I was all set to give a rant on What Me Willie’ over use of Aaron Heilman but Joel Sherman beat me to it:

{Willie Randolph seems so determined to prove that he is in Aaron Heilman’s corner that he is going all Joe Torre-to-Scott-Proctor on him. Heilman leads the NL in appearances (12) and his 225 pitches are among the most of any NL reliever. Heilman has pitched in five of the Mets’ past six games. This comes at a time when Joe Smith is pitching very well and Duaner Sanchez has come off the DL in a very effective manner. Obviously, Randolph doesn’t want to overuse that duo, especially Sanchez. But he needs to find a way to back off Heilman a bit now. Heilman is just not accurately pounding the bottom of the strike zone as well as he has in the past. }

The thing that hurts about last nights performance, was Heilman almost got out of a huge jam. He gets out of that then he’s a bulldog if not you get guys like me ranting on his over use. Heilman has now pitched in 4 of the last 5 games all big situations. Meanwhile Dirty Duaner, who we were told was fit to pitch in back to back games, has not done so since his return. Also John Maine finished strong in the 6^th and while he was past that mystical 100 pitch count (109 with a spilt of 64 K/45B) couldn’t Maine come out for the 7^th?  In the top of the 7^th the Mets hand the 5-6-7 batters coming up (Delgado, Church, and Casanova) and they went out three up three down. Why not let Maine come out for the7th and warm up Sosa who is was rested to come in case Maine got in trouble? Even with the way What Me Worry Willie went, why not bring in Sosa and hold Dirty back until later? Why does What Me Willie have such a hard time working this bullpen? The way he’s misusing his relievers half the staff will be at the NYU Medical Center Orthopedic Unit by Memorial Day.

Now on to the lineup. Carlos Delgado is 3 for 14 with 6K’s vs. Ted Lilly so he has to get the day off (use the old day game after a night game excuse) now who plays first base. You could use Marlon Anderson but he’s a lefty so all you’re really left with is Damien Easley so he gets the turn at first today. Here’s the lineup I would use today:

Reyes

Easley

Wright

Beltran

Church

Pagan

Casanova

Castillo

Figueroa

Match that Willie! Oh and Omar,  go find a righty hitting first baseman pronto!

Nothing is going to change with Big Pelf until he finds consistancy low on the strike zone. He was able to get six groundball outs but falling behind in counts and then failing to deal with the dangerous Chase Utley was his downfall. In the bottom of the 5th Pelf was ahead in the count to Jason Werth leading off the inning put missed the strike zone on two pitches to go full on Werth. Relying on a fastball all night he tried to get one past Werth who singled to right. Greg Dobbs came up and after getting ahead 0-2 Pelfrey lets on over the middle and Dobbs hits it left for a single. Now you’re in a bind with the big three coming up next. Pelfrey gets too cute with Utley and falls behind 3-1 and throwing more and more fastballs Utley was salivating for that 3-1 pitch and wasted no time hitting it out of the park for his second home run of the game for a 4-0 Phillies lead

Give the Mets credit as the fought back to tie the game but Pedro Feliciano again falling behind in the count (see a pattern here?) tries to throw a breaking ball that didn’t break but sat right over the plate and Pedro Feliz as a pinch hitter lines it over the right field fence to put the Phillies back on top. Not much to analyze here, its basic pitching you fall behind in the count and try to sneak a breaking ball in on a hitters count it never goes in the pitchers favor. Throw strikes and keep the ball down sometimes easier said than done.

With Moises Alou ready to come back by this weekend, wouldn’t it be good idea to let Angel Pagan work out a t first base just to keep his bat in the lineup? I know he has never played the position in the minors or majors but he seems he is athletic enough to be adequate at worse and suprisingly good at the best. I’m sure if Omar asked nicely, Keith Hernandez would show young Angel a few trick at the right corner.

Not only is Carlos Delgado not hitting he has thrown the whole Mets line up out of whack. With Delgado look more over the hill every game, Willie had to drop Ryan Church down in the order and move Gimp Castillo back to the 2 hole (I would have put Endy in the 2 hole myself but I’ll give Willie the benefit of the doubt seeing that Endy has hardly played at all) but when Grandpa Moises comes back this weekend he has to go right in the 6 hole and Delgado down to 7 (or bench) and Gimp back to 8 and Church to 2.

Maybe you notice my calmer tone today, in fact I don’t think I used one profanity in today’s post ( I have a standing penance with my parish priest on profanity to the point I don’t even have to confess it anymore. Four Hail Mary’s, Two Our Father’s is the usualorder) I guess it’s due to my day at Highlander Stadium yesterday at the Papal Mass. I guess I should warn you that the Mets/baseball portion of this post is done. If you want to hear about my day at the Mass read on otherwise see you tomorrow.

