Too silly not to share. Huge hat tip to James K. Skip to the 1:15 part:
Tom Brady overcome with emotion at the thought of having to go through life as merely a ridiculously handsome insurance salesman
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Exit Blaine Boyer
My Friday suspicions were confirmed Sunday evening: The Mets called up Jason Isringhausen and Ryota Igarashi, designating Blaine Boyer for assignment and optioning Lucas Duda to Triple-A.
The move came on the heels of a brutal extra-inning loss to the Nationals in which Boyer allowed four runs in the 11th, his second inning of work. Boyer got off to a pretty terrible start, reminding everyone of the value of Spring Training stats. To his credit, though, he pitched in more than half of the Mets’ games — rarely a good recipe.
Actually, D.J. Carrasco, Tim Byrdak, Taylor Buchholz and Boyer have all pitched in five games so far, which, probably more than Boyer’s ineffectiveness, prompted the roster shakeup. Isringhausen and Igarashi provide fresh arms when the team desperately needs them.
Isringhausen we expected, since he was in extended Spring Training waiting on just this occasion. Igarashi might come as a bit of surprise, but Manny Acosta can’t be recalled within 10 days of being designated for assignment, plus he hasn’t pitched in a week. I imagine, unless an injury arises or someone else pitches terribly, Igarashi will be the one to go whenever Jason Bay returns, if not sooner.
As for that: The Mets could use Bay right about now, with Brad Emaus and Angel Pagan struggling a bit and Willie Harris apparently returning to being Willie Harris. But it’s way, way, way too early to be concerned about Pagan, especially since he’s maintaining a .310 on-base percentage despite his .171 batting average.
Bay’s return would move Harris back to a more familiar bench role where the Mets could use him. Duda, Scott Hairston, Daniel Murphy, Chin-Lung Hu and Mike Nickeas have combined for a putrid .136/.212/.169 line in the team’s first nine games. That’s unlikely to continue, especially once Ronny Paulino replaces Nickeas.
Ah yes, a bad bench and a bad bullpen. It’s like 2008, except it’s still really early in the season and the Mets’ front office appears conscious of the team’s weaknesses.
One other thing: At least one person that is actually paid to analyze baseball criticized Terry Collins for pulling Chris Young after 108 pitches yesterday. That’s silly. I’m plenty skeptical about the value of strict pitch-count limits, but it’s April and Young is coming off three straight seasons shortened by injury. Yes, Young was pitching really well yesterday and perhaps would have continued doing so into the eighth inning and secured a win. But jeopardizing his health means risking wins down the road. You need to have a bullpen you can trust to hold the Nationals off for two innings. That’s the issue here, not the pitch count.
Sandwich of the Week
People I respect have been recommending Cherry Valley Deli in Whitestone since I started writing about sandwiches. Hell, before that — when I was just a guy who likes sandwiches, not a guy who likes sandwiches and also reviews them. Mets-fan Pete from my weekly baseball game was the first to tip me off, I believe. Countless others have followed.
The sandwich: The Corona from Cherry Valley Deli, 150th St. in Whitestone, Queens.
The construction: Chicken cutlet with cheddar cheese, bacon, onion rings and barbecue sauce on a garlic roll.
Important background information: There are so many tempting options on the Cherry Valley menu that as soon as you order, you notice something else that sounds even better than what you told the guy you wanted and become overwhelmed with sandwich regret. Most of them — or at least most of the really awesome-sounding ones — are some meat with bacon, some cheese, some sauce and some bonus fried thing, generally either onion rings or french fries. I prefer french fries to onion rings and waffle fries — another option — to most traditional french fries, but I didn’t immediately see any sandwich with a bunch of ingredients I knew I wanted that had waffle fries on it.
So I went with the Corona, in part because I panicked, in part because it was among the sandwiches recommended to me by multiple people.
What it looks like:
How it tastes: Honestly? Underwhelming.
Look: Any sandwich with fried chicken, bacon and cheddar cheese on it has a pretty high floor, but the Corona — at least this particular Corona — wasn’t far above it. For one thing, when I hear “garlic bread” I assume that means loaded with butter and toasted with strong garlic flavor. I’m pretty sure they forgot to do any of that to my roll, and since it was about 9 p.m. and they presumably had the rolls delivered in the morning, it was reasonably stale by the time I got to eat it.
Second, nothing on this sandwich except maybe the bacon was even warm. Look at the cheese in the picture above. What do you notice about that cheese? It’s not melted. I don’t expect a deli to necessarily melt the cheese on top of the chicken cutlet, but I would hope the chicken would be warm enough to melt at least some of the cheese by the time I got it back to my car and unwrapped it. Wasn’t the case. Perhaps I’m missing the point and this sandwich isn’t intended to be served hot, but the aluminum foil certainly implies otherwise.
