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May 15, 2008

The Mets Just Can't Get Out of Their Own Way

Game 38: Nationals 5 - Mets 3 The 2008 Mets are a rollercoaster ride to futility. Some players who have been struggling goes on a hot streak with the bat and you think maybe the team is finally going to hit. Next thing you know, their bats cool off and...

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By Mike Steffanos, posted at 2:52 PM | | Comments (3)

Claudio Vargas 2008 Season Pitching Stats

Updated Thursday, May 15, 2008 Claudio Vargas (0-1) DateOpp.IPRERHKBBHRERAWHIPTeam Result 5/14WAS6.12236412.841.11L Season   (1 Game)6.12236412.841.110-1 Month By Month MonthStartsIP/StartH/9K/9BB/9HR/9ERAAVGOBPSLG May16.34.38.55.71.42.84.150.292.350 Season16.34.38.55.71.42.84.150.292.350 About Mike: I was the original writer on this web site, actually its only writer for the first 15 months of existence. Although I am grateful for the excellent...

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By Mike Steffanos, posted at 1:47 PM |

May 14, 2008

Gary, Keith and Ron Have Class -- and a Web Site

I received a press release today from GaryKeithandRon.com, a new web site from the SNY announcing crew: Gary Cohen, Keith Hernandez & Ron Darling Create Website for a Good Cause T-Shirts Being Sold With Net Profits Going to Announcers' Favorite Charities (NEW YORK CITY, May 14, 2008). SNY television announcers...

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By Mike Steffanos, posted at 7:03 PM | | Comments (0)

John Maine Is Good

Game 37: Mets 6 - Nationals 3 It's clear that John Maine is someone who you really have to see pitch to appreciate. Most die-hard Mets fans who have seen many of Maine's performances over the last 2+ seasons believe the young right-hander is the real deal. The Mets as...

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By Mike Steffanos, posted at 2:40 PM | | Comments (4)

May 13, 2008

A Lost Night at Shea

Game 36: Nationals 10 - Mets 4 I was at this game last night with Greg Prince from Faith and Fear in Flushing. I enjoy talking baseball and life with Greg, which was fortunate, because last night had absolutely nothing else going for it. The weather was reminiscent of late...

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By Mike Steffanos, posted at 5:18 PM | | Comments (3)

May 12, 2008

Heading To Shea

I'll be heading out to Shea in a few minutes, braving the wind and rain and hopefully seeing a game tonight. I'll be meeting up with Greg Prince from Faith and Fear in Flushing. We'll be in the Loge Reserved: Section 3, Box B, Seats 1-2. If you want to...

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By Mike Steffanos, posted at 2:42 PM | | Comments (0)

Mets Slug Their Way to Series Win

Game 35: Mets 8 - Reds 3 Two components of the Mets that have been MIA for much of the season wree present in winning the rubber game of the Reds series Sunday afternoon: Oliver Perez and extra base hits. First Perez. For the first five innings, we saw the...

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By Mike Steffanos, posted at 11:54 AM | | Comments (2)

May 11, 2008

Arroy-no

Game 34: Reds 7 - Mets 1 I started writing about this game last night after it was over, but it felt like a was writing version 117B of the same post I've written so often over the past 12 months. Moreover, I didn't even think I was being fair,...

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By Mike Steffanos, posted at 7:05 PM | | Comments (2)

May 10, 2008

Johan Gets Lots of Support

Game 33: Mets 12 - Reds 6 Johan Santana left his two starts with the lead, but the bullpen cost him the victory both times. Today the Mets rewarded a gritty if not particularly awe-inspiring performance from their ace with enough runs to ensure his fourth victory. Still, for a...

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By Mike Steffanos, posted at 6:04 PM | | Comments (1)

May 9, 2008

There's More Wrong With the Mets than Willie

Add Newark Star-Ledger columnist Dan Graziano to those calling for the head of Mets manager Willie Randolph. After making the point that the Mets are 71-71 since last June 1, Graziano accuses the Mets of not playing up to their talent level, and places the blame squarely on Randolph's shoulders:...

