Pregame, Mets vs. Brewers, Game 2 (UPDATE, 5:43 p.m)
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- September
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It’ll be all Jon Niese all the time today, as the 21-year-old lefty makes his big-league debut tonight against the Brewers and their LHP Manny Parra (10-6, 4.00).
METS (77-61):
7 Reyes, SS
6 Evans, LF
5 Wright, 3B
15 Beltran, CF
21 Delgado, 1B
17 Tatis, RF
3 Easley, 2B
40 Cancel, C
49 Niese, LHP
Here’s who the Brewers will send at Niese:
BREWERS (80-57):
23 Weeks, 2B
7 Hardy, SS
8 Braun, LF
28 Fielder, 1B
1 Hart, RF
25 Cameron, CF
2 Hall, 3B
18 Kendall, C
43 Parra, LHP
UPDATE, 3:45 p.m.: Carlos Beltran was just out on the field at Miller Park with a trainer. The trainer was lobbing balls over Beltran’s head, and he was testing the knee, trying to see if he could chase them down. He looked OK, but kind of had a blank look on his face.
I’ll update you on his status as soon as we hear something.
UPDATE, 3:56 p.m.: Beltran will start in center and hit cleanup. He is sore, but he said he can tolerate it.
UPDATE, 5:50 p.m.: I’m just back from downstairs and have a bunch of updates. Here goes…
— Carlos Beltran (knee) ran and shagged flies around 3 p.m. He said the knee felt better. It was still sore, but not sore enough to keep him out of the lineup. “I can tolerate it,” he said. … Beltran wasn’t worried about hitting (he hasn’t hit yet), just running and going back on balls in CF. … If you’re worried about him, don’t be. He was asked three times if this was an example of him toughing it out because they are in a pennant race — like, would he sit if it were June. He said no. “I can play,” he said.
— Jose Reyes is fresher this year because he has altered his pregame routine to save his energy. I’ll have more on the difference tomorrow.
— Billy Wagner (elbow) feels goo after throwing 25 pitches off the mound yesterday. He was worried about his mechanics, but felt fine otherwise. Wagner will throw from a mound again, probably Thursday. The club will see him in New York and line up hitters for him to face. It is unlikely now that he will pitch for Brooklyn.
— John Maine (shoulder) is in Virginia and hasn’t thrown a ball, but he wasn’t supposed to. He will rejoin the club in New York.
— Al Reyes is here. He wasn’t in uniform for Binghamton last night. He took a flight yesterday afternoon to Milwaukee. … It still doesn’t make sense why he wasn’t here yesterday. … I asked Reyes about the condition of his arm and his velocity. He felt fine, he said, and felt his velocity was normal, although he didn’t know the gun readings.
— Jerry Manuel said Brandon Knight, the Olympian, was a possible long-man if something goes amiss tonight. Knight threw four innings in New Orleans on the 29th and said he was as stretched out as he needed to be. … Manuel said Knight was a real possibility out of the ‘pen after his one pre-Olympic start, but the club needed to option him because it needed bullpen help on the heels of an extra-inning game.
— Being young as I am, I’m not an expert on big-league debuts, but it doesn’t take Grantland Rice to notice that Jon Niese is nervous. He’s currently walking around behind the cage alone, wearing batting gloves and holding his bat. … In the pregame, Manuel hoped for six or seven innings from Niese, said he’d probably settle for five, then made the following joke about whether or not he was nervous tonight: “I’m putting this one on the organization. I’m good today.”
This entry was posted
on Tuesday, September 2nd, 2008 at 4:37 pm by Josh Thomson.
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Beltran is a go! What a stud.
And here is a link to an interesting article that discusses just how good Johan Santana has been. Worth EVERY penny.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/writers/joe_posnanski/08/28/posnanski.qualitystarts/index.html
Josh, who’s catching?
Cancel is catching tonight. As far as Niese goes, I think the best we can hope for is 5 innings giving up 3 runs or less.
Cancel is catching per another site.
Agreed Steve.
With the expanded roster, Jerry needs to go to the pen quickly. No repeat of Humber vs the nationals last year.
Is Al Reyes up? I’m interested in seeing what he has left. Also, I have to say I am impressed with the way Luis Ayala has done. It has been totally unexpected. To come out with a 1-2-3 save yesterday was amazing (even though he didn’t have to face the heart of the lineup) With a better throw and a play at the plate by the catcher, he’d be 5 of 5 on save opportunities.
