Two very good wins for the Mets in Tampa Bay these last few nights. A good dose of confidence that this team sorely needed after the lost weekend in the Bronx. The only thing that continues to annoy me are David Wright's poor throws across the diamond. He had more problems tonight.
The whole team has started hitting for a change with first baseman Ike Davis heating up offensively as a highlight. Davis' swing and physical makeup has been compared to a young Shawn Green in his prime. Lanky, but with the ability to generate enormous power when he gets hold of a pitch in his wheelhouse.
If Davis can keep this going and finally break out of his slump, the Mets are going to get some serious run production in the lineup they have not seen in quite a while. He could carry the club. Ike Davis has the potential to be that good.
R.A. Dickey is having an amazing year. Amazing. His starts are must see events for me each and every time he pitches and have been for several seasons now.
Dickey is now 10-1 after another dominant performance and his era keeps dropping. It's now into the low 2's after this start. And if that wasn't enough, he also broke Jerry Koosman's 1973 Mets club record of consecutive scoreless innings tonight.
The Mets lit up Tampa Bay's ace David Price tonight and Dickey took care of the rest shutting down a very good ballclub in the Rays.
I've been singing the praises of R.A. Dickey for years here on this thread, but who would have ever predicted that he would be the number one pitcher in the National League at this point?
As it stands now, he should be (and deserves to be) a lock to have the honor of starting the All Star Game for the National League.
Matt Cain makes history with the 22nd perfect game in baseball history. This is the first perfect game in Giants franchise history that goes all the way back to the late 19th century in New York.
Nice to see Mets manager Terry Collins get picked by La Russa to be a coach on the 2012 National League All Star team.
Collins is certainly deserving.
He's taken a cobbled together Mets team that nearly everyone wrote off at the start of this season and turned them into a team that is right in the hunt for the top spot in the division at this point. Even if the Mets don't make the playoffs this season, the organization has seen what some of these younger players can do and can better map out a plan moving forward.
How about those Washington Nationals, eh?
Not that long ago here I felt they would be the big boys in the division. The phenom Stephen Strasburg is back throwing seeds after surgery, and all those good draft picks they stored up over the years like squirrels gathering nuts are starting to bear fruit. Bryce Harper and Strasburg are two of them. Former Mets manager Davey Johnson is an old steady hand there in the dugout with just the right sprinkling of veterans for experience.
Good scouting of young players can take a terrible franchise and turn it into a winner fairly quickly these days and the Nationals are proving that.
The Phillies have ruled the roost in the NL east for years, and it seems age and injuries are taking their toll this season. Losing Roy Halladay due to a bad shoulder for an extended period was the capper. Chase Utley may make it back, but how effective will he be after missing so much time?
Who thought Cliff Lee of all people would not have a single win heading into the middle of June? Lee has a low era, but not having all that offense around him has him pitching in quite a bit of bad luck.
It takes the little improvements of individual efforts, and putting those efforts together, in order to succeed. This season has a lot to do with coaching, and I'm happy for Collins. It's so much better for the fans when a team is progressing, despite what was expected of them.
I expect a great matchup. And its great that DC is at last experiencing a baseball season they can get excited about for the first time since the 1930s literally.
Well, I have just returned via Amtrak from DC. A great time all around!
Friday night, Phil Hughes had a solid outing and three innings of good work by the bullpen as the Yankees cruised to a 7-2 victory thanks to a four run breakout in the 7th caused by a bad throwing error by Nats shortstop Ian Desmond. David Robertson made his first appearance in a month in the 9th, giving up a meaningless run.
And today....wow! A 14 inning marathon in which the Yankees failed to get a hit for seven innings off Nats relievers until Brad Lidge came on in the 14th, and hits came from Jeter (who had been riding an 0 for 6 day up to then) and Texiereia to help them win 5-3. Pettitte pitched seven great innings in the no-decision, proving that the Yankee rotation is quite solid. Where the Yankees still have problems is hitting with runners in scoring position, and it was nice to see them finally end that skid today (and also win a game without hitting a HR!)