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By Mike Steffanos, posted at 7:09 PM | | Comments (1)

May 8, 2008

Mets Salvage Final Game in LA

Game 32: Mets 12 - Dodgers 1 On the one hand it's a little frustrating, because with a clutch hit or two in Tuesday night's game the Mets could have had a terrific 4-2 swing through Phoenix and LA. On the other, if they hadn't won this one it would...

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By Mike Steffanos, posted at 1:59 AM | | Comments (3)

One That Got Away

Game 31: Dodgers 5 - Mets 4 In the top of the second, the Mets had the bases loaded, 2 runs in, a 3-0 lead and no one out. The game was virtually there for the taking. Another hit or two could have busted it open. Even a couple of...

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By Mike Steffanos, posted at 1:16 AM | | Comments (0)

May 7, 2008

Pardon the Interruption

Due to some unforeseen circumstances I had to spend the whole day away from my computer. I just finished watching today's game on DVR and will catch up with posts on both Maine's win today and yesterday's loss. Things should be back to normal for me tomorrow. About Mike: I...

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By Mike Steffanos, posted at 11:35 PM | | Comments (0)

May 6, 2008

Inability to Score = Another Dreary Loss

Game 30: Dodgers 5 - Mets 1 Sorry for being late. This has been a crazy day. I have to run out of here in a few minutes, so this will have to be brief. If you stayed up late last night to watch this one you may have felt...

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By Mike Steffanos, posted at 3:54 PM | | Comments (1)

May 5, 2008

Tim Marchman Gets It Wrong

Last Friday, the NY Sun's Tim Marchman wrote a piece calling for the immediate firing of Mets' manager Willie Randolph. Marchman, who enjoys a cult following among younger fans and bloggers, is usually coolly analytical. For this particular article, however, he chose to take a walk on the melodramatic and...

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By Mike Steffanos, posted at 6:06 PM | | Comments (10)

Just Enough

Game 29: Mets 5 - Diamondbacks 2 The Mets had just enough pitching, just enough hitting, and took advantage of just enough breaks to pull out the rubber game of their series vs. the Diamondbacks in Arizona. Johan Santana battled through an uncharacteristically wild day to hand the bullpen a...

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By Mike Steffanos, posted at 1:53 PM | | Comments (2)

May 3, 2008

Close, And Then Not So Much

Game 28: Diamondbacks 10 - Mets 4 The Mets staged a nice comeback in this one to make it a game, but then Duaner Sanchez comes into the game and can't get anyone out. Then Scott Schoeneweis comes in with the bases loaded, a couple of runs already in, and...

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By Mike Steffanos, posted at 9:47 PM | | Comments (2)

Reyes as the Catalyst

Game 27: Mets 7 - Diamondbacks 2 The D-backs elected to go with Micah Owings as the starter last night, despite the fact that he was obviously bothered by a bad right ankle. It was clear from the get-go that Owings wasn't right. Everything was up in the zone and...

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By Mike Steffanos, posted at 4:13 PM | | Comments (5)

May 2, 2008

Sliding Down the Bannister

If you're a Mets fan, you've been treated to endless early season updates on Brian Bannister's hot start for the Kansas City Royals. They always seem to start, "Now I'm not trying to upset you..." when, of course, that's exactly what they're doing. Now it occurred to me today that...

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By Mike Steffanos, posted at 2:52 PM | | Comments (2)

May 1, 2008

Putrid Baseball

Game 26: Pirates 13 - Mets 1 I have to admit that I pretty much stopped paying attention to this game about halfway through when it became obvious most of the players had stopped paying attention. While it's certain that even good teams are going to have their share of...

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By Mike Steffanos, posted at 5:46 PM | | Comments (2)

April 30, 2008

Another Hard Day's Night

Game 25: Mets 5 - Pirates 4 (11) I'm in agreement with most of what I read about last night's game. Hardly an artistic success, the bottom line is that the Mets managed to pull the game out. In that respect it reminded me a lot more of 2006 than...