Josh: Any additional news about Wagner and how he felt today?
What happened to John Delcos?
Wow, talk about updates!!! I must say, the content Josh is providing by far outweighs whatever Delcos provided. Delcos was nothing but a Mets hater who looked to get a rise out of the commenters. Keep up the good job Josh with the updates!!
Tom, he got laid off.
Seriously, I mean, I liked JD, but this guy Josh must be former CIA or something: he’s got all the angles.
On Reyes, I think another reason he is fresher might be that he has attempted far fewer steals this season. That has to take a toll, so picking his spots is probably good for the long term.
How do you know he got laid off without anyone ever mentioning it.
Anyone notice that Anderson Hernandez is hitting .444 for the Nats? It’s only 27 ABs, but given how he looked w/ the Mets – like a Little Leaguer – it’s still surprising. I am NOT saying that Omar made a mistake in trading him – I think Ayala has been very good for this team, and would be better if he wasn’t forced to close – but it is surprising.
I agree with the comments about Josh’s stellar performance. Great insights about Beltran, although I’d say that he always seems to have a blank look.
Regarding the longevity of other Mets rookie pitchers starting their first game in Sept, here is a really interesting article from the official site. Scroll down past the Beltran update, as Josh scooped them bigtime. GO to the table called “Mixed Beginnings” and read the accompanying text. Almost all of these rookies went 5-6 innings, none more than 7.
http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20080901&content_id=3400987&vkey=news_nym&fext=.jsp&c_id=nym
Tom- If you read this site you would be well aware that Delcos, got laid off. He even mentioned it himself in the comments thread about 2 weeks back.
I was unfortunately at Shea for the debut of a prospect who fizzled, remember Grant Roberts? He couldn’t throw a strike. This kid at worst can only equal the performance of Roberts.
The blog seems to be copying the pattern done by Abraham the Yankee guy for LoHud and he won an award for his site, so they be following a good example.
You were saying Harry.
My god if he’s get out of this w/ just the one run . . .
Great job by Niese getting out that one. Question for anyone because im watching on the MIL telecast. Has cancel ever caught Niese down in NO. He seems to be “jumping” at the curveball quite a bit.
Ditto on the great job by Niese. Coulda been a disaster.
JM: This was far superior. Roberts never settled down. He was mercifully taken out by Bobby V either in the first or second inning. He was called up for a DH game.
I found the box score of the fateful debut of Roberts
IP H R ER BB SO HR
Roberts 1.1 6 7 6 3 0 0
Mets won 9-8 as Benny Abgayani wnet 4-5 with 3 RBI.
Hey lucky TV watchers:
How’s Niese looking? I can see the play by play and the stats but does he look comfortable? Is he in command? Or is he dodging bullets? It looks like the latter…
Well it’s clear that he didnt keep dodging bullets.
Well maybe he wasn’t much better than Grant Roberts!
The brewers hit everything hard. This lineup is quite scary.
Yeah, Harry. Definitely better, but only if it’s all relative haha.
And David, they kill lefty pitching. I would have liked to see Pelfrey attack this lineup. I think they have the best record in the majors (maybe the NL, they showed a stat last night) against LH starters.
Damn Brian Stokes looks good.
JM,
Amazing what you can accomplish when you attack the strike zone with your mid 90’s fastball.
I got so sick of hearing JD knock Endy. The guy can flat out play.
Usual story, offense tees off early, then . . . Zzzzzzzzs
Great play by endy but Weeks was coasting into 2nd and deserved to get gunned.
Has the mets bullpen pitched well or has the brewers offense gone to sleep ?
Little bit of column A, little bit of column, B, David.
They also got a bit lucky on balls hit right at guys, but so did Gagne. Overall they have been quite good.
David!
More good stuff from Endy.
Heckuva win.
Again on Ayala…superb job. Even though it got dicey at the end, he still showed he had what it took to close the game. 5 out of 6 which easily could be 6 of 6 in save opps. Who would have thought this?
Great job by omar saving the season by adding to the bullpen.Next year please give Heilman a chance to start.He throws in the 90’s and has 4 pitches he throws for strikes.In the bullpen he uses only 2.The teams that are interested in him want to convert him to a starter.
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