We got to the Bronx about 9AM and walked from 149 St and River Ave down to the Stadium. Most of the parishioners with us have either never been to the Stadium or haven’t been there since Mickey Mantle patrolled centerfield so I was the unofficial tour guide. Security was extremely tight as you either had to arrive by charter bus or subway no private cars were allowed. As we walked down River Ave we were stopped three times to have our tickets inspected. We were then directed to the proper gate to enter where we all (kids as well) emptied our pockets and had to show ID. Once we were in the Stadium we found our seats. I joked that’s why we were invited because I was the only one in the group who knew his way around Highlander Stadium. We had tickets on the first base side in the Field Box (about a $300 dollar ticket for a Highlanders game I presume) I joked that our parish must have given a lot of money to the Cardinal Appeal to get such great seats. I have to give the Highlanders credit as the covered up all the advertising signs all around the ball park in with white, purple and gold material. The pitchers mound was covered by the Vatican Seal as was the walls in back of the bleachers. The opening concert was great with Harry Connick Jr,, Jose Felicano and Stephanie Mills but the Harlem Gospel Singers stole the show as most gospel singers usually do.  After a dreary start of the day although it was still very chilly the sun came out just as the doors of left field fence opened and Pope Benedict XVI made his entrance.

Over 57, 000 people roared and waved gold and white handkerchiefs that were given to us as we entered. People were crying as the Pope mobile made its way just out of excitement of seeing the Holy Father. The Pope made his way to the Highlander dugout to put on his vestments for Mass. The crowd just stood in anticipation and roared again when he came out and followed the procession to the alter.

With all the cheering and yelling as Pope Benedict waved and held his hand on his heart telling us how he felt about our greeting. He stood and started the Mass. As soon as he said “In the name of the Father……”  it was like the plug was pulled, everyone stop cheering and blessed themselves. Throughout the mass, I was astonished on how quiet the stadium was, no one spoke or even moved in their seats. We captivated by this man.

I’m a little bleary eyed after last night game. I watched the game while listening to and contributing to the SPORTSTALKNY show (my Skype connection was giving me trouble last night for some reason it kept dropping the setting for my headset mic, but I did get in late on the show which was a classic especially Phil Esposito he was a great interview well done by Mark and A J) and after a first week at Shea that started out with anger and frustration it ended with an exciting ending of a three game sweep. The 14^th inning became a survival of the fittest and Joel Hanrahan who was as wild as Lindsay Lohan at 2 for1 cocktail night, was gassed but Manny Acta had no choice but to leave him in as the Nats were caught short a pitcher after sending down Chris Schroeder to bring up catcher Will Neives while Paul LoDuca sat with a injured hand. The lack of foresight by the Jim Bowden came back to bite his team in the ass as Hanrahan had nothing last night. Just look how the 14^th inning unfolded.

Super sub Damien Easley who came into the game in a double switch led off with a single to left (his second hit of the game) that brought up Jose Reyes in bunting situation. Reyes lunged at the first pitch and bunted straight up in the air and the ball was caught by Hanrahan for the first out. Up stepped Ryan Church and the only thing on Church’s mind was to end the game. The first pitch he saw he foul off, then the next one he swung and missed, a little over anxious eh? Now Hanrahan was in control but as I said he was all over the place with his pitches during this appearance so trying to get Church to chase a bad ball he crossed up Neives behind the plate and unleashed a wild pitch that sent Easley to 2^nd base. Now Hanrahan is rattled. The next pitch is out of the strike zone so from a commanding 0-2 advantage Church gets the count even. Then Hanrahan feels frogy and tries to pick Easley off at second base and ends up throwing the ball into the outfield so now we have the winning run on third with one out. Church, trying to just hit a fly ball swings and misses at the next pitch for strike three. Shit, this game is going to go on and on and on.  When Manny Acta allowed Hanrahan to pitch to Wright I was SHOCKED. Why pitch to Wright or Delgado with the pitchers spot behind Delgado and only Brian Schneider left on the bench. I guess I yelled loud enough for Acta to hear me as he walked both Wright and Reyes to load the bases setting up the force all around. Now up steps Schneider and no one warming in the pen. What was Willie going to do concede the game? No, finally the phone rings and up steps Scott Schoenewies which could be construed as a concession. Never the less Joel Hanrahan took the team he rooted for as a child, off the hook by throwing a pitched that missed the plate by about twenty feet and bounced to the back stop for a walk off wild pitch (YIKES!) Bizarre inning and as Willie said afterward a very ugly game. 