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By Mike Steffanos, posted at 3:44 PM | | Comments (3)

April 29, 2008

Retool, Not Rebuild

In a long piece I wrote yesterday on the fan booing, I also wrote a bit at the end in agreement with something that Matt Cerrone had written at MetsBlog. Based on a comment and some e-mails it's apparent that I need to clarify what I said. I personally don't...

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By Mike Steffanos, posted at 2:34 PM | | Comments (4)

April 28, 2008

Curtains for Delgado?

Only the most optimistic of Mets fans are beyond any concern over Carlos Delgado based on one day of mashing like it was 1999. Still, it was awfully nice to see Carlos looking something like a $16 million slugger, even if only for a day. Of course, in Mets Land...

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By Mike Steffanos, posted at 7:12 PM | | Comments (5)

April 27, 2008

The Braves Have Problems of Their Own

Game 24: Mets 6 - Braves 3 The thought that became the title of this recap occurred to me when John Smoltz left this game after 4 innings. The Braves had the favorable starting pitching matchups this weekend, yet not only did they lose both games but needed 9 innings...

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By Mike Steffanos, posted at 7:50 PM | | Comments (7)

Sanity Win

Game 23: Mets 4 - Braves 3 My feelings at the end of this one trended more towards relief than anything else. A win over the Braves was a welcome occurrence after the Mets came up short 3 times against them three times. I don't think I saw anything yesterday...

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By Mike Steffanos, posted at 1:19 PM | | Comments (0)

April 26, 2008

Sliding Backwards

Game 22: Braves 6 - Mets 3 I think we've reached the point in the season where picking apart individual moves is almost pointless. I've put off writing anything about yesterday's game because I feel as if I'm starting to write the same things over and over -- a common...

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By Mike Steffanos, posted at 1:05 PM | | Comments (2)

April 25, 2008

Definition of Mediocre

Game 21: Nationals 10 - Mets 5 Sorry for being late to the party again. This has been an absolutely brutal week for me. (And that's not even counting the trauma of actually watching some of these games.) Due to the late hour (the Braves game starts in a few...

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By Mike Steffanos, posted at 4:32 PM | | Comments (2)

April 24, 2008

Johan the Stopper

Game 20: Mets 7 - Nationals 2 Johan Santana did what he had to do last night -- he stopped the Mets losing streak at 3. He wasn't overpowering, managing only 4 strikeouts in 7 innings. The Nats managed 7 hits off of him, including a 2-run double by the...

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By Mike Steffanos, posted at 4:49 PM | | Comments (3)

April 23, 2008

Offensive Ineptitude

Game 19: Cubs 8 - Mets 1 It would be redundant to enumerate the offensive shortcomings from yesterday afternoon's poor performance against the Cubs. In their 19 games played do far this season the Mets have scored 88 runs for an average of 4.6 per game. Not too bad, but...

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By Mike Steffanos, posted at 4:48 PM | | Comments (6)

April 22, 2008

Rough Night at Wrigley

Game 18: Cubs 7 - Mets 1 It's obvious that John Maine still lacks the sharpness he had this spring, but for all of that the results haven't been too bad after four starts. Other than his terrible first game against the Braves, Maine has pitched well enough to win...

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By Mike Steffanos, posted at 1:10 PM | | Comments (5)

April 21, 2008

Mets Can't Pull Off the Sweep

Game 17: Phillies 5 - Mets 4 It was cheering in a way that the Mets fought back from a 4-0 deficit, and again that they made Brad Lidge sweat a little in the ninth. Still, when it was all over I was left with a bit of an empty...

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By Mike Steffanos, posted at 4:08 PM | | Comments (6)

April 20, 2008

Book Review: 101 Reasons to Love the Mets

101 Reasons to Love the Mets Author: David Green Hardcover, 120 pages, Stewart, Tabori & Chang David Green's 101 Reasons to Love the Mets is the latest in a series of books the author has written. Previous volumes in the series offered the same 101 reasons to love the Red...

