The Mets 2007 season opens tomorrow night. If you’re going to be online during the game why not hit the chat room? I plan to be in there for the first hour of the game.
You can either chat here at www.newyorkmetspodcast.com/chat or over in the clubhouse at clubhouse.newyorkmetspodcast.com/chat. It’s actually one room so you’ll hook up with the same crew no matter which page you visit.
Hope to see you there.
Alright now. The Mets have signed Willie Randolph through the 2009 season with a club option for 2010.
It’s nice to know that the team has gotten this piece of business out of the way. Willie gets a nice raise and I’m sure he feels better knowing that management has shown this confidence in him.
Time to start thinking pitchers and catchers. It’s going to be a wild spring!
The Mets have some 2007 ticket plans already on sale at heavily discounted prices. According the the Mets official website these deals will be available for a “limited time”. So if you think you can make it then I’d suggest buying soon.
Single game tickets are as low as $5 per game. And select five game value packs are going for $37. All seats are upper reserved and all are for games scheduled from Mon - Fri.
Enough gabbing. Here’s the link: http://newyork.mets.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/nym/ticketing/packs_value.jsp.
There goes the Christmas holiday 
The most sought after pitcher in the free agent market, Barry Zito, has been acquired by the San Francisco Giants in a 7 year $126 million deal. Yahoo! Sports reports here.
Disappointing would be an understatement to describe this development for Mets fans. So what will Omar do with the $75 to $100 million left in the coffers? We need to get somebody to help buoy the pitching staff. Expect a podcast on this soon. Get your comments and rants in to the comment line at 206-333-0536.
Discuss in the forum here.
Seems like the Mets are going in opposite directions with Moises Alou and Tom Glavine.
Our team has signed Moises Alou to play left field in 2007 while declining Tom Glavine’s option for next season. There’s still a chance that Glavine will pitch for the Mets next year. So we’re just going to have to sweat this one out a little longer.
I’m not too excited by the Moises Alou pickup. He is 40 years old. And Cliff Floyd may not be a spring chicken but I think he could at least give the Mets what Alou will give them plus be a force in the clubhouse.
As of right now the Mets’ corner outfielders will be Moises Alou (backed up by Endy Chavez) and Shawn Green. This means they’re week at best on the corners. Lastings Milledge is just a question mark blowing in the wind at this point. I say that the Mets will try to deal him prior to spring training.
The Mets are breaking ground on their new stadium today. The park will be called CitiField (Ugh!) after the banking company Citi Group.
I understand the need to recoup revenue but come on. Do they really need the $20 million per year?
We’re only a week out from the World Series and things are heating up. The NY Daily News is reporting today that Tom Glavine and the Mets are very close on a two year deal. I think that’s really good news. We need Tom’s veteran presence on the team in ‘07.
Then the news comes across the wire that Guillermo Mota’s apparent resurgence is apparently tainted. Word is that he has tested positive for performance enhancing drugs and will undure a 50 game suspension. Mota had already filed for free agency but his performance in the second half made him a candidate to return with the Mets next year. I’m sure Omar will take a pass now.
The forum seems to be heating up as well. Thanks to all for taking part in the conversation.
Let’s Go Mets!
So for the middle reasons no podcast to follow up the loss yet. You know me though. I’m dying to get it out and also hear your thoughts. I plan to keep the podcast going through the winter and right into spring training, albeit at a slower pace. But we will be rolling in snowshoes if necessary. What will Santa Omar leave us under the Christmas Tree?
So I’ll try to get one in tomorrow or Thursday. Til then, you’ve got the new forums to play around in.
I experienced the last moments of the last game of this season just after landing in Newark. My Cingular service has an internet service with ESPN coverage of all the games on one of those little screens with icons for the runners and basic info on the game. I got there just in time to see two little dots on first and second, no dots in the outs area and Cliff Floyd at the plate. Not exactly the most exciting way to catch a game 7 in the playoffs.
