28
2012
Mets Blank Padres 2-0 As Dickey Delivers Another Ten Strikeout Gem
An article by 
Recap:
For the first time since 1996, Mets fans could walk the field parading their Mets banners and expressing their passionate love for their New York Mets. R.A. Dickey took the hill looking to take this four game set from the Padres with a win on such a special and fan-filled day and did not disappoint.
Dickey went a dominant shutout 7.1 innings, allowing just three hits and a walk while punching out ten Friars. San Diego was completely overwhelmed by the knuckleball as they failed for the second consecutive ballgame to score a run. Adding onto a 4-0 record in his last six starts with a 2.48 ERA, Dickey continues to be a perfect compliment to Johan Santana and a stabilizing force in front of a young and somewhat unproven 3-4-5 in the rotation in 2012.
The Mets bats we all over Padres starter Edinson Volquez as his controlled was an issue throughout his outing today. Volquez went 5 2/3 frames, allowing two runs on five hits and three walks, taking the loss to fall to 2-5 on the year. Accounting for those two runs included a two out rally capped off by a Daniel Murphy RBI single in the first, and a Rick Ankiel-esq minor meltdown in the fifth.
After surrendering a leadoff double to Mike Baxter in the fifth, Volquez threw a wild pitch to Kirk Nieuwenhuis that moved Baxter to third. The very next pitch went to the backstop again, officially a passed ball this time however, scoring Baxter to give the Mets a commanding 2-0 lead.
In the eighth, Dickey’s control began to fade, hitting Nick Hundley and walking Chris Denorfia before being relieved by Tim Byrdak, who came on and retiring the next two batters to end the threat.
The following frame, the resurgent Frank Francisco came on to pitch the ninth and hurled a 1-2-3 to slam the door, picking up his 13th save and catapulting the Mets into sole possession of second place in the NL East and now just two games out of first place.
Hero Of The Game:
Who else but R.A. Dickey, who has never looked better in his professional career as he does right now.
Notes:
-R.A. Dickey improved to 7-1 on the year and is now tied for the major-league lead in wins with Cole Hamels and Lance Lynn.
-Ike Davis took an 0-3 today with two strikeouts however saw alot of pitches from Volquez before being retired twice on the changeup.
-Justin Turner was the only Met to record a 2-hit game today, raising his average to .262 on the year.
-David Wright also took an 0-3 and his average has dropped to .382 on the season.
Up Next:
The Mets open up a series with the Phillies with Jon Niese on the hill to square off against Cole Hamels starting at 7:05pm.
About the Author: Clayton Collier
Clayton, a Long Island native and die-hard Mets fan, started writing online about three years ago. He is currently a Journalism major with a minor in Broadcasting at Seton Hall University. Although very disappointed with the current state of the team, Clayton remains hopeful that the young prospects in the farm system will bring the Mets back to a respected franchise in baseball once again. Besides writing for MMO, Clayton is also a staff member at 89.5 WSOU, Seton Hall's modern active rock radio station. You can contact Clayton by following him on Twitter: @Clayton_Collier or E-mailing him at MaybeNextYearMets@yahoo.com
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NL East Standings
| Team | W | L | Pct. | GB |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Braves | 22 | 18 | .550 | - |
| Nationals | 22 | 19 | .537 | 0.5 |
| Phillies | 19 | 22 | .463 | 3.5 |
| Mets | 15 | 23 | .395 | 6.0 |
| Marlins | 11 | 30 | .268 | 11.5 |
Last updated: 05/17/2013
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Another excellent start for Dickey, followed up his 11k performance against Pittsburgh with a 3 hit 10 K perfomance today against SD, albeit 2 horrendous offensive teams, it’s still impressive.
Interesting comments from Bobby Ojeda during the post game show, talking about how dreadful the team and it’s clubhouse was in 2009 and 2010 with all the malcontents in the locker room. Bobby O went on to say how Sandy and Terry have done a GREAT job changing the losing culture of the franchise. Although I don’t think too much of Terry’s managerial skills in game, he and Sandy have done an excellent job changing the losing atmosphere that surrounded the team the last few years before they got here. The last 2 years, this team leaves it all out on the field, 100% every game. They’re fun to watch.
I feel we can contend this year especially in a division that is up in there in air with no dominant team such as the Phillies WERE in ’09,’10,’11. I think the few pieces that are remaining is a solid set-up man and a 5th starter.
You have a losing culture when your best players are hurt, David, Jose, Johan,etc and then you have two players who were given contracts they didn’t deserve and were terminated by SA but what malcontents is BO talking about here?
