Die Hard Sports Fan

After that 0-3 start, the Mets have won 8 of their last 9 to improve to an 8-4 record.  Not too shabby for a club that needs an ER in their dugout.  So many Mets are hurt that a few players come back each day.  Eventually they’ll be back to full strength.  These Barry Bonds rumors are really awful.  I don’t know which newspaper started the rumor, but it had to come from one of them.

The best Mets article of the day is “COLLECT ‘EM ALL!” by Joel Sherman of the New York Post so check it out below.

Mets.com:

Unhittable Maine carries Mets - Marty Noble summarized today’s game between the Astros and the Mets.  The Mets beat the Astros 3-0.  John Maine got the start and pitched 4 hitless innings.  The Mets are 8-4 in the Grapefruit League standings.

Young Mets top Orioles on the road - Spencer Fordin summarized yesterday’s game between the Mets and the Orioles.  The Mets beat the Orioles 4-1.  Jonathan Niese got the start.

Schneider, Easley go deep in loss - Anthony DiComo summarized yesterday’s game between the Marlins and the Mets.  The Marlins beat the Mets 12-4.  Mike Pelfrey got the start.

El Duque has sights set on starting

Notes: Sanchez returns to action - According to Anthony DiComo, Duaner Sanchez pitched one inning yesterday against the Marlins and said he felt like “I was 97 percent of what you watched in ‘06. I could say 100, but I don’t want to be crazy.”  Jose Valentin was expected to make his debut today playing either first base or second base.  Ryan Church was cleared to play yesterday and played.  Church finished the day with 2 singles.  When the Mets cut 13 players on Friday, Steven Register did not get cut.

Newsday:

Fifth spot for Mets? Duque confident; Pelfrey hit - David Lennon provides the status for the 5th spot in the rotation.

Now starting in left for Mets … Barry Bonds? - That is the dumbest idea that I’ve ever heard.  And then we can add Sammy Sosa in center and Mark McGwire in right.  David Lennon included excerpts from Mets players, and they don’t want Bonds either.  That’s relieving.

New York Daily News:

Mets laugh off reports they have any interest in signing Barry Bonds

Pedro Martinez, wife committed to making a difference in Dominican - Christian Red wrote about how Pedro and Carolina Martinez, appear at a charity dinner in December in Santo Domingo that was part of their foundation’s effort to help underprivileged girls in the Dominican Republic.

El Duque starts to talk the talk; Mike Pelfrey gets shelled

Newest Mets return, make good impression - Peter Botte lets us know how Church and Brian Schneider felt after playing yesterday.

New York Post:

COLLECT ‘EM ALL! - Joel Sherman says that the Mets should sign Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens so they can discuss steroids and their legal troubles.

PELFREY TAKES STEP BACK IN BATTLE FOR FIFTH SPOT

DEARTH VALLEY - Joel Sherman explains the lack of depth that the Mets have since giving up 4 players for Johan Santana.

WEAPONS FOR WAGS - Bart Hubbuch noted that Billy Wagner added a curveball and a change-up to his arsenal because Wagner felt like hitters were catching up to him.

New York Times:

Mets Are Happy to See Some Familiar Faces

The Star-Ledger:

Mets vs. Astros - Lisa Kennelly provided the lineup for today’s game between the Astros and the Mets.

El Duque not feeling the Pelfrey pressure

Fernando Martinez is a huge talent, tiny ego

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Single-game tickets for the final season at Shea Stadium go on sale tomorrow at 9 a.m.  You can order the tickets at Mets.com or by calling the Mets’ ticket office at (718) 507-TIXX for more information.

The Amazins’ are playing in split-squad games today.  The Mets beat the Orioles by a score of 4-1 in the non-televised game.  Jonathan Niese got the start.  The Mets are 7-3 in the Grapefruit League standings.  The Mets got smoked 12-4 by the Marlins in the second game which was televised.  Mike Pelfrey finally had a bad outing in Spring Training, and it was really bad.  The seven-game winning streak came to an end.  The Mets are 7-4 in the Grapefruit League standings.

Mets.com:

Notes: MASH unit stays home - Tom Singer pointed out that the road lineup is full of prospects as many starters deal with injuries.

Pedro gets work in at simulated ‘event’ - Marty Noble let us know how Pedro Martinez performed in his simulated start.

Mets subs shine in win over Indians - Anthony Castrovince summarized yesterday’s game between the Mets and the Indians.  Oliver Perez got the start.  The Mets were able to put together another comeback to beat the Tribe by a score of 8-6.  The Mets are now 6-3 in the Grapefruit League standings.

