You can always count on a Morning Grind from me after a loss like last night. I embrace my Met fandom and take great pride in the moaning and groaning I do after a loss. It was something I picked up in the mid seventies and I never could quite kick the habit. 🙂
It looks like Terry Collins is cracking and beginning to see the light on Kirk Nieuwenhuis. After a week of adamantly stating that the centerfield job would go to Andres Torres as soon as he got back – even before last night’s game – Collins paused when asked about it after the game and simply said “I don’t know what I’m going to do”. It’s a far departure from his previous stance and that gives me hope that he’ll ultimately do the right thing. Yes, I know that it’s only 35 at-bats, all you small sample advocates settle down. You have eyes don’t you? It’s not difficult to see how athletic and talented the kid looks beyond his .371/.460/.600 line… It’s not hard to see how incredibly good he plays in centerfield… His instincts and savvy are way beyond his years… And to hear Terry Collins talk about Kirk’s competitiveness and how his whole persona transforms as soon as he leaves the clubhouse and gets on that field for the game, gave me goosebumps last night. The trick is to see how he adjusts once the league adjusts to him, but I gotta hunch that there’s no fail in this kid.
Jon Niese looked awful from the word go last night and he admitted as much during the post game, but I give him high points for turning it around and holding the Giants at bay and giving us a chance to rally back and win – and we almost did. Niese has got a lot of moxie and the kind of swagger I want to see in a starting pitcher. Niese is maturing and taking his game seriously. He no longer has that deer in the headlights look. He sounded like he was pissed off at himself last night and looked like he wanted to punch a wall (luckily he didn’t) which is a nice departure from what we usually see from Pelfrey after a bad outing. Speaking of the big dude, he gets a chance to play stopper this afternoon. I hope he can end this three game slide.
One of our readers, Stuart, emailed me this last night:
Duane Reade has the promtion when the METS hit Two HRs in a game you get a free Axe brand deodorant. Last season they gave out bars of SOAP. Do you think this is a not so subtle hint to us METS fans about our personal hygiene. Or is this a way of them saying that the team and the fans both stink? 🙂
I don’t even know hot to respond to that, lol.
A bunch of our prospects have written to tell us how much they dig our coverage of the Mets Minors. Hey guys, we dig you too!. Bisons reliever Justin Hampson got a little annoyed at us though because he thought we were a little rough on him, so I want to point out that on Wednesday, he pitched two perfect innings of relief and picked up his first save of the season and the second of his pro career. Way to go, Justin! I also promised Cam Maron that we will no longer refer to him as Camden, he prefers Cam.
Our Minor League guru Pete, spoke to Brad Holt and he’ll be posting an interview in the coming days. We just heard back from the Lehigh Valley Iron Pigs who invited Pete to take in a couple of games when the Bisons roll into town for a three game series next week. He’ll not only be rubbing elbows with the boys from Buffalo, but plans on talking to Wally Backman and Hall of Famer Ryne Sandberg. I’m so jealous!
By the way, I want to welcome Tim Burns to our MMO Minor League team as well as Prince Rahman. Tim’s a firefighter and a die-hard Mets fan who lives in Binghamton and catches a lot of the B-Mets games. In addition to providing a daily game recap, he’ll be doing a weekly feature called the Binghamton Buzz which looks to be a lot of fun and very insightful. Prince will be focusing on the MLB Draft and will have a series of great posts as we get closer to Draft Day. Welcome to MMO guys!
One more thing… Thanks to Darryl Strawberry for including us on his Ultimate Mets Bloggers list on Twitter. 😉