I agonized through every refresh of the screen. Floyd - One out. Reyes - Two outs. LoDuca - A walk. At this point I had hope for some of that old Met magic. Bases loaded, two outs, Beltran at the plate in game 7 of the NLCS. There isn’t a kid who’s played baseball, softball, wiffle ball, stickball or stoop ball that hasn’t dreamed of such a moment. A moment with the chance to be a hero and make the stadium rock. Moments like that put players into history books. Moments like the one when Bobby Thomson crushed the Dodgers with a home run that came to be known as “The Shot Heard Round The World.” Moments like Mookie dribbling one up the first base line to score a winning run.
This moment was not our moment. The moment belonged to Cardinal closer Adam Wainwright. Beltran - Struck out looking.
When a team loses a playoff series we tend to look for villains. We single them out. We dwell. Mota and Wagner were the villains in Game 2. Trachsel was the villain in Game 3. Maybe it’s Beltran or even Heilman in Game 7. Who cares? In some way all of those guys contributed big during the regular season.
The Mets had a knack for hitting with Trachsel on the mound. Guillermo Mota surprised everyone by doing a pretty good job replacing Duaner Sanchez in the second half. Billy Wagner was lights out in the second half and the first round of the playoffs. Aaron Heilman was amazing in the second half, stepping into the 8th inning role like a young pitcher determined to prove the doubters wrong. And all Carlos Beltran did was return the fans faith in the big free agent signing.
Wright had a bad series. Floyd was hurt. No El Duque or Pedro Martinez. There were challenges and some say our team was lucky to get this far under the circumstances. I don’t buy it. We had the guns to win it. They just went silent at the hands on St. Louis pitching that surprised the Mets. Beltran had a bad at bat at the wrong time against a guy who has been an effective closer. There are worse sins in the game of baseball.
We discovered a few things along the way though. John Maine and Oliver Perez stepped up. It’s going to be very interesting next year with the likes of Glavine, Maine, Perez, Bannister and Pelfrey hanging around spring training. Maybe El Duque will be around too. There are things to look forward to. Reyes, LoDuca, Beltran, Delgado and Wright are all returning. Who knows what else Omar Minaya has up his sleeve.
So no epitaph here. Just some late night thoughts (as usual). I’m going to take a couple of days, let the comments flow in, and fire up the podcast again after the weekend. I need to clear my head out and let the fans have their say. Please call the comment line, use the Mobatalk Voicemail on the site or email me MP3 Files. It would be nice to include the voices of more of the people who are on the other side of the podcast. Text comments on this post are welcome as well.
Let’s Go Mets!
Wagner gave us a heart attack. I’ll talk about that later.
METS WIN BABY!
Do you believe?
…there would be days like this.
If you’re lucky as a fan you never get to the time of the season when one loss means your team is going home for the winter. Of course those days happen more often than not. Some seasons are magical and teams roll through to a seemingly easy World Series win. Other seasons provide a roller coaster ride, sometimes to victory and sometimes not.
This 2006 season for the Mets has been really a straight shot into the playoffs and even through the first round. Now we’ve had some late loop-de-loops that bring us to being down 3-2 in the NLCS against the Cardinals. We felt the bumps of losing Pedro and Duque but dispatching the Dodgers gave us confidence. Confidence may be a bit hard to come by at the moment.
If you must focus on the negatives then let’s get them out of the way. We’re at the end of the rope on starting pitching. Maine hasn’t been good and we can’t use Glavine again for the rest of the series. Trachsel is pretty much finished with the Mets although we might be forced to start him if there is a game 7. The bats are cold as ice once again. These playoffs are looking like the Titanic for David Wright. He got a double late, but we needed more. Jose Reyes has been disappointing as well. He’s not patient and he keeps looking for extra base hits when he should be looking to work out walks. The team has only really put it together offensively for one game in this series. Plus I know that the umpires, Tim McCarver and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez are against us. Wah, wah. I’m done crying now.
Here are some positives. Shea will be rocking tomorrow night. And there is some magical history at Shea, as many of you know. We only need to win two games in a row. The Mets have done that plenty of times this season. We can get to Chris Carpenter. We did last week at Shea. It can be done again. We can get to their bullpen again as well. This is no invincible squad of arms out there. The bats can wake up too. A late flight home can get players to thinking and sometimes that’s what’s needed. The fans will be waiting and cheering. Oh yeah, and we’ve beaten the Cards at Shea in the NLCS before. I’ll be even more pragmatic and state that this series is about one game. We can win one game tomorrow night and the worry about winning one more game. One game, our field, I believe.
