Bill writes for CrashburnAlley.com.
Previewing Mets-Phillies with Bill Baer
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Category Archives: Mets
All things must pass
The Mets lost last night, as you probably know. This means, obviously, that the Nats somehow snuffed out the competitive fire ignited in the Amazins when Jose Reyes got mistakenly called out at third on Wednesday night. Jason Bay’s measured leadership failed to sustain the club through a series sweep, and the players all forgot R.A. Dickey’s motivational postgame interview from last week.
Or Livan Hernandez benefited from wide-seeming strike zone, Chris Capuano didn’t pitch all that well, Carlos Beltran misjudged a fly ball and the Nats took the game, one of 162 both teams will play this season.
Willie Harris struck out with the game on the line in the ninth. He now looks like a shell of the clutch offensive sparkplug that carried the Mets through the first week of the season. Actually, he now looks a hell of a lot like Willie Harris.
Oh and down in St. Lucie, Matt Harvey allowed the first four earned runs of his professional career. If they keep playing baseball long enough there’ll eventually be a pitcher that never allows a run, the whole monkeys-at-typewriters thing. But Matt Harvey is not that pitcher. He too is subject to the sport’s whims.
Everything in baseball returns to order eventually. Except Livan Hernandez; he’s magical.
Hear me say stuff
I joined everyone’s favourite Canadian baseball enthusiasts, the fellows from Drunk Jays Fans, on the season debut of the Getting Blanked podcast to talk Mets, Yankees and sandwiches. Check it out.
Twitter Q&A-type thing
Believe how? Believe they’re a playoff contender or believe they’re better than a 5-13 team?
I figured the Mets for 84 wins before the season and I’m sticking with that now. If anything, the awful start should serve as a reminder to everyone about the trappings of small sample sizes. Yes, they looked terrible. But teams playing terribly always look terrible, and plenty of teams better than this one have endured 5-13 stretches.
It got really frustrating when people started pulling out the 1962 Mets talk, suggesting — seriously — that this club could challenge that one for the all-time loss record. It’s like everyone forgot the Mets have David Wright and Jose Reyes, among others. And yeah, a handful of good players does not a great team make — we learned that under Omar Minaya — but look at how awful the 1962 Mets were. Every guy in the Mets’ current rotation would have been the ace of that team’s staff. They combined for an Omir Santosian 82 OPS+.
The Mets are not going to win every game for the rest of the season. There will be more bumps along the way. But they don’t have a bad club and they never did. It’s easy to be blinded by all the negativity coming from large portions of the media and fanbase, but the Mets have a deep and pretty good lineup that should score a lot of runs. I’m not optimistic about Johan Santana’s return, so unless Jenrry Mejia is ready to become a good big-league starter by the end of the season the pitching should be shaky all year. But again, not nearly as awful as it looked in the first couple of weeks.
Here’s the link, since you can’t click through from that image.
What does “Designated Kisser” even mean? Actually, wow, I have so many questions.
For example: A) Is this supposed to be, I don’t know, sexy? Does anyone think this is sexy? B) Do they make underwear with Mets logos and quasi-racy nonsensical slogans for dudes? Because if not, that’s just sexism brother.
Also, I struggle to figure out which is the front and which is the back of women’s underwear. You’d think the bigger side would be the ass side but it doesn’t always work that way. I don’t really want to write about women’s underwear anymore. This is all making me very uncomfortable.
I’m going to vote for Jermaine Copeland, receiver for the L.A. Xtreme.
The week before the XFL started, I saw a headline on ESPN.com that said, “Jermaine Copeland excited for the XFL season.” So, wondering who Jermaine Copeland was and why I should care about his feelings on the XFL season, I clicked through. This is how the article started:
“Jermaine Copeland is excited for the XFL season,” said Los Angeles Xtreme reciever Jermaine Copeland.
Still funny to me. I don’t know if that makes him hardcore, and there’s no way to guarantee that talking in the third person wasn’t written in to XFL contracts, but he’s basically the only XFL player I can remember besides He Hate Me and He Hate Me seemed too obvious an answer.
That one’s easy. Taco Bell is not Latino food. Taco Bell is Taco Bell.
I love Mexican food, but I never go get Taco Bell when I’m in the mood for Mexican food, just like I never get Wendy’s because I’m in the mood for a cheeseburger. I’ve never had actual Mexican food that tastes anything like Taco Bell, and most Mexican places I know don’t even have seasoned ground beef as an option.
And I know people lash out at fast food on principle because it’s corporate and it’s bad for us and all that. But Taco Bell is delicious, convenient and cheap. I don’t owe anybody anything; the burden is on every restaurateur who’s not Glen Bell to come up with something that’s a better value if they want to tear me away from my Cheesy Gordita Crunch.
