New York Mets

From SB Nation’s Cubs Blog: “Matt Harvey is really, really good. Not just because of the “phenom” tag, but he reminds me a lot of Mark Prior. There’s no shame in losing a game to Matt Harvey. But there is in losing a series to one of the worst teams in the league… gotta win the next two so that doesn’t happen.” “The next Verlander – I hope he stays healthy” “Harvey may be in the process of having a season like Steve Carlton’s 1972 As the pitcher on a bad team that no one can beat. He’s 5-0. The rest of the team is 11-23″ “They lost today because they were facing the latest incarnation of Cy Young.” “We need the DH in the NL to keep these opposing pitchers from beating us with their bats.” “I bet the Cubs and Mets finish with about the same record. Some good young players, some veterans hanging on … I’ll still say the Cubs win around 75. I bet the Mets fall a few wins short of that (health of players’ permitting).” “If the Mets win 75, it will be because Harvey wins 20+” “That game just annoyed me to no end” From the Cubs MLB Forum: “I’m dying to see this Harvey kid also-been lights out so far!” “Pray that he stays healthy. He is a special pitcher.” “Jackson delivered a quality start. By definition, 6 plus innings and 3 earned runs or less. Bad base running and a bad missed catch in RF sabotaged the chance to win. Give Harvey credit. He’s a frontline pitcher.” “1-6 with 5.76 ERA. But what a great quality start!” “That’s worth $50 million?” “I agree, Jackson has been a total disaster.” “I live on Long Island and my wife is a Mets fan but I don’t watch them that often but I have watched a couple of Harvey’s starts this season. Brings back memories of a young Gooden.” “since barney is japanese/korean he hoped he could jump over buck” “Let’s be fair. Bell is not use to sending people on close plays.” “True, he’s just used to slapping hands as the hitter rounds third on his solo homer.” “At least lower a shoulder into the catcher. This team is soft” “This team has no guts.” “If Barney had charged Buck and bowled him over (even if out), he would have become a permanent Chicago legend. But, alas, it wasn’t to be…” “Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh” The post You Mad, Bro? (Chicago Cubs Edition) appeared first on The Daily Stache.

According to Adam Rubin of ESPN New York, the Mets are appealing to Major League Baseball to slice Matt Harvey‘s ERA from 1.55 to 1.41, which would be within one point of the major league lead shared Clayton Kershaw and Shelby Miller. Adam says that the thrust of the argument is that there should have been a straight error on Ruben Tejada‘s throw that bounced past Ike Davis and allowed Anthony Rizzo to score from second base in the first inning on Friday. There has been a lot of bad scoring for the Mets this offseason, and I’m not so sure if it’s wise to defend one instance of it like they are doing here. There will be plenty more bad scoring as the season wages on. This is baseball and it’s an imperfect game… I’m thinking that if the Mets are going to this now, then they should do it for every other player who is denied a hit or an RBI or whatever moving forward. With or without that earned run, Matt Harvey is still a great pitcher and everybody already knows it. Everything evens out in the end as the game is the great equalizer. This is a bad idea in my opinion… I bet Harvey, who is a team player, would say so too…

