Archive for the ‘Greg Barra’ Category

Carlos Delgado needs to get back as soon as possible, but he cannot rush and get re-injured.

BY GREG BARRA
STACHE WRITER

The Mets have not played well at all on the road this season 11-14 overall away from Citi Field. However, this should really be taken seriously because during their most recent road trip when they traveled to the West Coast then back to Boston is when the Mets started dropping like flies. And still, during these last two losses they have not been healthy and probably won’t be until next weekend.

Carlos Beltran will hopefully be back in action this weekend after he gets over this bug that he has. As for Jose Reyes, he’s supposed to come back this weekend as well but we don’t really know for how long. Calf injuries are tough to judge because they are known to frequently act up for quite some time after the initial injury. Hopefully when these two players return to the line the Mets will get back to their consistent winning ways.

For the Mets what really is going to tip the scale to a successful season on the road and at their new home is the return of Carlos Delgado. What’s interesting is that Delgado is still within the top 4 in homers and RBI after being out for almost a month. It’s alarming that Delgado still has more long balls then David Wright whose power struggle this year is hurting the Mets big time.

Injuries are a part of the game and everyone goes through them. Hopefully the Mets can maintain a decent record until their big guns return.

Livan gave the Mets' bullpen a well deserved night off.

BY GREG BARRA
STACHE WRITER

It was my first trip to Citi Field and it lived up to the hype. It’s an absolutely beautiful venue which I marveled at for quite some time as I walked through the Jackie Robinson rotunda. I was up where the true fans sit and it was a great view up the game.

What was even better was looking up at the lineup card and seeing who was playing. I turned to my friend and sister who I went to the game with and asked if we accidentally went to the Mets Triple-A game.

Livan Hernandez was on the mound and he was fantasic. Hernandez was mowing down the Nationals and when men were on base Livan got excellent defensive help with three double plays turned and one outfield assist.

My most memorable moment of the game for Livan was when he made Josh Willingham look ridiculous with his bugs bunny 63-MPH curve. It was the first complete game by a Met this season and Livan has earned his spot on the team for the duration of the season.

If you disregard his five run outing against the Giants two starts ago, Livan has now given up eight earned runs in 33 2/3 innings.

I was also able to watch Fernando Martinez’s Major League debut. He looked over eager at the plate which is to be expected in your MLB debut. Although what I was able to see was his speed in the outfield and his arm. From what I saw his arm is very strong. It will be interesting to see how he does in the next week or so.

Carlos Beltran decided he was too good to slide, and he was thrown out at the plate.

BY GREG BARRA
STACHE WRITER

The season is still very young and there really is really no need to panic at all. The Mets have blown three games when they have lead by at least three runs. That’s not a good stat to have early in the season, but there are some positives.

One that really sticks out to me is that the New York Mets have not been blown out of any games thus far this season. Every game they could have come up in the win column but just didn’t have it all clicking. Some games the pitching is doing fantastic and the Mets can hit the baseball even if they had a barnyard door. Or there are games when they are getting the hits but the pitchers can’t find the zone. Once these two come together the Mets are going to be a tough team to beat.

Second positive is the Mets have seven starters hitting above .300 and one Luis Castillo at .400 (who’d a thought right?). So that
brings the first point out even more.

Third positive is the fact that the Mets have Johan Santana and he currently has a 0.47 ERA.

Although one thing that really bothers me in the early going are the amount of errors the Mets have committed through twelve games. Through the twelve games, they have committed 8 errors, which cannot continue if they want to be a championship contender.

I believe that these the starting pitching will settle down and that the Mets will make the big hits when it counts. We just haven’t seen it yet, so down get frustrated yet Met fans. We got a long, long way to go.

Beltran's big RBI single got things going.

BY: GREG BARRA
STACHE WRITER

It wasn’t pretty how the Mets scored most of their runs tonight but hey, it got them the big W. We saw the Mr. Hyde in Oliver Perez tonight which was nice to see after his first Dr. Jackal performance against the Reds. We also saw Gary Sheffield get his first start in right field for Ryan Church and Gary wasn’t that sharp at the plate but he looked decent in the field.

However, there is one thing that is really bothering me early in this 2009 season. It’s the amount of strikeouts that David Wright has thus far. He went down twice tonight on strikes and that’s 11 strikeouts in only 8 games. It’s a bit worry some to watch your best hitter go down on strikes that many times. Even with all these punch outs Wright is still hitting .323 with 1 homer and 4 rbi’s.

