I went directly from job to ballpark Saturday for Mets/Marlins. My co-worker Paul and I were perched way up high in section 526. The seats were conveniently shielded from a hot late afternoon sun.
Jon Niese started for the Metropolitans and stunk it up. If you’ve been to see the Mets this season, you’ve had a four in five chance of seeing a starter almost guaranteed worth the price of upper deck admission. Niese isn’t one of the five. But he’s under contract for seven mil this year and eight million next so he’s sticking around despite yet another dominant young arm in Steven Matz knocking on the door at triple-A Vegas.
To further dilute things, the Mets say they’ll experiment with a six-man rotation starting this week when New York goes west for a seven game road trip. Dillon Gee will be the sixth starter at least until the inevitable Matz call-up becomes impossible to resist. The Met brass views a six-man rotation as a way to protect the Dark Knight, Jake and Thor from exceeding non-disclosed inning limits believed to be 200 frames or less.
Six man rotations don’t usually work. Too much time between starts. We’ll see. If it means the young guns are all available should the Mets play October baseball, perhaps it’s a good gambit.
There will be no postseason however unless the middle infield can field the baseball. Shortstop Wilmer Flores and second baseman David Murphy both have sweet swings but neither can play the position. What should the Mets do? If the alarmists had their way, half the lineup would be exiled. I’m inclined to ride out both Murph and Flo the rest of the way. With David Wright’s back injury a potential career-ender (at least a disruptor), I think that’s the position that becomes the priority should the organization get solid word the Captain is done.
Eighth inning relief is also a huge problem. Whether it’s the Torres boys or Hansel Robles, nobody seems able to mind the gap between successful starter and Familia which is now prompting Terry Collins to ask his closer to get up to five outs. That’s gonna tax Familia and ruin a good thing.
The Mets ended up losing Saturday 9-5. I told Paulie top nine that Alex Torres should pitch around Giancarlo but Torres didn’t hear me from way up high. He served up a meatball that got way out into the second deck in left center. ESPN Stats and Info recorded the blast at 466 feet. That would make it the longest homer in Citi Field history if you believe the calculations coming from that outlet and its now absorbed predecessor Hit Tracker (founder Greg Ryberczyk). I’ve seen comparable shots at Citi from Ike Davis, Freddie Freeman and Adam Dunn but Mets radio broadcaster Howie Rose said Sunday that a home run by Mark Reynolds in August 2009 definitely had greater distance to his eye. Howie said the Reynolds homer during Citi’s inaugural season was “flat further than Stanton’s. No argument.”
The Marlins have found a legit leadoff man in Dee Gordon. He’s on a sustained tear and the Fish don’t even have to pay him this year. In an offseason trade only a handful of deep-pocketed teams like the Dodgers could make, Gordon and Dan Haren were handed to the Marlins in return for prospects. As part of the deal, the Dodgers fully absorb Gordon’s 2.5 mil salary and are on the hook for Haren’s 10 mil.
Just shy of the one-third mark of the regular season, Gordon is on pace for 245 hits and 63 swipes. He’s great defensively and the kind of true leadoff hitter not common in the game today as they once were. The Dodgers had a thing for Howie Kendrick which is what prompted the deal I guess but man, Gordon looks really good right now.
Despite the Met loss, I really enjoyed being out there Saturday. It was nice to be in the home park after the four games at Wrigley a few weeks ago. The contrast in crowd makeup and reaction to baseball plays is stark. Attendance Saturday was announced at 39,095. There were only scattered empties in the upper corners. A lotta families with young kids in the house. Chicken fingers were consumed all over my section. On the way in, staffers handed us Mets beach towels emblazoned with the logo of a major soft drink maker.
Fans waved the towels throughout. Some wrapped up in them late in the game when chilly wind gusts blew in off the bay.
-The release of a compelling collection of video images set to Kevin Morby’s tune “Parade” came out a few days ago in conjunction with the announcement Morby’s next record will come out on the Dead Oceans label. This development should in no way be seen as an affront to Woodsist, which put out Morby’s first two releases. The label switch likely reflects hope that Morby’s next record will bring a demand larger than Jeremy Earl’s one-man Woodsist shop can handle given Earl’s own multi-tasks at hand. Earl has said in the past he makes no dictates on continuing loyalty and cheers/encourages the success of artists who move to bigger, better or different platforms. Not to mention the unique and lasting friendship between Morby and Earl. Dead Oceans is run by big Morby and Woods fan Phil Waldorf. The label’s distribution strength (although I’m not sure how much that means these days) lies in its linkage to Secretly Canadian/Jagjaguwar. Dead Oceans put out Morby’s recent tour-mate Ryley Walker’s latest record and will handle the Euro release of Dan Bejar’s much-anticipated forthcoming Destroyer double record due this summer.