Starting Lineup Mike Baxter – RF Daniel Murphy – 2B David Wright – 3B Ike Davis – 1B Lucas Duda – LF John Buck – C Rick Ankiel – CF Ruben Tejada – SS Jeremy Hefner – RHP Game Notes Jeremy Hefner has posted a 3.33 ERA (10 earned runs/27.0 innings) over his last four starts, including three quality starts. Hefner has issued eight walks and struck out 19 during that span. Matt Harvey drove in the go-ahead run for in the seventh inning, breaking a 2-2 tie with an RBI single. Harvey is the first Mets starting pitcher to earn a win and drive in a go-ahead run in the seventh inning or later since Sid Fernandez on August 16, 1993 at Cincinnati. Harvey is 5-0 with a 1.55 ERA in nine starts. Only two other major league pitchers over the last 30 seasons remained undefeated through as many starts with as low an ERA: Kris Medlen last season (7-0, 0.86 ERA) and Pedro Martinez in 2001 (6-0, 1.52). Harvey is fifth in the majors with a 1.55 ERA and second in the N L with 68 strikeouts. He leads the majors with a 0.72 WHIP, a .149 opponents batting average against and 6.64 baserunners per nine innings. Bobby Parnell has three wins and three saves this month. Parnell has hurled 7.0 scoreless frames in May. He is tied for the major league lead among all relievers with four wins and is sixth in the NL with a 0.98 ERA (min. 16.0 innings). John Buck is fifth in the NL with 31 RBI. Buck’s 31 RBI lead all catchers. San Francisco’s Buster Posey is second with 24 RBI. He is also tied for the home run lead among catchers with 10 with Toronto’s J.P. Arencibia. His 10 home runs are tied for fourth in the National League. Game Preview The Mets now have won two games in a row and they are looking to do more this afternoon in Chicago as they play game two of this series. Yesterday the Mets got limited, but strong hits from David Wright and Daniel Murphy, good pitching from Matt Harvey and surprising defense from Byrd. Today Jeremy Hefner tries to keep it going against Scott Feldman. Jeremy Hefner is 0-4 this season over 41.0 innings of work with a 4.61 ERA. His last start was average, contract definition of quality, as he allowed 3 ER over 6 innings of work and in that game he allowed 5 hits, 4 walks and 2 strikeouts. Last year he pitched only 1.1 innings against the Cubs and they were quiet: no hits, no runs, no walks and one strikeout. The Cubs have the following numbers against Hefner: Schierholtz 1-4, 3B Edwin Jackson, 0-3 (Yes, I know he’s a pitcher and he went yesterday but whatever) Castro 0-1 DeJesus 0-1 Rizzo 0-1 Russel 0-1 Scott Feldman is 3-3 this season with a 2.53 ERA over 7 games and 42.2 innings of work. He has been fantastic in the month of May pitching 22.0 innings with a 1.23 ERA while walking 5 and striking out 21 batters. He has made one start in his career against the Mets where he picked up the loss after 5 innings with 8 hits, 7 runs, 6 earned. The Mets have the following numbers against Scott: Buck 3-13, 2 2B Wright 0-2 (It’s been a while since Feldman has faced the Mets) Lets Go Mets!

Discussions of demoting Ike Davis have intensified within the Mets organization says Adam Rubin of ESPNNewYork.com. Although the Mets slumping first baseman snapped his 0-for-24 streak yesterday, he may only have until the end of this weekend series in Chicago before the Amazin’s ship Ike off to Vegas. Rubin cites the use of Andrew Brown at first base Friday for the Las Vegas 51s–the first time this season–as a “telltale sign” a move might be coming soon. Brown was 3-for-15 in his short stint with the Mets before being sent down Monday with the acquisition of Rick Ankiel. Since Brown has to stay in the minors for 10 days before being recalled, he would not be able to be promoted until mid-next week. Rubin also lists Zach Lutz and Josh Satin as other potential first base candidates, however Satin is not on the 40-man roster and he believes the Mets would favor Brown for the job over Lutz. Davis is batting an ice cold .160/.245/.267 with 46 strikeouts and only four homers and nine RBIs in 131 at-bats. The time has come for Ike to be sent down. As Gary Cohen pointed out in yesterday’s broadcast, when Davis struggled last year, he at least had a decent RBI total and was able to be productive in other ways. Now he is entirely lost and is showing no signs of figuring things out at the major league level. I could see Justin Turner getting some time at first once Ike is sent down. Given that he has seen time all over the diamond this season and that he has one of the only consistent bats on the roster, they need to get him in the lineup somehow.

