Randon Tidbits 9-7-7

So I was watching the Cyclones game last night and I got to watch Dillion Gee on the mound who was the Mets 21st round draft pick. He was drafted out of U Texas Arlington and has had a nice first exposure to pro ball. He has a solid low 90s to mid 90s fastball with excellent control.

He has a 6.22 k/bb ratio and has struck out 8.13 batters per nine innings. He supplants his fastball with a tight breaking ball. He did not do all that well in college, but he certainly looked decent in yesterday's game and has put up nice numbers so far for Brooklyn.

Delgado is down and no one is really sure for how long. The contingency plan is a Green/Conine platoon. If you take their righty/lefty splits and then extrapolate that into 501 at-bats, which is how many Delgado has, you get the following:

 R  2b   hr  rbi   bb   so    avg   slg
64  38   14   65   53   61   .291  .457
67  29   22   80   50  110   .255  .455

The top line being Green/Conine and the bottom line being Delgado. I am not concerned about Delgado's injury for two reasons. For one, I do think he will be back by the playoffs. Secondly, even if he is not, the Mets can put together a reasonable facsimile of his production this year.

As much as Green makes me wretch, him and Conine will do fine and get dropped down towards the bottom of the order and hopefully in the 7th or 8th spot. Alou slides back up to the fifth and everything is swell.

The x-factor between the two scenarios is that Delgado has the ability to carry the team when he is hot and the other two do not in any capacity. Delgado was hot and showed some encouraging signs, but there were no guarantees that was going to be the Delgado we got for the rest of the season.

As long as Wright, Beltran, Reyes, and Alou are happy and healthy, that is the most important thing for this Met offense. All the others are pretty much superfluous.

The big talk of the off-day is David Wright. He is on the verge of a 30/30 season which we are all extremely aware of.

With four more longballs over the Mets' final 23 games, Wright (born Dec.20, 1982) would become the fourth-youngest member of the 30-30 club.

Only Alex Rodriguez (22 years, 3 days in 1998), Bobby Bonds (23 years, 182 days in '69) and Jose Canseco (24 years, 35 days in '88) would be younger than Wright when they reached 30-30. Hanley Ramirez, Florida's 23-year-old shortstop, is six homers away.

He would also log the fifth season a Met has done it joining HoJo who did it three times and Darryl who did it once. The other big news item for Wright is the fact that he is quickly becoming the prime MVP candidate in the National League and is trying to become the first Met to ever win the award. That is truly big on so many levels for this Met franchise as they have had some pretty good players come through here and no one has ever won an MVP award.

Reyes is excited about his rest.

Jose Reyes said he welcomed yesterday's day off, just the second time he had been out of the lineup this season. "Basically it's going to be two days for me, so it's going to be nice," Reyes said, alluding to today's off-day before the Mets welcome the Astros to Shea tomorrow. "Sometimes you're going to feel tired."

I guess Willie is just one of a long line of people that have lowered their arm slot as a Met.

Lefty reliever Willie Collazo, taught a three-quarters delivery by pitching coach Rick Peterson before the season, made his major-league debut with 1-2/3 scoreless innings in relief of John Maine. Collazo, 27, allowed two hits and a walk. He arrived from New Orleans with a 33-inning scoreless streak.

It seems to be a working formula.

Orlando is almost back.

Orlando Hernandez threw his first bullpen session since receiving a cortisone shot in his right foot. El Duque expected to throw another bullpen session tomorrow or Saturday, which could set him up to pitch as soon as Monday against the Braves at Shea.

When he gets back, the Mets should seriously think about giving Maine and Perez a break with Pelfrey or Humber getting the call for them.

So Rick Ankiel received a 12 month supply of HGH back in 2004. While that does not mean that he is taking it now, it certainly just about confirms a lot of people's suspicions that it is circulating around the league. If you cannot test for it and many were OK with taking steroids, why not?

It seems Mike Lowell would be too pricey for the Red Sox? I thought he would have been a bargain. Go figure... It looks like this off season is going to be another doozy and prospects might even become more valuable than they already are further throwing the trade market out of whack.