It's like Monday through Wednesday never happened. The Rockies are just about as good as the Phillies, and the Mets played the type of game Friday night against Colorado that they should have played all week against Philadelphia.Steve Trachsel was good (again, good, not great), pitching 7 innings, giving up 7 hits and three walks. He always seems to be getting himself into jams, though. Despite the 12-5 record, I just don't have a lot of confidence in Trachsel.
The Mets' bats are continuing to come alive. Friday night it was future Hall of Famer David Wright who showed signs of life, going 2-for-4, doubling, with 2 RBI - his first big hit in a while. Endy Chavez (2-for-4) had the big blow in this one, homering off Byung-Hyun Kim to tie the game early on. Chris Woodward was also 2-for-2, filling in for Jose Valentin, who left Thursday's game in Philadelphia with a small injury (I think it's small). Woodward hasn't played well all year, so we'll take what we can get from him.
Dave Williams will be up from Norfolk to make Saturday night's start - hope he can at least keep the Mets in the game, so we won't have to leave a Rockies blowout early. The Mets will also be wearing 1986 uniforms for the Saturday and Sunday games - another reason I don't understand why they didn't pick a team that existed in 1986 to play this reunion game against, so they could wear throwbacks too.
MAGIC NUMBER: A tough loss for the Phillies Friday night, but I don't care, because it means the Magic Number goes down by 2 instead of just 1! We're now inside of 30 - down to 28. The Nationals beat the Phillies, 6-4, in Philadelphia. That's a bad loss for Philly, especially coming off such a successful series against the Mets. But, like I said, it doesn't matter to me.
MAIL CALL: With the fantasy football draft in the morning, I'm still without a team name. Apparently, my readers have trouble keeping their suggestions for team names clean, because I received very few suggestions. I did like the Southern Bureau's suggestion: "Fallopian Swim Team", but I don't think that will make the cut. No shortage of suggestions from my cousin Eddie: Here's the e-mail I got from him:
"John,
Here are some names for your fantasy team as you requested on your mets blog.
"Spit up, dirty diapers, and sleepless nights, oh my!!" (no explanation needed)
"Waaaaa!!" (Baby's 1st words when he gets a look at your roster)
"The Prodigy" (Refers to next year's team that the baby picks by spitting up on the player he/she wants. This is the 1st time one of Johnny's teams makes the playoffs.)
"Patets" (Combo of the Patriots and Jets- Nickname would be Patsies which is quite appropriate for your fantasy team)
Non baby names you could use:
"At Least I Can Spell" (John digs back into the past to try to change his luck)
"Winless in October" (no explanation needed- most people already know the Mets don't have a chance when they get to October; also approproate for your fantasy team)
"T.O's Hammy" (Your team will gimp through the season just as your star player will)
Eddie"
Well, at least someone put some thought into my query. I'm not going with any of these either. Although, "At Least I Can Spell" has some potential. I'm not feeling too confident about this year's team....I don't pick until #13 overall....I hope I can salvage some good players. I really can't wait for fantasy football season to get underway.
I've had to reject some of my own ideas, too. The Wife came up with "The Very Hungry Caterpillars", which would have been awesome, but it's too long to fit in Yahoo!. I might go with The VHCaterpillars. (It's a popular children's book.) Then there was "Goodnight (Warren) Moon", my idea - but again, more than the required 20 characters. I also thought about "The Cat in the Helmet", a play on the Cat in the Hat, but that one just isn't very good.
Official word: I'm going with the "Hungry Caterpillars".
FROM THE WORLD OF PRINT JOURNALISM: The newest "can't miss" show in the House Sponsored by DirecTV (and supported by TiVo) is "Tabloid Wars", Bravo's reality show, which follows reporters from the New York Daily News as they do their job. This show fascinates me because I'm not too familiar with the print world - I had my sights set on the television world after high school, so I'm not too familiar with newspaper deadlines and such. And as much as I enjoyed watching the footage of the reporter tracking the priest who had an affair, and accidentally getting a huge scoop by staking out a restaurant (that show isn't going to catch a better moment than that), I wish it focused on the sports department once in a while. Well, I finally watched the latest episode, and that's what they did.
I'm a little disappointed, because the angle Bravo showed was that of an intern dealing with his first deadline story, which was just about what I expected. Plus, he was covering a New York Liberty game. I'd much rather have seen a beat guy covering the Mets. It was neat, though, to see some aspects, and compare them to the TV world, but overall I was disappointed by it. I hope they revisit the sports department before the show ends its run.
THE KID'S KIDS: Hall of Famer Gary Carter's St. Lucie Mets played a doubleheader on Friday, losing Game 1, and they're winning Game 2 as I write this, but it's still early. Not sure if Carter is with the team on Friday - I imagine he is, and will come up to New York Saturday. Daytona lost - now we also have to keep an eye on Palm Beach, who moved to within a half-game of St. Lucie.
ALFONZO'S COMEBACK: Norfolk gave up a run in the bottom of the ninth to lose on Friday night, but Edgardo Alfonzo kept up his good hitting - a 1-for-3, starting at third base. He had a 2-out RBI, and also walked. His average is now .274. (That's better than Michael Tucker's when he was brought up, just FYI.)
No comments:
Post a Comment