Manuel’s Musing

“Poor, poor, poor defensive mistakes. Almost to the point of embarrassing.”

-Jerry Manuel on defense

Finding ways to lose

As a Mets fan, we’ve witnessed some pretty strange ways to watch the Mets lose.

Today was a new take on an old friend.  Back when the Mets were visiting Los Angeles, we saw the Dodgers trump the Mets on a game-ending error.

Tonight, in the 8th inning this time around, back-to-back errors helped the Nationals beat the Mets in D.C.

In what looked like a tailor-made double play, Anderson Hernandez fielded a ground ball off the bat of Christian Guzman, but his flip to Luis Castillo was well wide of the bag.  That put runners at first and second with one out.

Making up for the earlier gaffe, Hernandez smothered the next ball to come his way and made a backhand flip to Castillo to force out Guzman at second.  Castillo turned to attempt the double-play, but his throw sailed out of the reach of a leaping Daniel Murphy, allowing Justin Maxwell to score.

And that run was the decider as the Mets threatened in the 9th inning, but were foiled by a catch by Elijah Dukes as he slammed into the right field wall to end the game.

Just scribble it down as another loss and try to forget about it.  If you can.

Hey, only four more games to go.

Lineup for Game 158

Almost there, ladies and gentlemen.  Another day with Nick Evans on the bench.

Here’s the lineup…

1. Angel Pagan – LF
2. Luis Castillo – 2B
3. David Wright – 3B
4. Carlos Beltran – CF
5. Daniel Murphy – 1B
6. Jeff Francoeur – RF
7. Brian Schneider – C
8. Wilson Valdez – SS
9. Mike Pelfrey - RHP

Uniform changes in store for 2010?

We’ve got some conflicting reports on this, but it seems the Mets may be changing their uniforms for next season.

The first note I saw was a pair of tweets from Bart Hubbuch.  In one, Hubbuch noted that the Mets were considering dropping the pinstripe uniforms from the rotation next season. 

A few minutes later, he also mentioned that the Mets may be changing their plain, white uniforms to more cream colored ones, a la the throwbacks they wore earlier this season, likely without the huge NY on the front.

In his game notes, Adam Rubin then mentioned a different alternative.  He wrote:

The Mets plan to go retro with their pinstriped home uniforms next season. Those uniforms will change to off-white, as they were in the 1960s, from their current bright white. That will also serve to differentiate the pinstriped uniforms from the solid home uniforms, which will remain the brighter white.

Meaning the plain, white uniforms would stay, but be accompanied by cream-colored pinstripe jerseys.  Think 1969 uniforms.

All uniforms will still have the drop shadow under “Mets.”

As usual, it looks like we’ll just have to wait and see what happens with the Mets and their garb.  If it was up to me (and most Mets fans), they would drop the black jersey from the rotation entirely.

But that’s just me.

More firings

As Joe Janish noted, this was buried at the bottom of Adam Rubin’s game story from Sunday, but it’s a fairly big deal.

Both Mako Oliveras and Julio Franco have been fired as minor-league coaches.

Oliveras managed Double-A Binghamton and Franco was at the helm of the Gulf Coast League team.

Interesting.  Who’s going to be left after all these firings?  And who is going to fill those holes?

Manuel’s Musing

“Obviously, if you're going to win those games, you got to find a way to get those hits and get those runs in, and we were unable to do that.”

-Jerry Manuel on winning games

Chris Carter DFA’d by Sox [Updated]

When the Mets traded Billy Wagner to the Boston Red Sox, they were going to receive two players to be named later in return.

One of those players was Eddie Lora.  The other was Chris Carter.  Carter was put on waivers with the intention that he would be shipped to the Mets.  The Yankees threw a wrench in that plan.  The Sox pulled him back and had to keep him on the 40-man.

Now, the Sox have designated Carter for assignment.

From where I’m standing this could mean one of two things for the Mets.  One, another team may claim Carter, further complicating the trade between the two teams.  Or two, the Mets claim Carter (if he gets to them in the waiver process) and finally complete the deal.

Here’s what it means for the Mets:

From Nick Migliore in the comments…

This is not the case. He was only designated for assignment, not waived, so nobody can claim him. The Red Sox have 10 days to decide what to do with him now (assign him, trade him, or release him).. Once the season ends the Sox and Mets will complete the deal.

And from Bart Hubbuch of the NY Post on Twitter…

It appears he's going to be traded to the Mets on Monday, the day after the season.

Lineup for Game 157

The mystery of “Where is Nick Evans?” continues.

Here’s the lineup…

1. Angel Pagan – LF
2. Luis Castillo – 2B
3. David Wright – 3B
4. Carlos Beltran – CF
5. Jeff Francoeur – RF
6. Fernando Tatis – 1B
7. Omir Santos – C
8. Anderson Hernandez – SS
9. Nelson Figueroa - RHP

Manuel’s Musing

“Things are so strange this season, aren't they?”

-Jerry Manuel on 2009

Mets rookie hazing [Photos]

The Mets dressed up the team’s rookies in various costumes after yesterday’s 4-0 win in Florida.  Thanks to the power of the Internet, we can see those photos.

Here is my favorite, Bobby Parnell as some sort of German…um…woman?Here are links to some photos, all taken by Flickr user saubrey02.

Omir Santos as Robin.

Nick Evans as Minnie Mouse and Josh Thole as a Playboy bunny.

More Thole.

Ken Takahashi as Eve(?).

Lance Broadway as a nurse and Tobi Stoner as a French Maid.

Hilarious.