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By Mike Steffanos, posted at 4:43 PM | | Comments (5)

April 19, 2008

Five in a Row

Game 16: Mets 4 - Phillies 2 The toughest part of this one was surviving the eighth inning and listening to Tim McCarver for almost 3-1/2 hours. Ollie Perez walked the shutout tightrope for 5-2/3 innings, and the bullpen did what they had to do. Slowly but surely, the Mets...

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By Mike Steffanos, posted at 11:42 PM | | Comments (12)

Mets Win One In Philly

Game 15: Mets 6 - Phillies 4 For seven innings this game was a masterpiece. It got a little messy in the eighth, but worked out well in the end. Santana was as sharp as we've seen him this season, with all three pitches working and pitching aggressively. Handed a...

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By Mike Steffanos, posted at 1:43 PM | | Comments (4)

April 18, 2008

The Fourteenth Inning Stretch

Game 14: Mets 3 - Nationals 2 (14) It would have been nice if the Mets first series sweep of the year was punctuated by timely and fundamentally sound situational hitting. Of course that wasn't the case, which is why I was still watching this game as the clock crept...

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By Mike Steffanos, posted at 1:43 PM | | Comments (3)

April 17, 2008

The Longball Returns

Game 13: Mets 5 - Nationals 2 Sorry for being so late with this. It's been a brutal week with the real job. John Maine has struggled somewhat in the early going after looking like he was going to dominate coming out of spring training. It looks like his command...

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By Mike Steffanos, posted at 12:50 PM | | Comments (2)

April 16, 2008

Pelfrey Dominates, Sanchez Returns

Game 12: Mets 6 - Nationals 0 For one day at least, life is good again. After looking like a lost soul this spring, Mike Pelfrey has looked like a legitimate pitcher in his first two starts of the year. Given the setbacks that Pedro and El Duque have experienced,...

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By Mike Steffanos, posted at 12:49 AM | | Comments (5)

April 15, 2008

Crazy Love

Years ago I worked the night shift in a large plant that employed hundreds of workers, both male and female. As often happens when you throw a lot of men and women together working odd hours, there were enough relationships and affairs going on to fuel the plot needs of...

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By Mike Steffanos, posted at 6:10 PM | | Comments (2)

April 14, 2008

Monday Odds and Ends

First off a quick programming note. I apologize to those of you who were looking for one of Barry Duchan's historical articles yesterday. I know they are a great favorite of many of this site's readers, as they are of mine. As Barry explained back in February on his Metscentric...

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By Mike Steffanos, posted at 6:51 PM | | Comments (2)

April 13, 2008

Missed Opportunities

Game 11: Brewers 9 - Mets 7 So far this year we've been treated to several games where the Mets got a pretty good effort out of their starting pitcher but couldn't score. Today we had Ollie Perez down 2-0 before he recorded his first out, then settling down a...

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By Mike Steffanos, posted at 11:46 PM | | Comments (2)

Booing Fools

Game 10: Brewers 5 - Mets 3 I was at this game yesterday, and then Lisa and I spent some time in New York afterwards. I didn't get home until very late, which is my excuse for not getting this up sooner. I won't talk much about the game. Of...

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By Mike Steffanos, posted at 2:32 PM | | Comments (10)

April 12, 2008

Look Ma, A Winning Streak!

Game 9: Mets 4 - Brewers 2 I'm going to have to be brief here, as it's late and I'll be going to tomorrow's game. From where I live in Connecticut it's a long trip. The recent history of the Mets hasn't included starting pitchers who come from nowhere to...

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By Mike Steffanos, posted at 2:10 AM | | Comments (3)

Nelson Figueroa 2008 Season Pitching Stats

Updated Tuesday, May 13, 2008 Nelson Figueroa (2-3) DateOpp.IPRERHKBBHRERAWHIPTeam Result 4/2*@FLA10001000.000.00-- 4/5*@ATL122201018.0018.00-- 4/11MIL62226203.000.67W 4/17WAS72237212.570.71W 4/22@CHI53372505.402.40L 4/27ATL5.13373305.061.88W 4/30*PIT3.11153202.702.10-- April (7 Games)28.2131326221514.081.433-1 DateOpp.IPRERHKBBHRERAWHIPTeam Result 5/6@LAD55583419.002.40L 5/12WAS56454507.202.00L May (2 Games)10119137918.102.200-2 Season (8 Games)38.2242239292425.121.633-3 * Used as a reliever Team results in starts only. Month By Month MonthStartsIP/StartH/9K/9BB/9HR/9ERAAVGOBPSLG April45.88.26.94.70.34.26.236.328.327 May25.011.76.38.10.98.10.310.444.405 Season65.69.16.85.60.55.12.257.363.349 All numbers except...