Way back in 1995, the Mets drafted the Brooklyn-born Nelson Figueroa just two weeks after his 21st birthday. Eighteen years, eleven organizations, and several trips around the baseball-playing world later, the well-traveled right-hander is still plugging away on this the occasion of his 39th birthday. Despite being inducted into the ranks of professional baseball by his hometown team, Figueroa didn't wind up pitching for the Mets until 2008. Ten years earlier, GM Steve Phillips set the hurler, then at Double-A Binghamton, on a peripatetic career path by sending him to Arizona in the Bernard Gilkey-Willie Blair trade. Two seasons after that deal, the Diamondbacks shipped him back east, albeit 110 miles shy of the five boroughs, as part of the haul offered to the Phillies for Curt Schilling. Given the chance to crack Philadelphia's rotation, Figueroa was a smidgeon better than replacement level and the two sides parted ways after 13 starts. The next six years saw Figueroa take the mound for the home team in the following cities: Milwaukee, Indianapolis, Nashville, Pittsburgh, New Orleans, Islip, Chihuahua, Tainan City (where he anchored the staff of the Uni-President Lions, champions of the Chinese Professional Baseball League), Ciudad de Hermosillo, and finally, Santiago de los Caballeros, which any geography buff can tell you is the second-largest municipality in the Dominican Republic. A strong showing during the 2008 Caribbean Series caught the attention of Mets scouts, who offered Figueroa a chance to return to the states and the franchise that drafted him. Within two months time, he added Flushing to the ever-expanding list of cities by pitching New York to a 4-2 victory over the Nationals on April 11. Figueroa went on to make 15 more starts as a Met, saving the best for last. On the final day of the 2009 season, he tossed the first shutout by a Mets pitcher at Citi Field, blanking the Astros by an 8-0 score. Not a bad for a literal journeyman pitcher. Game of NoteAccording to Baseball Reference, the 1980 Mets converted just 69.2 percent of batted balls into outs, making them the second-worst fielding team in the National League by defensive efficiency. On May 18, though, the team took advantage of two errors by the normally sure-handed second baseman Jerry Royster to turn a 1-0 ninth inning deficit versus the Braves into a 2-1 victory. Royster misplayed a pair of grounders, each of which allowed a runner from second to scamper home with a run of the unearned variety. Mets reliever Neil Allen pitched a clean bottom of the ninth and the visiting New Yorkers escaped Atlanta with a doubleheader split. Amazin'-ly Tenuous ConnectionThe United Nations moved from is temporary residence in Lake Success, New York to its landmarked Le Corbusier/Oscar Neimeyer-designed Manhattan complex on this date in 1951. Before decamping to Lake Success, the UN called Flushing Meadows Park home. Robert Moses, New York's powerful urban planner, was instrumental in convincing the organization to headquarter in the five boroughs rather than Philadelphia, but was less persuasive when it came to keeping it based in his signature park. The UN's loss was Mets' gain a decade later, though, as it freed up real estate for the fledgling franchise's first permanent home field.

Meet the Mets Matt Harvey gave up two early runs and then shut down the Cubs over the next 6.1 innings, as the Mets beat the Cubs yesterday 3-2. Harvey helped himself out as he broke a 2-2 tie with a run scoring single. For good measure, David Wright and Daniel Murphy hit home runs. Marlon Byrd also made an impressive throw to cut down Darwin Barney at the plate in the 8th inning, keeping the Mets' lead intact. Choose Your Recap: Amazin' Avenue Short, MLB.com, ESPN NY, Daily News, New York Times, Associated Press, Star-Ledger, NY Post, Newsday Game two against the Cubs takes place this afternoon at 1:05 PM, as Jeremy Hefner matches up against former Rangers righty Scott Feldman. Adam Rubin reports that the Ike Davis to Las Vegas talk is starting to grow louder in the Mets' organization and there's a chance it may happen as soon as the end of this series in Chicago. In top prospect injury news, Zack Wheeler was placed on the 7-day DL. But don't fear – the move was backdated to his last start and he's scheduled to pitch for Vegas on Wednesday. He even resumed throwing yesterday. Travis d'Arnaud, meanwhile, will be in a boot for two more weeks without any weight-bearing activity in his return from a foot injury. Matt Harvey took a page out of the Tom Seaver book, says Greg Prince at Faith and Fear in Flushing. Yesterday At AA The newest episode of Amazin' Avenue Audio is out, so go ahead and listen to it now. Matthew Callan writes that Jordany Valdespin must be worse than everybody, ever. Greg Karam has yesterday's Daily Farm Report, in which Noah Syndergaard and Rainy Lara strike out everybody (well, almost everybody). Brock Mahan looks back at Steve Trachsel and Mike Pelfrey starts from previous May 17s in Mets History. Around the NL East Paul Goldschmidt dominated Kevin Slowey and the Marlins, as the Diamondbacks defeated the Fish 9-2. Miami also designated former Mets reliever Jon Rauch for assignment. After blowing a lead in the 9th inning, Chad Tracy hit a home run to put the Nationals ahead of the Padres for good by a score of 6-5. Justin Upton hit a grand slam and Jason Heyward made his return from the DL, as the Braves beat the Dodgers 8-5 last night. Finally, the Phillies beat the Reds 5-3. Around the Majors Oh, Astros. Houston lost to the Pirates last night in ugly fashion (the animated GIF inside explains it all). Jose Reyes could be back for the Blue Jays by late June if all goes well. At Bucs Dugout, Pirates' manager Clint Hurdle discussed how the team uses pitcher/batter matchups and other stats in their daily preparation. It's cool to see that Hurdle is open-minded to the numbers. A pair of Orioles minor leaguers are learning the knuckleball at Double-A. Ken Woolums of Beyond The Box Score begins to look into where the next MLB city could be if a team has to move in the future.