I hope you’re sitting down for this one. My family has been invited by the pastor of our church to join him and a few other parishioners to the see the Pope at Highlander Stadium.  I hope this isn’t a set up to save my soul or something or maybe something wild like the Pope reads the site (Benny from Da Vatican ?) but it should be a nice day too bad the venue is less desireable. My wife read a story that communion will be distributed during the mass and the Dioceses claims it will take 15 minutes to give communion to the over 55, 000 in attendance. I’ll believe that when I see it but my question is how long will it take for the collection and will there be two of those? 

I’m not too overly concerned about John Maine as he was throwing his fastball with high velocity (low-mid 90’s) he just couldn’t get a good feel on the ball early in this start.  He gave up four walks but two were in the first inning when he was struggling with command and the other two were in the7th when fatigue set in. By the way I “watched” most of this game on MLB.COM Gameday with the fancy, shmansy Pitch F/X as I had the Rangers-Devils game on the TV. And that is one of the great inventions of our time. Right there with the drive thru Dunkin Donuts.   It seemed as though Maine was just a bit off with his location early but picked up around the third inning where he threw less pitches to get three outs. Plus with 12 fly ball outs his pitches were up a bit but hey a win is a win.

Good for you Carlos Beltran for stepping up and telling Jose Reyes it’s time to be Jose Reyes. I love the quotes from Beltran on what the opposition thinks of the juking and jiving by Reyes:

   With a critical series in Philly starting tomorrow, maybe another huddle between the outspoken Beltran and the newly energized Reyes might be in order. “He knew he didn’t feel right,” Beltran said of Reyes. “We’re happy he’s dancing. We don’t care if other teams get offended. That’s part of the game.” 

Exactly who besides What Me Worry Willie cares what the other team thinks I love how

Beltran is stepping up a bit this year and throwing some of his weight around. I hope all you Mike Pizza fans take notice as Me, Myself and I Piazza never stepped up. Beltran is the most opposite of Reyes as anyone on the team and as a quite guy he still can step up and make a statement or go to a teammate with counsel:

But Beltran’s biggest assist might have happened before the 6-0 Mets’ win in Tuesday’s series opener. Beltran noticed a moping, more quiet Reyes. And that, to Beltran, needed to be fixed. “I had a conversation with Reyes. I said, ‘Don’t change.’ When he’s doing that, jumping around, we like it. We’re happy,” Beltran said at his locker last night. “He’s a fun guy.” 

 Like Manny being Manny , Jose has got to be Jose for the Mets to roll.      I will give kudos to What Me Worry Willie for putting Ryan Church in the 2 hole and moving Gimp Castillo down to 8^th put it could also be the broken clock theory, you know even though the clock doesn’t work its right twice a day.

 I hope Petey is not trying to get back to soon from the tweaked hammy just to shut up the critics. It would be better for Petey and the team that he comes back 100 % and not rush back and do more or worse damage to the leg muscle. Petey is a proud man and that worries me.     Jack Fisher, Ron Hunt and Tim Harkness will take down the number of games left at Shea tonight. Jack Fisher is one fine gentleman. Bewteen games of a doubleheader in 1964 while my brother and I were standing by the railing near the Mets dugout, Fisher brought us a couple of pears from the clubhouse. It’s amazing the shit I remember but when I go to the mall I have to write down the number of the section where the car is parked.

Rangers are a game away form taking the first round of the playoffs and it won’t be easy. The Devils are kind of like the Atlanta Braves of hockey except with championships and a manger who has been around forever. Lou Lamerillo is very much like John Shuerholz when it comes to building an organization. As much as I hate both the Braves and Devils I have tons of admiration for both men who run them.  Speaking of hockey if you are a hockey fan or a sports fan you must tune into SPORTSTALKNY tonight as we will be hockey-centric with an all star line up. First NY Rangers radio play by play man Kenny Albert will be on followed by NY Daily News Rangers beat man John Dellapina then last but certainly not least former Rangers legend Phil Esposito will join us plus my Mets report, a Highlanders report, NFL Draft, NBA Playoffs everything and anything in the sports world will be cover tonight on SPORTSTALKNY and we want you to join in so call us at (631) 615-4799 and in the most lively chat room in the web DON”T FORGET 9PM via USTREAM I’ll be taking attendance!     Captain Phony Fuck strikes again !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The top of the third inning of last nights game could be the inning we look back on as the time Mike Pelfrey jumped from suspect pitcher to bona fide big leaguer. Big Plef was fantastic last night hitting the mid to high 90’s on the gun and pounding the hell out of the strike zone. But it was the third inning that impressed me the most.