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By Mike Steffanos, posted at 1:40 AM |

April 11, 2008

Evaluating Omar, Conclusions

part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | conclusions (this article) In the three previous installments of this article we took a look at the moves Mets GM Omar Minaya has made since taking over the reins after the 2004 season. He made an immediate splash by signing both...

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By Mike Steffanos, posted at 6:21 PM | | Comments (9)

Two in a Row

Game 8: Mets 4 - Phillies 3 (12) What a game. Taught, well-played, well-pitched. John Maine still wasn't at his best, walking five batters while striking out only one, yet he limited the Phillies to only one run in 6+ innings of work. Feliciano came into the game in the...

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By Mike Steffanos, posted at 1:53 AM | | Comments (3)

April 10, 2008

Asterisk*

Last night's win was not the type of crisply played game that would instantly erase all doubts about the 2008 New York Mets. There were certainly plenty of things not to like about the 8-2 victory over their division rival. One local columnist even suggests an asterisk needs to be...

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By Mike Steffanos, posted at 3:55 PM | | Comments (5)

Reprieve

Game 7: Mets 8 - Phillies 2 I'd hardly call this win over the Phillies an unqualified artistic success, but there were good things in what was certainly a sanity win for Mets fans. The offense still left a little to be desired, but Mike Pelfrey pitched to the blueprint...

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By Mike Steffanos, posted at 1:58 AM | | Comments (6)

April 9, 2008

Mike Pelfrey 2008 Season Pitching Stats

Updated Sunday, May 11, 2008 Mike Pelfrey (2-3) DateOpp.IPRERHKBBHRERAWHIPTeam Result 4/9PHI52253203.601.40W 4/15WAS70054200.001.00W 4/20@PHI544102227.202.40L 4/25ATL5.15591418.442.44L April   (4 Games)22.1111129101034.431.752-2 DateOpp.IPRERHKBBHRERAWHIPTeam Result 5/3@ARI55591409.002.60L 5/10CIN62283103.001.50L May   (2 Games)1177174505.732.000-2 Season   (6 Games)33.1181846141534.861.832-4 Month By Month MonthStartsIP/StartH/9K/9BB/9HR/9ERAAVGOBPSLG April45.611.74.04.01.24.43.330.400.477 May25.513.93.34.10.05.73.378.440.444 Season65.612.43.84.10.84.86.346.413.466 About Mike: I was the original writer on this web site, actually its...

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By Mike Steffanos, posted at 11:57 PM |

Reality Check - 156 Games to Go

I'm not happy about the Mets start, particularly with the similarities between how they lost the last 3 games and how they played last September. I'm not immune from worries that what we saw back then might be what this club really is. My makeup as a Mets fan does...

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By Mike Steffanos, posted at 12:01 PM | | Comments (5)

April 8, 2008

(Still) Not Getting It Done

Game 6: Phillies 5 - Mets 2 Ugh. For the third consecutive game, the Mets were offensively inept and came up on the wrong side of the score. While I stick to my guns and refuse to panic, I don't think you could have scripted a worse early-season stretch for...

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By Mike Steffanos, posted at 7:47 PM | | Comments (10)

April 7, 2008

Evaluating Omar, Part 3

part 1 | part 2 | part 3 (this article) | conclusions In this, the third segment of our analysis of Omar Minaya's tenure as GM of the New York Mets, we'll take a look at the moves he has made since the collapse of last year's club. 2007-2008 Free...

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By Mike Steffanos, posted at 11:54 AM | | Comments (6)