Twitter Poll: What’s worse: Mets bats or Mets arms?

After another night of sloppy pitching and lack of hitting, I asked my Twitter followers what was worse about the Mets: the bats or the arms?

Here are their responses…

• wendy93639 said: pitching
• letsgoduke said: bats
• pjdempsey said: bats with RISP. Pitching hasn't been horrible as far as runs allowed goes.
• Section518 said: Bats. Pitchers (outside of Johan) have been bad or shaky, but this offense can pick them up. But they haven't. Yet.
• PaulsRandomStuf said: The Mets starting pitching, other than Santana, is a disaster. The hitters will eventually get it together (I hope).
• acesigma said: A billion left on base so far? Batting. No question.
• Retire31 said: how about timely hitting AND timely pitching.
• MetsNY81 said: You can make a strong argument for both.. but i'll go with bats.
• lvadgal said: gotta go with the bats as if they were hitting runs would score and that helps the pitchers.
• darknova306 said: Pitching. We know the bats will come around, but Maine looks toasted, Ollie is worse than ever and who knows about Pelf's arm
• gmo418 said: Hitting, 100+ men left on base . Cant drive in runs. Its sad. Hopefully Mets can get healthy on the Nats this weekend.
• jessicarubin said: Bats.. The pitching has been inconsistent but it could be much worse (*cough*chien-ming wang*cough*) - a few hits would = win
• samtpage said: They're both good. I'm serious.

Interesting array of answers.  Bats came out as the “winner” but pitching had a strong contingent behind it.

Not on Twitter?  Hit the comments to toss in your 2¢ about which problem facing the Mets is worse.

Follow me on Twitter to participate
in the next Twitter Poll!

Game Recap: Cardinals 5 – Mets 2

What’s left to say?

The Cardinals (10-5) beat the Mets (6-8) by a score of 5-2.

The Mini Recap

John Maine struggled throughout the game, letting up seven hits and five earned runs in five 2-3 innings of work.  The bullpen kept the Cardinal quiet, but the Mets bats just weren’t there.

The team picked up on in the third on a Daniel Murphy RBI single and tacked on another in the ninth on a Carlos Beltran RBI double.

If you watched this game, you just knew the Mets weren’t going to win.  They had a tie in the third, but from there the Cardinals just took over the game.  They made Joel Piniero look like Cy Young.

For the full recap, head over to Baseball Digest.

Source: Figueroa flees for free agency

Nelson Figueroa has refused his assignment to Triple-A Buffalo and filed for free agency, according to a source who has asked to remain anonymous.

Figueroa was designated for assignment after his quality start on Sunday.  He cleared waivers and Figueroa has a day to decide to report to the Mets affiliate in Buffalo or file for free agency.

The source has said that Figueroa has chosen to opt for free agency over returning to the Mets organization.

And who can blame him?  The Mets did not treat him well after he turned in a good start for them.  They cut him loose and brought on Casey Fossum in a messy roster shuffle.

I wish the best to Figueroa and his family.  He was a great guy and did everything the Mets asked of him.

Lineup stays the same

After a messy game last night, I was shocked to see the lineup stay as is for tonight’s game.

1. Jose Reyes – SS
2. Daniel Murphy – LF
3. David Wright – 3B
4. Carlos Delgado – 1B
5. Carlos Beltran – CF
6. Ryan Church – RF
7. Ramon Castro – C
8. Luis Castillo – 2B
9. John Maine – RHP

No live blog tonight, but feel free to hit the comments to discuss the game.

If you’re a masochist…

You’ll want to watch this.  Over and over and over.  And over.

Via The Good Phight from Back She Goes…

No comment.

All-Star balloting now open: Vote LMillz!

Major League Baseball is three weeks into the season, and they’ve already set up online balloting for the All-Star Game set for St. Louis.