Great win for RA and Mets who face a Phillies team that has Halliday hurt, no offense and Mets have handled pretty well so far plus they are play at Citi not that band box.
Ask Bobby Ojeda who said there was a huge divide in the clubhouse in those seasons. Injuries or not the team quit on their manager. Last years team had injuries too but they fought in every game. Terry Collins wasn’t cracking jokes with the media after a loss like Jerry Manuel did. That team accepted losing, this team doesn’t. There’s a huge difference in how this team goes about their business then in those two years. Besides other than Beltran the 2010 team remained pretty healthy for the most part until Johan went down late in the year. A few minor injuries to Reyes and Pagan. Injuries to Ollie and Castillo were positives, it allowed the team to find out what they had in Dickey and Takahashi and played well from Memorial weekend to the allstar break. When they came out of the allstar break they were hideous and folded up the tents as soon as they fell behind in games. I agree 100% with Ojeda.
Same attendance as yesterday and Gary Cohen kept on mentioning the hundreds of banners there was today made it a big success.
I don’t think so. What happened to the thousands of banners we used to see year after year? Perhaps the reason banner day didn’t capture the imagination of more fans today is the saddest part of it all. Sports is now such a big business that it is seen as an entertainment and the unbridled love and enthusiasm many once had is just a thing of the past, as is the price of a ticket that everyone was once able to afford. Our own ownership’s behavior has demonstrated that their primary concern regarding the fan base was how much it was willing to spend for a day at the ball park. That’s why more than one of us saw the revival of this once sacred event as nothing more than a gimmick.
Another reason for this cynicism is that banner day was once an event shared by all – the participants, the fans in the stands and the hundreds of thousands of fans watching it on television. Ownership felt so passionate about reviving this Met tradition that the only ones allowed to enjoy it were the slightly more than 28,000 who paid to get in. If nothing more, SNY could have aired it before the game instead of repeats of “Sports Night”.
They said it took 90 minutes to parade all those hundreds of banners. If they had thousands, can’t imagine how long that would take.
They used to do it in between a double header. Those folks participating would miss most of game one as they had to line up behind the OF wall.
I too was disappointed there wasn’t much SNY coverage today. Most of the banners I was able to see were posted on Twitter.
It actually took forty minutes and there were approximately 300 entries according to the attached.
Maybe there were only 300 entries this time around because the highest price for a ticket back in 1965 ($3.50 for a box seat with no such thing as a processing fee) would cost just $25.32 today. A $1.50 general admission ticket today would go for just $10.85 each. I don’t think most all of us would find a few tickets in the $10.85 to $25.32 range a drain on the pocket book.
Back then there would be thousands parading their banners – for example, over 2,400 banners were entered in the 1968 edition (also see attached). That’s eight times the amount of today’s revival. I am sure prices being what they are today has taken a bit of the enthusiasm out of the celebration.
http://buzztap.com/link.jsp?id=9800180&cid=109
http://books.google.com/books?id=04uvrAP6rvoC&pg=PA38&lpg=PA38&dq=most+banners+entered+in+a+mets+banner+day&source=bl&ots=uBUDlh6rQH&sig=YKJgnUEdoo3-_mCVyziVWcTQzzM&hl=en&sa=X&ei=A-XCT8rjHMPH6gG50qjWCg&ved=0CF0Q6AEwCDgU#v=onepage&q&f=false
Ripoff ticket prices, parking and food is just part of the MLB “experience” at Citifield.When i go i try to get tickets off stubhub for 20-30 bucks.I have no idea how folks buy $100 plus tickets downstairs plus exorbitant food when they take the family.Just pure greed on the part of the Wilponzis, but they do have a lot of company in pro sports these days when it comes to gouging the fans
That’s right on point Gary. I hear some people were getting tickets on stubhub for 10 bucks last year. Why would anybody pay 100 bucks for a ticket these days when you can get them so cheap.
Every single ticket I buy for a Mets game is off StubHub, much to the chagrin of Cory Schwartz, my ticket rep who’s done a thankless job trying to get me to reconsider. He’s a nice guy and he’s done a good job, but unfortunately, it’s not about him. It’s not even about the Mets. No matter how well they play, StubHub is always the cheaper option and I just can’t afford the ticket prices from the Mets.
Also notice that the additional fees on Stub Hub (including mark-up and shipping) total much less than the processing and shipping fees the Mets hit us for? With the Mets, one usually winds up paying the face value of three promenade tickets when only getting two. That’s why when they say tickets for certain games start as low $11.00 it’s really a bunch of bull.