Humber Humber
Mets flying high
Here are photos of airborne Mets in last night’s game, courtesy of the Associated Press:
And here’s Murph, just because:
About Murph: Plenty of people were killing him last night for the run the Nationals scored in the 8th inning. Jason Bay attempted a sliding catch on an Adam LaRoche pop-up but it bounced off the heel of his glove, then Murphy wasn’t quick to cover second and LaRoche advanced.
First off, let’s not forget that Bay is hardly a rangy left fielder and that many Major Leaguers would have made the play pretty easily and without sliding. I suppose it’s easier to blame Murphy for a mental error than Bay for lacking the physical ability to make the play, but it’s not as if it was guaranteed that LaRoche would have been out at second even if Murphy were hugging the bag from the beginning. Also, Murphy was not responsible for the passed ball that moved LaRoche to third, allowing pinch runner Brian Bixler to score on a sacrifice fly.
Anyway, point is Murph is crushing the ball. All players make errors and we’re going to pick out and pick on Murphy’s because we have it in our heads that he’s a bad defender and we know he’s playing a new position. But when he’s hitting like this, you have to tolerate the mishaps knowing that he’s still producing more runs at the plate than he’s costing the team in the field.
Six in a row, huh? Probably shouldn’t get ahead of ourselves, but at least this will quiet the 120-loss set.
Baseball Show asks the important questions
In which I ask three Mets to name their favorite sandwich, among other things:
Does Wilmer Flores suck now?
Toby Hyde investigates some recent doubt cast on the Mets’ top offensive prospect.
Twitter Q&A-style product
I spoke to Santana at Mets Fantasy Camp in February: He’s the White Sox’ director of scouting for the Dominican Republic, I believe. Nice dude.
Ray Knight is an on-air guy for MASN, as you may recall from his on-air awkwardness with the excruciating Rob Dibble.
The Wikipedia says Danny Heep has been the head baseball coach for the University of the Incarnate Word in Texas since 1998, in which time he has led the team to two conference championships. Rick Aguilera coaches at Santa Fe Christian High School in Rancho Santa Fe, California.
As for the rest of them? Well, SNY’s Mets on-air team is attempting to get every member of the 1986 club in the booth or on the phone at some point this season. Not sure how they’re going to pull that off with Lenny Dykstra, but I suppose he’s entitled to one phone call…
(That joke completely stolen from SNY.tv video producer Jeff.)
I haven’t. But I suppose this is as good a time as any to announce my intention to review every sandwich in Citi Field.
This is obviously a pretty big challenge, so I can’t commit to doing it all this season. If you add ’em all up, there are a ton of sandwiches available at the park and there’s only so many I’m willing to eat in one trip (specifically: one). Plus there are times I’m at the park when I’m working and too busy to stop at the concessions, and times when I’m just not that hungry. Also, I don’t really care for fish, so I might have to find someone (most likely my wife, if I can talk her into it) to fill me in on some of the options from Catch Of The Day.
Thus far I’ve only done the pulled pork and fried chicken sandwiches from Blue Smoke. I ate a Mama’s Special last week, so that’ll be reviewed sometime soon. Eventually I’d like to rank them all.
Of course, I normally like to actually do things instead of just saying I’m going to do things, and I haven’t really come with the Citi sandwiches yet. But I figure maybe announcing this goal will keep me working toward it.
So I’ll have the Keith burger eventually, is what I’m saying.
I mean obviously it depends on the sandwich. There are plenty of sandwiches that practically have to be hot: Burgers, hot dogs, chicken and veal parmigiana, cheesesteaks, most chicken-cutlet combinations.
But if you’re talking about a traditional deli sandwich, like, I don’t know, turkey with bacon, cheddar and mayo on a hero, I’ll take that cold actually. Because of the way some cheeses melt, hot versions of those sandwiches get pretty greasy and leave me feeling a little sick. I always objected to Quizno’s big ad campaign about how grilled sandwiches are necessarily better than ungrilled ones because it’s really a case-by-case thing.
One note: American cheese doesn’t get greasy when it melts because of an emulsifying salt invented by Joseph Kraft. That’s why you can make such a good grilled cheese so easily with American cheese. Judge me all you want: American cheese is rarely my go-to cheese choice, but I still think it’s delicious.
Even Lenny Dykstra trying to distance himself from Charlie Sheen
Lenny Dykstra’s lawyers are denying that Charlie Sheen bailed the former Phillie out of jail after his arrest for bankruptcy fraud. Dykstra is also being investigated for soliciting a naked massage from a woman applying to be his housekeeper, which is fishy to begin with because there’s just no way a man in such dire financial straits should be hiring a housekeeper. Via BTF.
Tedquarters 