!!!LET’S GO METS!!!
So we will now get to have our guy (Glavine) and their guy (Weaver) go on four days rest now that tonight’s game is officially postponed.
I think this is a good thing for the Mets. All other things being equal I believe that a rested Tom Glavine can outpitch a rested Jeff Weaver. It’s also another day for Cliff Floyd to rest his sore achilles. Then again, the Cards bullpen has been tired out and they will get another day of rest as well.
So it finally happened. After a charmed second half of the season the vaunted Mets bullpen finally blew a big one.
Guillermo Mota started it off buy allowing Albert Pujols and Jim Edmunds to reach base with two out. At this point I’m not sure why Willie didn’t give him the hook. Then Mota either blew off Paul LoDuca or missed his location in throwing Scott Spezio a fastball on the inside of the plate. This was after Spezio missed badly on two changeups and had just drilled a fastball foul down the right field line. The result was a two run triple and a tie score.
Aaron Heilman did his job and passed it on to Billy Wagner in the ninth. Wagner was awful, starting with the Taghuchi homer. I had a bad feeling during that at bat. Then the Cards just kept eating him up. I’m not going to kill Billy Wagner for this one. He had a great second half and had done well in the playoffs before last night. That stated, he should never let that happen again in the playoffs.
There were other missed opportunities as well. The Mets had first and second in the eighth and Beltran hit into a double play. David Wright still hasn’t found his stoke yet in this series either. Paul LoDuca and Carlos Delgado have been a two man wrecking crew at the plate.
So the reality of the playoffs is that nothing is guaranteed. Certainly not a lead at home in the late innings. Every run counts. Every pitch counts. Maybe the Mets needed to realize that after four playoff wins in a row. The best way to remedy a loss is to win and we have the opportunity to do that again this evening. This Mets team can out hit and out run St. Louis. Our bullpen is better than their bullpen. The starting pitching matchups ain’t so bad either. So let’s get back on the horse tonight and take the series lead back.
Let’s Go Mets!
Sometimes you get news that trumps all the drama related to baseball and the playoffs. The news that Cory Lidle was killed in plane crash in Manhattan is that type of news.
I was completely off line for most of the day and my wife called me to tell me a small plane had crashed into a building in Manhattan. She told me it was a very small plane and a residential building so I thought that this should definitely be an accident. Then she called me back 10 minutes later to tell me that the plane was registered to Cory Lidle. So i just turned on ESPN and heard that it’s confirmed that he was involved in the crash. It’s simply unbelieveable. My thoughts are with the Lidle family and the families of the other people involved in this tragedy.
They’re also reporting that it looks like the Mets might not be able to get game 1 in due to rain. MLB is not postponing any games due to the crash and I think that’s the right move. But it looks like they may not get the game in anyway.
Looks like we’ll be without Cliff Floyd in the NLCS. There’s a story on MLB.com that says as much.
According to the report, “Floyd was examined via MRI on Monday. General manager Omar Minaya said Floyd’s condition has improved and that the left fielder continues to receive treatment. But his inclusion on the Mets’ roster for the NLCS still seemed unlikely. Minaya also acknowledged the risk the club would take if it retained Floyd on the roster and he became baseball-incapacitated early in the series.”
Bummer. So we’ll soon know if it’s going to be Ricky Ledee or Lastings Milledge. Whoever it is, they will have a chance to be a hero. No matter what you do in the regular season, playoff heroics are the fastest way to build the love with the fans. Since we won’t be playing in Boston, I’m leaning towards a preference for Lastings.
A rematch of the 2000 NLCS is on. I like our chances. I see Saint Louis as a one trick pony. Albert Pujols is obviously the guy to watch out for. He can wreck a game with his bat. After that I guess its Jim Edmunds.