Last time I did this I said Ike Davis & Lucas Duda were going in opposite directions due to Ike getting off to a nice start in May hitting .300/BA over the 1st 7 days of the month. I guess Ike must of decided to keep Duda company cause over the last 7 games he is now hitting (and I use the term loosely) .038/BA. View in separate Web Page

The Juice returns for season No. 6! It’s almost eligible for free-agency! Stop by daily for news from the action, along with great photos, stats, video highlights and more. With their desired lineup intact for the first time in 40 games, the Atlanta Braves offense turned it up a notch in their 8-5 win over the Los Angeles Dodgers. Jason Heyward, who just returned from the disabled list on Thursday after undergoing an emergency appendectomy in Colorado last month, reached base three times to help set the table. Justin Upton then cleared it in the sixth, cracking his third career grand slam off Paco Rodriguez. ”As soon as he took that swing, I knew that ball was going to be out of the ballpark,” said Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez. ”That was one of the prettiest swings I’ve seen put on a baseball.’ After traveling an estimated 461 feet, we’re sure the baseball agreed with Gonzalez’s assessment. It was Upton’s tenth homer — out of 14 — to travel over 420 feet this season. He’s averaging 427 feet on all of his home runs, which is the most for any players with more than five. Just awesome, game-changing power. As we’re about to learn, though, the Diamondbacks aren’t exactly lacking that type of player despite trading Upton during the offseason. But boy how nice would it be to have two of them? Good as Goldy : How about the start for Arizona Diamondbacks first baseman Paul Goldschmidt? After going 4 for 5 with two more home runs and 4 RBIs in the D-Backs 9-2 win over the Marlins on Friday night, the 25-year-old slugger is up to .338 on the season with 12 big flys and 35 driven in. Only Upton has more homers in the National League with his 14. Goldschmidt is also second in RBIs to Brandon Phillips. An all-star bid seems more likely with each passing day. Hiroki Special: For the fifth time since the beginning of the 2012 season, Hiroki Kuroda gave the New York Yankees eight plus innings of scoreless baseball. Only Felix Hernandez has more during that time with eight. Kuroda didn’t have much room for error on this night as Mark Buehrle nearly matched him through six innings. New York did manage single runs in the first and fifth, and then finally broke it open with a three spot in the seventh to lock up their 5-0 win. Rosales strikes again! And this time… it counts! After hitting a game-tying home in Cleveland last week that was incorrectly ruled (despite a review) a double, Adam Rosales left no doubt on Friday. His eighth inning solo home run was the difference in Oakland’s 2-1 victory over James Shield and the Royals. ”I think I was pretty sure about that one,” Rosales said with an ear-to-ear grin. ”It felt good to get over that hump. Every ballfield I went to, they all were saying, ‘Oh, it was a homer,’ or you talk to family and friends and like, ‘Yeah, it was a homer.’ So, now they’ll be talking about something else. They’ll talk about a real homer.” And more importantly, a real win. MORE SCORES Mets 3, Cubs 2: Matt Harvey gets the win on the hill and the game-winning RBI at the plate. He’s already 5-0. Phillies 5, Reds 3: Philly gets two in the eighth after bullpen blows lead for Cliff Lee. Pirates 5, Astros 4: The Astros lose in the most Astros way possible . Indians 6, Mariners 3 (10 inn.): Three-run, walk-off home run by Jason Kipnis sends Indians fans home happy. Your browser does not support iframes. Rays 12, Orioles 10: Camouflaged Rays strike early and often, then hold on as O’s rally for six runs in eighth. Red Sox 3, Twins 2 (10 inn.): Boston steals another game late on the road. Jonny Gomes’ sac fly in the tenth is the difference. Tigers 2, Rangers 1: The pitching duel scheduled for Thursday arrived one day late. Cardinals 7, Brewers 6: David Freese’s long-awaited first home run in 2013 was a grand slam. That helped St. Louis overcome tw

