Saturday: Game 1
-
- May
- 10
Kevin Devaney here, filling in for John Delcos at Shea as the Mets play a doubleheader with the Reds.
It should be a long day of baseball. First game is 1:10; the second is 7:10. Amazingly, this is the fifth doubleheader (between covering the Mets and Yankees) I’ve been assigned to in three seasons. That’s got to be some kind of record.
The lineup for Game 1:
Mets
Reyes, SS
Castillo, 2B
Wright, 3B
Beltran, CF
Church, RF
Alou, LF
Delgado, 1B
Schneider, C
Santana, P
Pregame notes: Angel Pagan (shoulder) said today that he still isn’t fully healed from his plunge into the stands in L.A. and likely won’t be available today. “It’s getting better every day,” the outfielder said. “I might need two more days.” It’s not ideal to be short-handed on the day of a doubleheader, but the Mets will adjust. Pagan didn’t think he’d be available to pinch hit, either. My gut is that he ends up on the DL. … Reliever Matt Wise still hasn’t been activated from the DL, although he is here. The Mets are waiting for when they need him, which just might be after the first game today. … Mike Pelfrey is starting the second game. Randolph said that he expects to him to “mosey on in” soon.
A few other thoughts:
— It will be interesting to see who plays the second game for the Mets. Randolph said he wanted to keep Santana on target for today’s first game because he was his “best guy” and didn’t want to disrupt him. It’s probably that Willie knows Delgado, Beltran, Castillo, and Alou won’t play both games, and would rather not throw a weak lineup behind Santana.
— If Pelfrey struggles today with his command, there might be some truth to the idea that he was at his best earlier this season because BRIAN SCNEIDER was catching him. Raul Casanova had caught him recently but has been designated for assignment. Ramon Castro is back. Castro will catch the second game.
— Randolph insists that Delgado was dropped to the No. 7 spot in the order to break up the lefties. Makes sense, I guess. But it can’t do much for Delgado’s psyche to be dropped yet again.
Enjoy the game. I’ll be back with updates.
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on Saturday, May 10th, 2008 at 12:17 pm by Kevin Devaney Jr..
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http://www.metsmonkeys.blogspot.com
Kevin—Do you agree with the monkeys in this article about Castro? What does everyone else think?
Why the heck is Beltran not going to play both games? Are you kidding me. The guy is not yet thirty and your telling me he can’t handle both games of a double header. Please tell me that was a miss print.
I thought it was Schneider that caught Pelfrey’s first two, good games?
Rusty,
I apologize, Beltran not playing Game 2 is just my suspicion. With Pagan out, that probably seems unlikely. Once I know for sure about Beltran, I’ll update.
TJ,
You’re correct. I don’t know why I wrote Casanova. Sorry for the confusion.
What’s with SNY today? They are having some crazy technical difficulties. First Gary and Keith fumbling around in the booth with the mics, then Gary asking if the producers were talking to him. I was waiting for one of them to bust out, this Mets team better wake the F#@K up!!!
Dropping Delgado one spot at a time follows the tradition the Wilie/Omar tandem started with Piazza, followed up with Floyd and now with Delgado. Give them a chance; don’t perform you slide down until they can dump you.