Major League Baseball today marked the official start of All-Star Balloting for the 80th All-Star Game, which will be held on Tuesday, July 14th, with a special on-field ceremony prior to the New York Mets-St. Louis Cardinals game at Busch Stadium, the host of the 2009 Midsummer Classic. The Major League Baseball All-Star Game Balloting program is the largest of its kind in professional sports.
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Every Major League Club will have begun its in-stadium balloting no later than Wednesday, May 6th. When the in-stadium phase of balloting concludes on Friday, June 26th, fans will have the opportunity to cast their final ballots exclusively online at MLB.com and the 30 Club Web sites until Thursday, July 2nd at 11:59 p.m. (EDT). In addition, Banco BHD will sponsor All-Star balloting in the Dominican Republic, making Spanish-language ballots available offline and online at www.bhd.com.do from May 5th-June 22nd.

I just cast my ballot (you can cast 25, but I don’t know anyone who cares that much) and I found it fairly hard to choose based on 13 or 14 games, but that’s just me.

Oddly, or maybe not so oddly, you can still vote for Lastings Milledge to make the All-Star team.  I’m officially starting the “Vote LMillz” campaign to get Milledge into the All-Star Game.  I’d love to see what MLB will do if Milledge makes the team while he’s still in Triple-A.

Vote often and vote Milledge.

Guest Blog: Overpricing and charity

This guest post come from my good friend Jeremy Schilling, who maintains his own blog at jschil.wordpress.com.  Enjoy…

No, this is not another blog post about the overpricing of tickets or the lack of perfect attendance at early Yankee and Mets games this season. This post is about ideas.

NBC Nightly News has been doing a segment for about a month and a half now called “Making a Difference” – how average Americans are helping their neighbors in tough times. It’s by far the most popular segment Nightly News has run in a long time.

So let’s have these teams make a difference.

There are hundreds of charities out there which would love to go to a baseball game. Give the tickets to them.

Now I understand that yes, this comes with a financial loss. But you know what – hopefully they’ll pay it forward, and eventually, it’ll all come full circle. No one wants to see empty seats in a ballpark, no one. So why don’t we fill it up with worthy people – baseball’s next generation.

Does this next generation care about tax-exempt bonds, personal seat licenses or obstructed seats? I bet you not. Most just want a day out in the sun and fun, seeing America’s pastime, and a time away from all their troubles.

Change was the keyword for a good 5 or 6 months in this country in late 2008. So why don’t we CHANGE the lives of Americans by giving them prime seats, the expensive seats that no one wants, to worthy charities and letting deserving people see a baseball game.

That is the American way of doing things.

Thank you, Jeremy.  Check out his blog at jschil.wordpress.com.

Figueroa clears waivers; O’Day picked up by Texas

Nelson Figueroa has cleared waivers, according to Adam Rubin.

Figueroa will report to Triple-A Buffalo.

Good.  Justice is served.

Also, Darren O’Day has been picked off of waivers by the Texas Rangers, according to Ken Davidoff.

So long, Darren.  Maybe, if the Rangers drop him, the Mets can bring him back if the timing is right.  You never know.

The Mets can hit…sometimes

The Mets bats are fairing pretty well so far, even though you wouldn’t figure that out by listening to sports radio and reading some blogs. 

Check out these stats from Josh over at Jorge Says No!…

As of last night's game against the Cardinals, each position player on the Mets was hitting at least .300 with the exception of Ramon Castro (and Castro only has 20 at bats this season). Think about that: the Mets entire infield and outfield is hitting at least .300 right now. Crazy.
Proof:

1. Reyes - .339
2. Murphy - .320
3. Wright - .306
4. Delgado - .300
5. Beltran - .354
6. Church - .350
7. Castro - .150
8. Castillo - .400

I know it's only 13 games into the season, but this is still very, very impressive. And somewhat weird.

Too bad these aren’t the Mets numbers with runners in scoring position.

(Ed. note: I changed up the table a little.  It will appear differently on Josh’s site)

Photo of the day: Daniel Murphy and Yadier Molina

I think we caught them
during a tender moment.