Newcomers played well and David Wright went yard, hopefully both of which are signs of good things to come.

Johan Santana is looking like the Cy Young Award candidate that we predicted he would win, he will win, this year. With run support, 7 runs, Johan Santana could be the best pitcher in baseball. He has the advantage of pitching at CitiField, which is where home run hitters become sacrifice-fly hitters.

Yankees blew there opener against the Red Sox. Mets are 1-0 and the Yankees are 0-1. That feels good. Yankees victory last season over the Phillies earned them some love from Mets fans, because as much as we love saying Fuck the Yankees we would much rather them winning over those Phillies. Most Mets fans dislike our division rival much more significantly than even the depths of hatred we show towards the Yankees.

Mets Mets Official 2010 Baseball Season Predictions:

Mets win the division!
Johan wins the Cy Young
Wright finishes in the top 3 for MVP voting.

My favorite team is obviously the New York Mets, and although I have a lot of hope for this upcoming season I sense a lot of pessimism from some of my friends. They all say we have absolutely no pitching, besides Johan and K-Rod.

The Las Vegas Strip casinos are putting the odds that the Mets only win half their games, finishing 81-81. Everyone points to the early season injury issues of some of the same players who missed huge chunks of time last season. Obviously, the NL pennant winner Philadelphia Phillies are obviously just as strong, and it seems Atlanta, Washington and possibly Florida have made some big strides. The Mets are predicted to finish the middle of the pack in the NL East, with the best case scenario putting them at battling for the wild-card to make the playoffs.

I just don’t buy all of that. I believe, with the level of talent we have we should be realistically battling to win the division. Our pitching obviously needs to keep us in games and our offense needs to be consistent. 2, 3, or 4 runs is not enough, we need to be scoring runs and hopefully the addition of Jason Bay is going to give us that extra punch we need to put some big innings on the scoreboard frequently.

I want us to be better than .500, and I believe we can be. CitiField is definitely a pitcher’s park so let’s use that to our advantage. That means playing great defense. With the best recent New York Mets teams including the World Series team in 2000 defense was one of the Mets catalysts for shutting down other teams big innings.

Just watched Neil Diamond sing “Sweet Caroline” at Fenway Park for the Opening Day baseball game between the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox. The place was rocking and the game has been very entertaining. I hope this is a sign for what is to come this baseball season, because I am really hoping the Mets are rocking this year playing a very entertaining brand of baseball.

Mets Opening Day Lineup

1. Alex Cora – SS
2. Luis Castillo – 2B
3. David Wright – 3B
4. Mike Jacobs – 1B
5. Jason Bay – LF
6. Gary Matthews, Jr. – CF
7. Jeff Franceour – RF
8. Rod Barajas – C
9. Johan Santana – P

The Baltimore Orioles star dropped an over the shoulder pop-up giving the Mets a couple of unearned runs. Those turned out to be the winning runs in this interleague game.

Sound familiar, last week Luis Castillo gave an Interleague game away to the Yankees. It all evens out during a 162 game season says Jerry Manuel. In this case, it evened out pretty quick.

With the Phillies blowing a late lead to the Blue Jays, the Mets getting the win today closed the gap to only a few games back of the division lead. Despite the growing list of injuries, the Mets are hanging tough.

By the way, Sammy Sosa is a cheat. Not like anybody really suspected otherwise. He went from an occasional power hitter to becoming the guy who chased down Roger Maris’ single season home run record virtually overnight. Then testing went into place and he couldn’t hit a home run in a little league park. Anyway, the list of 104 unknown names of cheaters is down to 102 after Fucking cheating A-Roid and Shammin Sammy were released to the public.

Shammin Sammy, I take credit for that nickname. Sweet.

Mets have Lead.

Mets blow Lead.

Extra Innings.

Phillies Blast Home Run.

Game Over.

In this game, Luis Castillo scored all 3 Mets runs and Carlos Beltran had all 3 RBI’s. The Mets bullpen – save for Francisco Rodriguez – has not been the lockdown – best  in the Major Leagues – bullpen that everyone had pumped up before the season. That is for sure.

It was only one night after the Mets had a memorable win at CitiField against their rivals they’ve owned all season – the Philadelphia Phillies. But on this night the rivals returned the favor.

The top half of an extra inning Chase Utley put his team ahead with a solo blast. The Mets had no answer.

It is just to bad, because the Mets let this game slip away. We were winning 4-1 with only a few innings of baseball left.

We need to hang in there and scrape out another win tommorrow. Hopefully time is healing all wounds fast. And I am not just talking about the injury ridden lineup, but how much this game sure hurt.

Obvious to everyone but Johan Santana.

The ol’ catch’em with their pants down by their ankles trick, fake a bunt and swing for the fences – a double will do – and tie the game.

That’s ballsy, that’s beautiful baseball, that’s the NL’s best pitcher.

Beltran, Wright and Church all had home runs. Phillies had 4 as well. 7 the most ever in a game at the homer unfriendly confines of CitiField. 4 ties the most home runs given up by Johan ever.

This is gonna be one of the most memorable games this season.

Yea, we sure do have “Zero Class”, but not because Beltran said the Mets getting swept by the Pirates was embarassing, but because the Mets getting swept by the Pirates is embarrasing.

Beltran is right on, we are way better then the Pirates. Just this week, the pirates traded away their best player, Nate McClouth (who happens to be on my fantasy team and now I have to drop him because he is on our bitter rival the Braves),  like they do every year. They have not had a winning season since like Bonds left to get closer to his Steroid supplier.

So we already have a rivalry with:

1. Yankees
2. Phillies
3. Braves
4. Marlins
5. & to a lesser extent a few others like the Red Sox

but now we get to add a new one with the NL Central Perpetual Doormats. And nothing gets a sub .500 team interested in playing their absolute best more then a rivalry against a big city team.

btw, we lost on Saturday to the NL East Perpetual Doormats by a lot, 7-1. That is also embarrassing.  I know I can’t wait to get back to NY.

Walking Home the Winning Run is Not a Good Decision.

It is never a good decision to beat yourself.

You ever hear the expression, make them beat you. Well, when you walk a bunch of guys in the bottom of tenth inning with the score tied, you put yourself in a bad position.

But you still have to make them earn it.

Unless of course, you Walk Home the Winning Run. Sean Green did exactly that. He has now lost a couple of games lately with very piss poor relief pitching.

Oliver Perez was still terrible, even against the only team he has had a good history with. So he can’t beat the Phillies, the pathetic Nationals, and for that matter anyone else this year. How many more starting chances does he get? Put him in the bullpen.

Fans sure came out to watch this anti-climatic ending to a baseball game. Attendance: 45,069 in total which is 103.3% of regular season capacity at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia.

Let’s win Sunday and take the series. We truly need to win Sunday.

The Nationals are real bad.

The Phillies have a really good addition in Raul Ibanez.

The Braves are simply not that interesting

The Mets are really inconsistent.

and The Yankees gave up 14 runs in one inning.

Also…

Johan Santana could be the starting pitcher in 4 straight games in a World Series and let up 0 runs.

Yankees Wang is 0-3 with an ERA of 34.50.

Livan Hernandez is fierce.

The new Yankee Stadium gave up 20 home runs in its first four games. The previous record for a new stadium was Oakland’s 16.

Statistically the Mets offense is supposed to be scoring a lot more given all of their scoring opportunities.

btw Mets back at .500 after offense sputters again in loss to Brewers