Winning streak is now eight games. The Nats lost nothing on their NL East lead with losses by the Mets and Braves tonight. And I will say, the change at Nats Stadium from a year ago is quite noticable. There's a better buzz about the team and greater presence by the local fans (last year at the Phillies-Nats game I went to, it was 85% Phillie fans!)
Doug Fister is back and is nearly pitching like he did last year, well for Saturday afternoon's game against the Rockies anyway. Off the dl and gets his first win of the year. The Tigers may get back on track yet.
The verdict is in on the Roger Clemens trial, and this is the last time I will ever comment on this or anything else related to steroids and baseball. The verdict was totally just because the issue of whether he lied or not about taking it, really wasn't the point. The deeper issue was why this matter was even considered worthy of the government's time in light of the more serious abuses and crimes that this same Justice Department won't even bother to prosecute (and I will not mention what those matters are, but suffice to say, the guy who heads the Department that was prosecuting has been guilty in a worse way of lying to Congress recently). The maximum punishment Clemens or any other steroid user is entitled to is being kept out of the Hall of Fame by the votes of the writers (though even there I admit to having problems because of the free pass given Gaylord Perry, whose entire career was based on cheating) and that's it. If baseball wants to make Clemens and company pariahs, that is their concern in policing themselves. But as far as the business of Congress and the Executive Branch, it is not part of their concern, and that is why I am glad the verdict was what it was.
Another dominant performance tonight by Mets starter R.A. Dickey against Baltimore.
Once again he is in double digits in strikeouts and so far he's pitching his second one hitter in a row into the 8th. If he wins he'll be 11-1 on the season. His scoreless streak still intact.
The movement on Dickey's knuckler is getting better and better with each start. And the ERA is dropping.
If Hall of Fame knuckleballer Phil Niekro has a good baseball cable package he's probably watching this game tonight marveling at what is probably to this point the best season ever for a knuckleball pitcher in major league history.
The subway series moves to Queens this weekend with the Mets taking game 1 against the Yankees. Another good outing by Jon Niese and this time he gets the win.
Once again as they had done in the Bronx, the Mets had Andy Pettitte in trouble early but this time they pushed some extra runs across the plate against him. Ike Davis has been heating up for the Mets and drove in some crucial runs with another home run.
The Yankees, as is their pattern, once again went long ball late with men on base to make the game close but Mets bullpen managed to hold on.
Anytime I see guys like Battista, Rauch, and especially Parnell galloping in from the pen to hold a small lead left behind by one of the starters I get agita. It's like tossing a coin with Frank "Armando" Francisco because you never know what he'll give you out there in a crucial situation and he's been anointed the closer.
I can't fault GM Sandy Alderson for making the moves with the bullpen that he did in the off season because given the Mets financial situation at the time he tried to get the best available arms for the budget he had to work with to try to improve the pen which was even worse last year.
I miss the good ol' days of former closer Billy Wagner coming in and blowing hitters away with his (mostly) effective 100mph fastball.
Chris Young will be on the mound starting for the Mets today, and that could go pretty bad quickly against those Yankee long ball bats if he's not on his game.
Young is coming back this season from the same pitching shoulder surgery that Johan Santana had and he's a guy who uses his veteran pitching smarts and does not throw hard at all anymore. He never really did even in his better days in San Diego, he's a control pitcher. Young needs to hit his spots with early count strikes to be successful. If he gets the ball up and does not have location the Yankees will be waiting to jack them out.
The marquee matchup in this series will be Dickey vs. Sabathia tomorrow night in prime time. I'm sure the local NY ratings will be through the roof for that one.
The Yankee bats were dead all evening until suddenly from out of the blue, a three run game tying shot by Ibanez is followed by a pinch-hit go-ahead HR by Eric Chavez. And then, outstanding bullpen work by Logan, Robertson and Soriano holds the victory and snaps the three game losing streak.
A good sendoff for me as I find myself forced to hit the road for a week on a business trip to Iowa in just a few short hours from now.
Well, Dickey vs. Sabathia did not turn out to be a great pitchers duel, and it came down to offense. Yankees long-ball again made the difference with a tie-breaking HR from Cano. The bullpen work by Logan, Robertson and Soriano again proves the Yankees aren't missing the presence of Rivera at all.