On the mound their ace is Chris Carpenter who went 15-8. Then you’ve got the likes of Jeff Weaver, Jason Marquis and Jeff Suppan. All three of these guys are beatable. I’m going to assume for the moment that they’ll throw Weaver in game 1 on Wednesday night then follow with Suppan in game 2.
I wonder if Willie will start Maine again in Game 1 or go with Glavine. I’m leaning towards the thought that Glavine should start against Suppan, who’s a stronger pitcher than Weaver. Maybe Brett can cook us up some stats on the season series and the pitching matchups.
Those are sweet words. A nice performance on a night when the odds said it wouldn’t happen. It wasn’t perfect, but as I always say about playoff games, “A win is a win.”
The NLCS against San Diego or St. Louis kicks off at Shea on Wednesday. That means three days of rest for Cliff Floyd’s aching achilles tendon and time to get the rotation lined up again.
I do believe in magic. Willie is going to make it work somehow. LETS GO METS!
If there was ever a time for Glavine to come up big, this was it.
I missed the entire game as expected due to my flight. But I kept a positive attitude as we touched down at Newark around midnight. That vibe was rewarded when I saw the text message from my friend coming back from the game on the 7 train.
I listened to WFAN and Steve Somers in the car ride back from the airport and this morning I caught the condensed game. Looked like Glavine really brought his ‘A’ game, silencing the critics for the moment. Also looked like the Mets had a couple of missed chances on offense. I shudder to think about what this team could do if they did capitalize.
We’ll need that kind of hitting in game three. Who knows, maybe Steve Trachsel can pull a Bobby Jones in Game 3 and toss a one-hitter or something. I like our chances. It seems like the team is grooving now that showtime has arrived. Let’s just take it one game at a time.
I’m planning to record later this evening so get in your comments on the call in line or on this post.
Brett from Upstate New York was nice enough to put together some stats on the Mets vs. the Dodgers this season. I know that some folks like to get into this stuff so I figured this would be welcome. Thanks Brett!
June 6: @ LAD
Lowe(W) v. Martinez(L) 8-5
Lowe:6.0IP; 5H; 2ER
To Be Noted:
- Martinez was beginning his downward spiral, he was on the DL by the end of the month.
- Floyd was taken out with a sore wrist, leaving Woodward and Chavez in who were a combined 2-8
Lowe’s Postseason Resume: 4-4; 3.05 ERA
September 8 @ NYM
Kuo(W) v. Maine(L) 5-0
Kuo:6.0IP; 3H; 0ER
To Be Noted: Milledge and Woodward were playing in lieu of Floyd and Valentin giving up power and .060 BA points.
Kuo’s Postseason Resume: NA
September 9 @ NYM
Maddux(L) v. Hernandez(W) 3-2
Maddux:5.1IP; 5H; 3ER
To Be Noted: Stinnett in for LoDuca
Maddux’s Postseason Resume: 11-14; 3.22 ERA
{In all 3 games the Mets did not have the opportunity to play their strongest offensive lineup, and in none of the games did they match or exceed their season average in runs per game. Throughout the season versus the Dodgers, the Mets have been held to 4.1 runs per game, only holding Dodgers to 4.6, which is their 2nd worst run differential of any overall series consisting of more than 6 games. (vs. Braves: -.7) A little bit disturbing… let’s hope they can step it up when they need to.}
Forget doomsday. This team did what it needed to do today. The key was the hitting. Did I say that Cliff Floyd would contribute? And how about Mr. Carlos Delgado?
Yes, the bullpen was shaky and Billy Wagner gave up a run in the ninth. But a win is a win. Let’s take it one game at a time. Your thoughts and comments please.
LETS GO METS!
Welcome to Amazin’ Moments, the un-official New York Mets Baseball Podcast. This is where fans of the New York Mets pro baseball team get their fix.
I’ve been a lifelong Mets fan. I grew up just a few miles from Shea Stadium and have experienced all the ups and downs of the last 30 years of Mets baseball.
Now you can get involved via this podcast. I’ll be recording posts that you can listen to in order to get my perspective on the 2006 Mets baseball season. You can talk back now by commenting on each post. If you’re more of a vocal person then call in to the comment line at (206) 333-0878 and let ‘er rip.
Lets Go Mets!
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