any foreign-born player come here with the ability to generate this much intrigue and this much fun.

I mean, you would think, after watching this guy pitch 5 2/3 one-hit innings Wednesday, from a vantage point no more than 75 feet from home plate, I could at least tell you how many different pitches he threw -- and, theoretically, what they were.

Nope. Sorry. I'm still not sure. But at least I wasn't the only one. I had scouts tell me they thought they saw four -- fastball, curve, slider, changeup.

I had a member of the Japanese media tell me it's more like seven -- four-seam fastball, two-seam fastball, curve, slider, change, splitter and the mysterious "shuto" pitch. Not to be confused with the even more mysterious (not to mention fictitious) gyroball.

Normally, at times like this, you would just ask the hitters who had to face this man. Not in this case. In this case, they were even more confused than the eyewitnesses.

Sure it was the Pirates, but he confused everyone. He only allowed a single and only three more balls left the infield. Imagine the press in New York if the Yankees Golden Child had done that? If I had to put money on one guy throwing a no-hitter this year, it would be Daisuke. The article just goes on and on and on and on about how ridiculous he was. As good as he will be on the Red Sox this year, it is scary to think what type of silly numbers he would put up in the NL. His stats might have looked like something out of a video game.

Of course, the Yankee fans cannot handle it and have the following comments:

robcho (3/21/2007 at 11:20 PM)

I had what I thought was a bacon-cheeseburger today for lunch but it didn't look like your normal bacon-cheeseburger. The bacon was glowing and the lettuce did not seem to be the right color. I opened it up and saw things that just didn't look right. It left me baffled. I was so hungry I had to eat it. I did. In the end, it was just another bacon-cheeseburger. Translation, this column was about as interesting and my bacon-cheeseburger. Please have ESPN make sure to cover the event when the Red Sox deliver him into Fenway Park on a helicopter too. What will ESPN write about when Dice-K goes around the league a 2nd time? Oh, it turns out he's the right-handed version of Zach Duke?

No offense to anyone involved, but he threw well in a spring training game against a line-up of tomato cans from a perrenial doormat team. If he's this mystifying in Yankee Stadium in July, call me a believer.

Let me start off by saying that first comment was an insanely horrible analogy. I mean, really horrible. Aside from that, you can point to the obvious that is was a bad team, it is spring, and no one has seen him repeatedly, but to deny the fact he is filthy is just silly. The above two are so out of touch they would probably rather have Philip Hughes. It is not the first time we are hearing about this guy and he does what good pitchers have to do to succeed. He keeps hitters off balance. If he keeps doing that, I don't see how you catch up to a guy who throws six or pitches and changes speed with the best of them. Daisuke is the real deal.

From the link in the main piece at the top:

evan0238 (3/21/2007 at 8:55 PM)

uhhh anyone noticing how the O's might be this years sleeper team. we have 2 potential aces in bedard and cabrera and Chris Ray at closer. plus we got up and comming superstar nick markakis!

There are optimistic O's fans! Although, there certainly is a thin line between optimistic and delusional.