If Shakespeare were to write a play about the state of the Mets these days, it would probably be titled “Much Ado About Valdespin” as that’s about all anyone has to talk about outside of the largely dismal performance of the team between the lines. Inasmuch as the role young number 1 plays on the team is largely limited to that of utility player/pinch hitter, I wonder if the fuss being kicked up over his various perceived misbehaviors is not out of proportion to the relative importance he has to the team. Not that he is without talent-we all are tantalized by his speed, occasional power, and penchant for heroics, but the holes in his game are gaping enough to justify only judicious use of his presence in the lineup. Add in to this equation the somewhat larger-than-life aspects of his personality and you have a recipe for clubhouse controversy as testified to by the recent statement by seasoned veteran LaTroy Hawkins. So, just how important is the ingredient of clubhouse chemistry to the relative success of a team? My feeling is that the degree of significance is in opposite proportion to the on-field success of the player involved. One former Met whose flinty personality rubbed people the wrong way everywhere he played was Jeff Kent, yet his undeniable offensive prowess (in more ways than one, I guess) led to a HOF-caliber career which included several seasons in the same lineup as Barry Bonds, no paragon of social niceties himself. In retrospect, the Mets trade of Kent for Carlos Baerga was a total clunker as Kent’s level of production exploded to All-Star level just as Baerga’s went into the tank. But at the time, Baerga was an All-Star who was younger than Kent and who carried none of the baggage associated with Kent, whose primary offense in a Met uniform was refusing to participate in a rookie ritual that involved wearing a ridiculous outfit for a team trip. Team management saw the opportunity to swap a player they saw as having a somewhat negative effect on team harmony for a proven performer and they went for it. History has shown this to be one in a litany of bad trades that Met fans would just as soon forget, but you can’t argue with the logic at the time.  Add to this the fact that Indians management saw nothing wrong with spinning Kent off in the trade that landed him in San Francisco (where stardom followed) and you can’t really jump on poor Joe McIvaine’s case too hard. Once in Giant livery, Kent reeled off a string of tremendous seasons that culminated in arguably one of the greatest careers of any second baseman in MLB history. But he was still regarded as a major-league prick. I guess most teams would have put up with that aspect of his game as long as the rest of it was intact. Another interesting chapter in the DSM of Metdom involved one Randall K. Myers and wunderkind batsman Gregg Jefferies. Jefferies, as you undoubtedly recall, was perhaps the most heralded Mets hitting prospect ever outside of Darryl Strawberry. Fans were regaled with tales of his incredible switch-hitting talents, honed through a variety of batting drills such as the semi-weird “swinging underwater in a pool” routine that the sports press of the time delighted in recounting. Upon his arrival, young Gregg looked to be the real thing, ripping off an impressive month at the end of the 1988 season and challenging the team to find a way to fit him into the same infield as Howard Johnson, the incumbent at Jefferies preferred position of third base. After shifting the rookie across the diamond to second, the team received satisfactory offensive performance from him over the next two seasons, including a league leading 40 doubles in 1990. But prior to that campaign, the team had seen fit to trade Myers, a fireballing lefty reliever, to the Reds for his veteran counterpart and future Mets Hall-of-Famer John Franco. Not a terrible swap in retrospect, but at the time many wondered why the Mets would exchange a talent of Myers’ ilk for a player two

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