So after a days rest the Mets will welcome the Washington Nationals to Shea and as part of the salute to Jackie Robinson players from both teams will wear the number 42 on their jerseys.

Odalis Perez pitches for the Nats tonight against Big Pelf and hopefully this will get Gimp Castillo’ bat going as Castillo is 9/22 lifetime vs. Perez. Maybe What Me Worry Willie will look at the digits and play Endy Chavez tonight and take advantage of Chavez 4/13 .308 average against Odalis.

Pelfrey hopes to build off his last start and will have to maneuver around Austin Kearns (5/11) and Ryan Zimmerman ( 4/11) the two Nats who have the most success against Pelf.

Dirty Duaner should be back tonight in the over worked bullpen and Kranepool Society favorite, Carlos Muniz heads back to NOLA.

I love these stories on what will happen to Angel Pagan when Moises Alou comes back. Are you kidding? Granpa Moises won’t be back, the earliest end of May do let’s worry about it then. 

Matt Wise will linger on the DL as the Mets are in no rush to activate him same with Ramon Castro as Raul Casanova might just steal the back up job from RC.

Time for me to piss in your corn flakes. There is an article up on The Hardball Times on Brian Bannister showing his multitude of pitches and how he has become a top line starter. You think anyone on the Mets staff has the stones to print it out and leave it on Omar’s desk?

According to a story in the NY Post it looks like Petey won’t be back until June. WOW he must be acelling the rehab. I still say after the All Star break is a better bet.

The Dodgers hosted a night for Dodger bloggers last week and one of the bloggers writes about the experience. I cannot see the Mets ever doing something like this. Nick Colletti the Dodger GM met with the bloggers and when one of them took out a pad and pen and began writing, Colletti asked that anything discussed would be off the record. Dodgers owner Frank McCourt also came by to chat as did Tommy Lasorda. There are teams that embrace the blogger community like the Oakland A’s, the NY Islanders, and Washington Capitals but I can’t see the Mets ever doing this. Can you imagine the disgust on Jay Horowitz face if bloggers were able to gain access to the front office and manager? I would love to sit down with Omar or Willie, more with Omar as I’ve said many times I’m a frustrated General Manager just to see what he goes through each day and how he keeps track of his players and players around the league and how many times he places calls to other GM’s and who he likes dealing with and who he can’t stand. Believe me I’m not holding out any hope of a meeting like this ever happening.

Collin Campbell and the NHL Office can kiss mine and all Rangers fans Blueshirt ass when it comes with this new ruling over Sean Avery.  As I write this I am wearing my AVERY 16 t-shirt just to let you know where I’m coming from. What Avery did to Marty Broduer was not bush league or dirty, is was genius. Only a guy with the cajones like Avery would ever do a thing like that. So because he is brilliant he gets punished by that Clueless Campbell.   Oh and get over yourselves Devil fans, both of you.

Far be it from me to tell Mets fans what to do but booing Johan Santana is absolutely mindless, but I understand your anger. With all the vitriol that is spewed by me at this site believe it or not I’m not a boo-er.  Not even when dogs like Bobby Bonillia and Vince Coleman disgraced the blue and orange uniform did I voice my displeasure vocally. The one time I screamed at player I was thirteen years old and I told Tim Foli how much he sucked while he was on the on deck circle, Crazy Horse came over near where my friends and I were sitting (this was 1971, you could sit any place you liked in those years at Shea) and told how he would shove the bat up my little teen aged ass. So maybe that was a lesson learned. 

What the media and some of my fellow bloggers are failing to realize is Mets fans are arriving at Shea in foul mood to begin with. I have not venture to Shea yet but I few friends of mine have and they tell me what a pain in the ass a day to a Shea has been. Think about it, you sit in traffic that is bumper to bumper, and then you have assholes who try to cut in the exit like they are fucking royalty. Now you get off the GCP and try to enter a parking lot.  If you don’t want the frustration of driving you can be packed like an anchovy on the 7 train.  And you expect people to have a happy face on when things go bad on the field. Where the fuck do you think you are Mayberry?

