| 22 May 2009
With the New York Mets (not Yankees) in town, I thought it prudent that we give you the skinny on the other team from the Big Apple... Her rea some quick factoids:
The Mets are 21-19 and 1.5 games behind the Phillies in the NL East. They're 4-6 in their last 10 and have lost their last 4 games... Interestingly, during these four games (1 vs SF and 3 vs LAD) only 13 total runs were scored - 6 by the Mets.
Tonight's starter Johan Santana is 5-2 with a ridiculous 1.36 ERA and 67 strikeouts. In eight starts this season, Santana has blanked the opposing team 4 times and held them to 2 runs or less 7 times. He is however coming off of his worst start of the year, in which he allowed 6 runs (4 earned) though 7 innings.
Sanatana is 4-4 with a 3.40 ERA against Boston, but just 1-3 with a 6.89 ERAat Fenway.
Note: Ellsbury is riding a 17-game hitting streak, but he has struggled against lefties
The Mets will also be throwing Mike Pelfrey and Tim Redding at us this weekend. Pelfrey is 4-1 with a 4.61 ERA. He's not a strikeout guys and he had trouble with walks early in the season, but he's got a 3.55 ERA in May despite watching opponents hit .291 against him overall this year. Sunday will be Redding's second start of the season after recovering from a rotator cuff injury. In his last start he held the Dodgers to 2 hits and 2 runs through 6 innings... but I wouldn't get to concerned... just look.
The bullpen is anchored by K-Rod and his 11 saves and unlike last season, the Mets have a nice group of arms in the to bridge the gap. JJ Putz has struggled and might be the weak link, but Pedro Feliciano, Bobby Parnell and Brian Stokes have all been sharp. If the games are close, it will be fun to see who has the better bullpen...
Offensively, the Mets are second in the majors with a .287 BA, but 195 runs scored puts them in the middle of the pack and makes you wonder if they've set some kind of record for useless singles in one season.
The usual guys lead the offense: Carlos Beltran, Jose Reyes and David Wright... Beltran is hitting .370 and Wright at .362 but Reyes has been simply average so far this season at .279 with 11 steals and 18 runs scored and Yahoo! thinks he could miss some or all of this series:
New York will likely be without Jose Reyes for a sixth time in seven games due to tendinitis in his right calf. The shortstop aggravated the injury running out a ground ball in the third inning Wednesday, and was removed from the contest.
1B Carlos Delgado was the other big gun, but he just landed on the DL, so the Mets will be looking for some production from Gary Sheffield, Fernando Tatis and Daniel Murphy.
Alex Cora will be returning to Boston, but he's currently on the DL with a torn thumb ligamnet and may need surgery... there's a good chance he won't be at Fenway this weekend.
Delgado is also on the DL, but David Ortiz said the Delgado was one of many fellow players that called him during his recent slump... It will be interesting to see if Delgado brings out the best in Big Papi now that the homerless streak is behind him.
Bottom Line: The Mets are good, but the offense runs on three guys. Matsuzaka is a question mark and will have top bring his A++ game to beat Sanatan, but Beckett and Wake should be able to beat Pelfrey and Redding.
We can't sweep every series... right?
Photo: Yahoo! Sports
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