Newsday:

Mets’ Pedro has work cut out after simulated game - After the simulated game, David Lennon felt like Martinez had some things to improve upon.

Pain fading for Delgado, who takes recovery slow

New York Daily News:

Moises Alou insists he will make return from hernia injury

Pedro Martinez can’t wait to deal for real

Ryan Church takes batting practice - Peter Botte lets us know what he thought when Ryan Church returned to BP.

New York Post:

SLOW PITCH - Bart Hubbuch also wrote how Pedro wants to pitch in a real game already.

OLIVER GETS ROUGHED UP AGAIN - Bart Hubbuch reveals his thoughts on Oli’s outing against the Indians yesterday.

New York Times:

Martínez’s Changeup: Less Talk, More Action

The Star-Ledger:

Mets vs. Marlins - Lisa Kennelly provided the lineup and a summary of the early innings for today’s game between the Marlins and the Mets.

Leave No Stone Unturned - Matthew Artus suggests Barry Bonds as a right fielder for the Mets.  I think that all of the steroid users should be permanently banned from the majors to avoid any more unneccary embarrassment.

Trade rumors putting the heat on Schoeneweis - Jeremy Cothran wrote “What upsets Schoeneweis, who is out of Lenape High in Medford, is that the team is so quick to dismiss him after one below-par season.”  The Mets are not dismissing him for one below-par season.  The below-par season is a direct result of the lack of needles being injected into his rump.  I grew up in Medford, but I went to another high school called Shawnee for my Freshman year before moving to Long Island.  We competed against Lenape.  I wish the Mets would get rid of this guy already.

Pedro eager to make it real

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The Mets are working on creating a divisional rivalry.  The closest thing they have to that is the Braves, but that’s because I grew up in it.  There isn’t any folklore passed down for decades between the Mets and the Braves though.  The Mets are an expansion team which makes it tough to form a rivalry, and the Braves bounced around from Boston to Milwaukee to Atlanta and were never in the NL East until 1994.  The Phillies have been around forever, but there hasn’t been this kind of hype between the two team since I can remember.  I can’t even remember the last time the Phillies were good.  They went to the World Series in ‘93 with all of those fat beer guzzling guys with mullets like Kruk, Daulton, and Dykstra.

For two years, Atlanta hasn’t won the division.  The Mets won ‘06 and the Phillies won in ‘07 when the Mets gave up that huge lead.  Last year, the smack talking began with Jimmy Rollins.  This year it started with Carlos Beltran, and other players from both sides find a way to make themselves heard.  The coaches are getting questioned by the media.  It doesn’t seem like it will stop until they play some games on the field.  If you read below then you will see that the fans are buying into it too.

Mets.com:

Just one of those days - Marty Noble lets you know who was hitting the ball out of the park off of Santana in BP today.

Perez wins arbitration case - Marty Noble reported that Oliver Perez “had prevailed in a salary-arbitration case and been awarded a substantial raise — from the $2.325 million he earned last season to the $6.5 million he had sought in the process that both players and clubs regard as a crapshoot. The panel of Steven Wolf, Robert Bailey and Elizabeth Neumeier concluded that Perez’s value was at least one dollar greater than the midpoint between $6.5 million and the $4.725 million proposal the Mets submitted last month.”

Minor League Report: Jonathon Niese - Marty Noble found out what the Mets think of Jonathon Niese and other pitchers in the Minors.

Marlins’ series in Puerto Rico is off - Joe Frisaro noted that the three-game series between the Mets and the Marlins at the end of July will no longer be played in Puerto Rico as intended.  The series will be played at Dolphin Stadium.

Newsday:

More fightin’ words between Mets, Phillies - Beltran has more to say, Wagner chimed in, and Wright handled it dipomatically as usual.

Chipper not interested in Mets-Phillies flap - Larry said “I really don’t care what’s being said, the Phillies and the Mets know we’ll be competitive. They know we’ll be heard from.”  Jones must feel left out.  Poor baby.  I’m still waiting for Chipper to retire.

Notes: El Duque could retire after ‘08 - I guess El Duque doesn’t want to pitch until he’s 60.

E-mail from Port St. Lucie - David Lennon told us that Pedro’s new nickname is Picasso, and Pedro loves it.

New York Daily News:

Carlos Beltran takes second cut at Phils

Billy Wagner believes football tosses helps keep him in right form

Former Mets star Lenny Dykstra sued by firm for $138,000 - A baseball league should be created on an island somewhere in the Pacific, and all of the steroid users should be sent there to compete against themselves.