What the Mets don’t understand and this is for What Me Worry? Willie and Everybody’s All-American David Wright, the stink of last September still lingers like cat piss on a carpet. What does the organization want from us? To sit there and act like nothing is wrong? If that’s the way the Skill Sets, Omar and What Me Worry Willie feel they are all in the wrong profession and the wrong town. The players walk around like they are above criticism because no one is held accountable in the clubhouse. Brady Clark is probably a very nice young man, who made an innocent mistake with his base running blunder yesterday but he’s got to go. Collateral damge. The Brady Clarks of the baseball world are a dime a dozen and besides the Mets need a middle infielder badly to fill in for not only Jose Reyes but for Peg Legs Castillo who hurts himself just tying his shoes.

Speaking of Reyes I am more concerned about him than ever as this hammy “strain” tells me his conditioning is lax and I think it has to do with management telling him to tone down his act as they may have taken some life out of Jose. Something to keep an eye on.

With all the hostile negative bullshit, the good news is the Phillies and Braves are in the same boat as the Mets. All three teams have bullpen problems with the Braves pen (0-4 5.20 ERA) the worst of the three. The problem is of the three teams the Mets are the ones that have not proven they can rise up and take the division when it’s a close race.

Is there anything more ridiculous than the Highlanders digging up their a cement floor in their new tenement to get the Red Sox jersey that a worker buried there? The serious look on the workers faces that dug it up was hilarious. Then Lon Troost Douchebag in charge in the Bronx says the Highlanders will press criminal charges against the worker who place the Big Papi jersey in the ground. Hey Lon you better keep digging so you can find your fucking brains!

Hats off to Figgy and to his family for giving us the first great story of 2008. It was a pleasure watching Figgy be the definition of a pitcher last night as he hit corners, moving the ball in and out .

Now that’s Mets baseball. Take two of three from the Cheesesteakers helps the psyche of the fans and team immensely. And they way the Mets won was what how we have wanted to see team play by being aggressive. Hopefully this is the breakout for Jose Reyes as goes Jose-Jose-Jose so go the Mets.

John Maine was better than the first outing of the year but those five walks are butt ugly. Three of those walks came in the sixth inning so I’ll say it was fatigue setting in. The first two innings Maine was getting behind in the count early but he found his command in innings three, four and five and again I’ll site fatigue he lost a bit in the 6^th and the seventh when Feliciano took over.

I’m not going to kill Aaron Heilman over the Ryan Howard solo home run, and even though the long ball as hurt Heilman so far this early in the season it’s the walks that have me concerned, especially to Pat Burrell. Burrell lifetime against Heilman is 4/13 with a HR and 5K’s he gets ahead 0-1 then four straight balls UGHHH! Then up comes Geoff Jenkins (2/8 .250 vs. Heilman) and Heilman gets ahead in the count with two swinging strikes. Then he goes out of the strike zone, which is fine as you let Jenkins fish, next pitch Jenkins just misses and then Heilman misses and the next pitch Jenkins lines it to RF. Some days you’re the peacock other days you’re the feather duster. I’m not going to rant and rave over Heilman’s performance because it looks like it just command issues that Heilman is having as giving up walks and home runs are not what Heilman does. So I think we just have to hope that Professor Rick and Guy Conti can help Heilman get his command right.

What a shock, Bob Raisman talking out of his ass. No one is panicking about the Mets or the season we are just calling it as we see it. Think of Mets fans as the bad cops and Willie Randolph is the good cop. Oh and Bob thanks for reading the site!

Howard Megdal was a great column today on the Roberto Petagine of pitchers Nelson Figueroa.

Manny Parra goes for the Beer Leaguers tonight a pitcher the Mets have not seen a lot of but tomorrow match up Johan Santana vs. Jeff Suppan is top notch. I wonder if Willie will look at the numbers and play Marlon Anderson who is 7/13 against Sheets over Carlos Delgado who is 1/9 with 5K vs. Sheets.   Let’s hope Luis Castillo rubs some Ben Gay on those knees as he’s 7/16 against Ben S.

 Claudio Vargas is a no lose signing but let’s not lose sight that this guy is very hittable and gives up a lot of runs. Hopefully he goes to NOLA and works with Dan Warthen and becomes serviceable at best.

Let Michael Johns getting tossed off American Idol be a lesson to you kids thinking of trying out for the show. First, never ever try to sing and Aerosmith or Queen songs. Steven Tyler and the late great Freddie Mercury are two of the great rock singers of all time (the first is Robert Plant and if you notice no one on AI has the balls to sing a Zeppelin song)  Second, for all male contestants, never, ever wear an ascot on stage. You might as well put a sticker on your forehead that reads DOUCHEBAG because that’s what wearing an ascot makes you. By the way somehow some way Carly Smithson has to go next. It pains me to go against the Irish lass but her husband’ tattooed face scares the shit out of me.