Another thing that is really getting under my skin is the amount of double plays Brian Schneider has hit into. It seems as if every time he’s up with a man on, you can count on a double play. It’s like clockwork. These things will clear up (I hope) but for now it’s a nice win and boy do I love hearing Takin’ Care of Business once again.

Oh, and for everyone who was wondering the Mets are now a half game back of those fighting Phils.

Jose Reyes flied out to end the first game in Citi Field's history.

BY: GREG BARRA
STACHE WRITER

As a Met fan I know how frustrating it is to watch this team lose to the San Diego Padres. A team who lost 99 games last year. The Mets have been known to play down to the level of the team they play but they cannot do this if they plan on bringing a championship home to Flushing. However, even though it’s tough to see them drop the first game in their new home there are many, many, games to yet to be played. Many teams go through stretches of 3 wins and 4 losses. Let it be early in the season rather than in September when the Mets have gone through terrible streaks.

One thing I’ve noticed through the first 7 games has been the fact that the Mets have been called for 3 balks already! I don’t know if I’ve seen three balks in my life before this season. That’s a little off topic but to get back on topic there is no need to worry about a 3-4 record at this point in the season. They haven’t played all that bad, but the starting pitching need to be straightened up if they want to be successful this season. I’m always mad after a loss but it’s very early in the season. 7 down 155 to go, we have a lot of season left boys.

Oh and the unfortunately the Phillies have hopped the Mets in the standings. Upsetting.

Daniel Murphy hit safely in each of the first three games.

BY: GREG BARRA
STACHE WRITER

Well they weren’t going to go 162-0, but we can take a few things from the end of the first series. First thing is that the starting pitching needs a little boost. I’m not really worried about either Pelfrey or Oliver because I think the nerves got the better of them for the most part. Each pitcher showed shades of brilliance within their poor outings. And Johan is Johan. We expect a W every time he take the mound.

Second thing we can take from the first series is the bullpen is actually good. Granted yesterday was shaky at times and Darren O’Day let up two huge runs in the fifth but other than that they’ve done quite well. I am excited to watch the bullpen lock down games all season long. Speaking of the bullpen, did you see Brian Stokes? He really impressed everyone with his outing today.

Third, the meat of the Mets lineup batters 1-6 and really hit. Carlos Beltran and Carlos Delgado have gotten out to a pretty good start and that’s a great thing for Met fans to see. In the past these two have gotten off to a show start this can really help the Mets explode off the blocks. These two along with Jose, Murphy, Wright, and Church are all on the right track.

Even though the Mets didn’t get a great showing from Oliver Perez they showed great poise to keep chipping away at the Reds four run lead and the bullpen kept the game in reach. Now they head to Florida to face the powerful and young Marlins, this is going to be a true test for the Mets. Thankfully Mike Pelfrey will not be pitching against the Marlins because he cannot beat the Marlins to save his life. It was a good first series all and all and most importantly they’re still a game up on the Phillies.

K-Rod was instrumental in tonight's victory.

GREG BARRA
STACHE WRITER

Tonight game showed me a lot about the 2009 New York Mets team. They were up early on a moon shot like home run off the bat of Carlos Delgado but then fell behind in the bottom half of the inning. Mike Pelfrey was shaky in his first start of the season but the Mets were able to battle back. This is something that was unlikely to occur in 2008.

When the Mets went down I didn’t have much confidence that they would have the power to bring the game back. What really helped with the comeback was their ability to counter on mistakes made by their opponents. In the fifth inning the Mets took advantage of a botched double play. Another thing that was rarely seen in years past was the ability for the Mets to bring the hammer down and lock up a game.

The four runs in the seventh really helped put the game on ice. It gave room for the bullpen, who was asked to carry the load after Pelfrey’s short outing, to breathe and be able to make some mistakes. K-Rod was not helped in the ninth by an interesting call by Bill Welke. Welke called Edwin Encarnacion safe because Delgado pulled his off the bag throwing to third. K-Rod struggled a little bit but had enough to finish it out. Mets we’re able to put a good win together which is a huge because now they are 1 ½ games up on the Phillies.

This was the last Mets team to win it all. Sports Illustrated believes the drought will end in 2009.

BY GREG BARRA
STACHE WRITER

The 2009 New York Mets have a lot to live up to this year. The past two years have placed a great deal of pressure on each and every player who steps between those white lines. If the last two collapses weren’t enough incentives to win, Jimmy Rollins added fuel to the fire with his little poke at the Metropolitans during the Phillies World Series parade.