Maid nabbed in Ambiorix Burgos theft - An employee of the hotel stole the bag of jewelry…isn’t that an unusual suspect?

New York Post:

METS, PHILLIES GO MOUTH TO MOUTH - Pedro throws some jabs at the Phillies now.

AMAZIN’ IT TOOK THIS LONG TO FORM RIVALRY - Mike Vaccaro says it’s about time there is a rivalry between the Phillies and the Mets.

JOHAN TO FACE BATTERS

New York Times:

With Sinker in Tow, a Journey Begins - The Mets drafted Eddie Kunz out of Oregon State last year, and Ben Shpigel found out how Kunz is doing a year later.

The Star-Ledger:

No mas for Puerto Rico series

Mets-Phillies a Rivalry 90 Minutes Away - Matthew Artus included quotes from some Mets about the Phillies.  Artus also found out that there is some shady stuff going on between Mets fans and Phillies fans right now.  MetsBlog was tipped off that the Phillies somehow began selling tickets a day before they were supposed to.  A group of Phillies fans have a Facebook account, and this is what they want to accomplish according to MetsBlog:

As noted in an earlier post to MetsBlog, according to their Facebook Group, more than 500 Phillies fans are planning a ‘Take Over’ of Shea Stadium during the Nationally-televised Phillies-Mets game on September 6, because they are ‘sick and tired of stupid Mets fans taking over Citizen’s Bank Park.’

MetsBlog began their own takeover of Citizens Bank Park, and Artus found this Phillies blog The700Level that got wind of what MetsBlog is trying to do.

Mets’ nice rookie is nasty on the mound - Jeremy Cothran said that about Eddie Kunz.

Willie: Phils not rivals yet

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I may have made you more pessimistic yesterday so I’m going to go through the things that I’m looking forward to this season.

• Johan Santana winning 20+ games and helping the Mets win a World Series.
• With another year of experience under their belts, I would like to see Maine and Oli each win 18 games.
• Duaner Sanchez returning to 2006 status.
• Billy Wagner returning to early 2007 status.
• Jose Reyes finishing the season/postseason as great as he starts it.
• David Wright having a MVP season in ‘07.

Those are the things that I would like to see.  There are many other things that I hope will happen barring injury such as Beltran having an MVP season and Pedro pitching like he did on the Red Sox.  I feel less confident about things like that, but they can prove me wrong.

Mets.com:

No questioning Schneider’s main role - Marty Noble noted that the Metropolitans expect Schneider to make the pitching staff better.

Notes: Alou feeling rejuvenated

Nowhere to go but up - Marty Noble explains how Fred Wilpon’s got the Mets a little giddy.

Newsday:

Phillies’ Rollins amused by Beltran’s boast - Eventually, you knew Rollins would have something to say.

Mets meet with free agent pitcher Garcia - That would be Freddie Garcia according to David Lennon.  Lennon wrote this:

A team official confirmed that the Mets did meet Wednesday morning with free-agent pitcher Freddy Garcia, as first reported Wednesday by SI.com. Garcia, who is still rehabbing from shoulder surgery, is not expected to return until late June or early July. He shares the same agents as Johan Santana - Peter and Ed Greenberg - and it was unclear how close Garcia is to signing with a team.

Marlins-Mets series in Puerto Rico unlikely

Reyes vows to tone down act this season - Jose Reyes told Newsday that he will focus more on baseball and less on celebrations in 2008.

New York Daily News:

Owner Fred Wilpon says ‘it’s a championship season’ for Mets

On the surface, Fred Wilpon shows deep thoughts about Mets

Gary Carter thinks he was missing piece for Mets in 2007 collapse - Not as a player, as part of the coaching staff.

Top prospect Fernando Martinez plans to be marvelous for Mets

New York Post:

SHEA FOR SURE - Bart Hubbuch is referring to the guarantee made by Fernando Martinez yesterday.

WIL TO WIN - Mike Vaccaro is referring to Fred Wilpon’s proclamation yesterday.

PEDRO THROWS OFF MOUND, SHOWS BLING FAITH IN PETERSON - Bart Hubbuch is referring to Pedro pitching with his eyes closed yesterday.

The Star-Ledger:

Moises Alou and the fountain of youth - Alou believes that New York is the fountain of youth.

Maine gives Mets’ rotation star quality - Lisa Kennelly pointed out how John Maine became a star in the offseason.  This article is very funny.

Wilpon expects the best - Jeremy Cothran discusses Fred Wilpon’s optimism for ‘08.

Prospect likes his chances this year - Jeremy Cothran and Lisa Kennelly are also referring to Fernando’s guarantee to play this season.

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