The onion ring was there, but I was hoping it’d give me something extra crispy on the sandwich, and no dice. I’m pretty sure it only made the whole thing saltier, and the whole thing was pretty salty to begin with. The barbecue sauce — perhaps KC Masterpiece — was unevenly applied, and sweet enough to be nearly cloying on the end of the sandwich where it was heaviest. The best I can say is that the chicken wasn’t dry, as some deli chicken cutlets can be.
Don’t get me wrong: Still enjoyable. It had bacon and chicken and cheddar cheese, like I said. But given the amount of hype I’d heard about this place, I was almost amazed by how pedestrian the sandwich was.
Is Cherry Valley Deli resting on old laurels, or did I just get the wrong sandwich-maker on the wrong day? Was there a bad taste lingering in my mouth from the Mets’ woeful home opener?
Herein lies the unspoken, inherent flaw with my Sandwich of the Week reviews: Sample size. I judge a sandwich’s merit off only one tasting. It’s like drawing conclusions from one week — or one game — of a baseball season. I hate when people do that with baseball, and yet I do it all the damn time with sandwiches. Certainly you’d hope that sandwich purveyors strive for some sort of consistency, but baseball players do too, and we see how often they actually achieve that.
Still, I’m too far along now to roll back on this system. I will probably give Cherry Valley another shot based on the number of recommendations and its proximity to Citi Field — about a 10 minute drive. It’s open late, too, which could come in handy after some night games.
What it’s worth: Six bucks plus tax. Pretty reasonable.
How it rates: 70 out of 100. Tempted to go lower when I consider the magnificently constructed Fed Ex. I’m not done with this place though, so perhaps there are sunnier ratings to come.
A liability
Awesome read from Slate on how the press treated the greatest baseball player of all time because of a 17 at-bat rough stretch.
Well that stunk
The only thing I really want to remember from this afternoon’s game is Angel Pagan’s running over-the-shoulder catch way out in right center by the 415 mark and his turning, falling throw into the cutoff man to double up the unsuspecting baserunner. Carlos Beltran and David Wright hit doubles that were pretty cool too.
As for the rest of it: Meh.
R.A. Dickey split the nail on the index finger of his pitching hand in the first inning, right before he struck out Ryan Zimmerman. He filed it down between innings and managed to scrap through four more frames, but he lacked control of his knuckleball and walked five batters. The Mets hit a bunch of balls hard but right at defenders. They also struck out in some big spots.
Dickey said he’ll be fine by his next start, so the main concern from this one is the performance of the bullpen. For the fourth straight night, Terry Collins had to use at least three relievers. For the third straight night, some of them struggled. After the game, a reporter asked Collins if he was concerned about the amount of innings his bullpen has thrown recently.
“Yes,” he said. That’s all. There was a long pause before the next question.
It doesn’t seem typical of Collins to admit concern or be so curt, so it’s probably more than paying lip service to the reporter’s question.
Bobby Parnell struggled a bit tonight, but Blaine Boyer and Tim Byrdak have been the main culprits so far. Actually, the main culprit has probably been a starting staff unable to eat up innings. That’s hardly atypical this early in the season, granted, but not one of Mike Pelfrey, John Niese and Dickey managed to pitch into the sixth these past three games.
It seems knee-jerk to make roster moves so early in the season, but with Chris Young and Chris Capuano set to go tomorrow and Sunday, the Mets’ bullpen appears unlikely to enjoy a ton of rest anytime soon. Jason Isringhausen tweaked something in his back last weekend, but he is apparently OK — at least in that he ever can be. I wonder if we’ll be seeing him soon, if only to get the Mets a fresh arm in the ‘pen for a few weeks while the starting pitchers pull it together.
Ugh, whatever. A cold and underwhelming home opener at Citi. Tomorrow brings more baseball, though, and this evening brings me a sandwich.
Temptation overwhelms Marco Scutaro
Via Drew:
Manny Ramirez up and quits
Apparently Man-Ram broke the drug policy again and retired rather than appeal and face another suspension.
Seems like a desperate move for a guy who has already tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs. I’ll miss watching him play; for better or worse, he was always entertaining.
Here he is playing cricket:
Kiner’s Korner
Ralph is so awesome. That’s a Hall of Fame coat right there:
The one time we celebrate bunting
It’s the Mets’ home opener, as you probably know, and right now I’m either in the clubhouse or out in the parking lot filming stuff. Some of it will be posted here this afternoon, some of it will come, I dunno, later.
Anyway, here’s to a third season at Citi Field better than the first two. I’ll be back here and posting once I’m set up in the press box. For now enjoy Prince:
Matt Harvey fans nine in debut
The Mets’ first-round pick last year, Matt Harvey, made his professional debut yesterday. He threw five scoreless innings, whiffing nine and walking two. Mike Diaz has a full recap of yesterday’s Mets Minor League action.
Tedquarters 