However, as we all know by now the New York Mets are predicted to finally win it all according to Sports Illustrated which is said to be one of the biggest jinxes in sports. Sports Illustrated isn’t alone with their prediction of the Mets winning the series, many experts on ESPN also agree the Mets are the team to beat.

However, I’m not the biggest fan of all the hype. Of course I want the Mets to be the last team standing at the end but those predictions are almost never right. I’d rather be the team lurking around the bend ready to take people down. I guess when you play in New York you can never really come out of the shadows but I feel that would be better.

The Mets and many others have high hopes for the 2009 season but once again only time will tell whether this team really has what it takes to win the big games. Yesterday’s 2-1 win gave me a little more hope because of the dominance of the bullpen. Well I guess the New York Mets have 161 more games to give me more hope for a great season.

Church Stranded two runners when he had a chance to add insurance runs in the fifth.

BY GREG BARRA
STACHE WRITER

It was the usual feelings during today’s game that I felt ever since I watched my first game in the early 1990’s. The feelings of excitement and horror if you will were all present in today’s 2-1 victory. Johan Santana looked brilliant for the first five innings of the game but the sixth inning gave him some trouble. Just as I thought Johan was going to face Edwin Encarnacion are hopefully get out of the inning and have the Mets take their two run lead into the seventh, but no Jerry pulls the ace and brings in Sean Green? This is where the horror set in.

The bullpen was being asked to hold a one run lead for 3 1/3 innings and I didn’t have much faith in them after last year’s performance. Sean Green went on to complete an outing of 1 1/3 innings of great baseball including a 1, 2, 3 seventh. Then it was time for former Seattle Mariner J.J. Putz to lock down the eight. He began the inning by getting Jerry Hairston Jr. to fly out but followed that by walking Chris Dickerson. With that I said to myself “with that I thought here we go again”. However, J.J. was able to prove me wrong by striking out Joey Votto and getting Brandon Phillips to ground out to Jose. Now it was time for Francisco Rodriguez to shine.

I had really never seen K-Rod at work but I’m very impressed after watching him sit down the Reds in order without any trouble at all. His breaking pitches were sharp and his fastball on point. After game one I’d say the 30 million was well invested. The Mets bullpen seems to be in good shape after 3 and 1/3 innings of scoreless ball.

Even though the bullpen seems to be alright the Mets are leaving way to many men on base. They left twelve men on and the Mets were 1-10 with men in scoring position. Something they must fix if they want to go far into the playoffs. With that said they still came up with the 2-1 victory and have a 1 game lead over those Fighting Phils.

Aaron Heilman will never be forgiven for giving up Yadier Molina's homer in the 2006 NLCS.

BY GREG BARRA
STACHE WRITER

This entire blog is just about my excitement for this upcoming 2009 season for the New York Mets. They enter the first year of their new stadium, Citi Field (wait is it still Citi Field, I thought Citi Bank went bankrupt?), on a two year streak of collapsing in late September.

If there is one cure for a bad end to a season, it’s the start of a new one. When the season ended last year at the hands of the Marlins, again, I couldn’t wait to see what Omar and Jerry would cook up to improve the team. And if these two gentlemen didn’t make any moves going into the 2009 season, I would have boycotted the Mets. Well, that’s not true but you understand where I’m coming from. They ended up making me a happy fan when they picked up K-Rod and J.J. Putz but the most important move they made was getting rid of Scott Schoenweis.

Schoenweis really wasn’t that bad throughout the season but man when the calendar flipped to September he found a way to blow every game possible. The only pitcher I’ve known of that did this better the Schoenweis was Aaron Heilman.

Heilman was terrible all season and who can forget his antics in game 7 of the NLCS. I’m still bitter. Omar and Jerry came to their senses and gave both of these guys the steel toed boot. Speaking of game 7 of the NLCS the hero of that game on the Mets side, Endy Chavez, also got shown the door out of town. That’s upsetting because in Flushing, Endy Chavez was a folk hero. So, 2009 seems to be a fresh start for the New York Metropolitans and I can’t wait to finally see them in action but if they end up collapsing again I will be beside myself.

The Mets need to get their “Mojo” back from the fighting Phils, who have seemed to have stolen it all after the second collapse. Only time will tell whether 2009 will be a repeat of the last two years or maybe the Mets will bask in the glory of going deep into the playoff like in 2006. Only time will tell.