nymr83

Bay follows Jacobs with a whiff to end the threat, fuck.

Wright goes from an 0-2 count to ball 4. stay patient boys!

Castillo steals second base!

good defensive stop by Cora there, diving to his right for a hard hit grounder

If I didn't pick Jacobs, it was only because I doubted he'd start opening day and get the chance to strikeout first. Matthews Jr, rally killer!

KA-FUCKING-BOOM ITS TOUGH ON MARLIN-DIRT

Cora HBP, Castillo barely avoids the doubleplay on a grounder though. at least he didnt bunt.

i'd really rather the mets had selected a more traditional (one person with a really good voice) singing of the national anthem for opening day. the foursome each doing their own part would have been fine for tommorow.

If the phils need pitching depth we can trade the versatile Pat Misch for Domonic Brown. limited time offer.

sloppy thread-split here as you have the marlins opening day lineup, my criticism of today's lineup unrelated to wright, and "lets" "go" "mets" in here... cant we just keep the thread together if we're going to lose things like that?

They are introducing the entire staff. a nice round of applause for equipment manager Charlie Samuels and for his assistant. dead silence for the entire medical staff. hah. applause for the hitting coach, not really for dan warthen. Ruben Tejada gets a nice hand as does Mejia. Pagan and Feliciano get it louder and a nice welcome for Igarashi. a long applause for Francisco Rodriguez, do the fans know what he's going through? all the stupid music makes it hard to judge some of the fan reactions over the television. Manuel applauded with i think a smattering of boos. starting lineup... indifference to the top two, the cheering for wright began before they even said his name, and a nice welcome home "the first baseman we welcome back to the mets, number 35, mike jacobs" and a great round of applause for newcomer Jason Bay. Matthews, Francoeur, and Barajas round out the lineup with a little applause and a long round of applause and cheers for the starter Johan Santana!

there is an inconsistency here in that, in 1994/95, it took time to "evaluate" Wright down in the lineup while one of the worst players in the national league, also young and inexperienced, was allowed to bat leadoff regularly. are you making young hitters prove themselves or not? because if your excuse is "reyes is eventually going to leadoff so lets get him started there" then the same should apply to wright in either the 3 or 5 spot.

Ceetar, Its easy when you miss the playoffs by a game in a 162 game season to have a million "ifs" that should have gotten you into the playoffs. As for Manuel, I liked him when he took over from Willie but I feel like he has done less of a good job since that first season, particularly with regards to: setting the batting order when Reyes doesnt play (he chooses speed over OBP skills) and his use of the bullpen. The way this forum is becoming filled with "inexcuseable" and "obviously" is really annoying. These are all complex issues. Cora leading off today. Inexcusable. If the lineup on Mets Blog is correct [Cora, Castillo, Wright, Jacobs, Bay, Francoeur, Matthews, Barajas, Santana] thats three starters (reyes/beltran/murphy] missing from opening day, and i'd have started a different guy than Manuel is choosing in all 3 spots. Assuming I had control over the roster it would be Adams, Pagan, and Carter. But giving him the benefit of the doubt and saying the front office didn't give him a choice in who made the roster [tejada vs adams, jacobs vs carter] thers still Pagan and theres still the worst hitter in the lineup leading off. and hasn't Pagan earned the opening day start at home? both statistically compared to Matthews and by whatever intangibles you'd like to look at?

just wanted to put this somewhere

Chan Ho Park is in the Yankee bullpen? wow

Once they made the decision to go with Jacobs over Carter, taking the more versatile Cattalanatto over Carter for the bench is at least defensible. Its the initial Jacobs > Carter decision that bothers me more. I'd rather the Mets would recognize that its worth finding room for Carter and then deciding who else they need. When Reyes is healthy I'd be very annoyed to see Cora AND Catalonatto on the team holding down Carter.

bmfc1 wrote: Why do we even have ST games if you can't make the team based on your performance? Why not just have workouts for a month and then start the season? ST is to get ready for the season. why play games? probably mostly for ticket sales, but also to see a larger variety of pitchers/pitches/batters than you would in intrasquad. I'd rather make decisions based on what i know about players going in than based on 40 ABs 1/2 of which are against guys who will never sniff the majors. The only thing I'm looking for in ST (in terms of MLB roster decisions) is to see how guys recovering from injury are looking, are they ready or do they need "extended spring training"? smg58 wrote: This is frustrating. I can sort of understand starting Jacobs -- I disagree with it, but I can at least see it -- but there is absolutely no defensible reason whatsoever, given recent history and especially given spring performance, why Chris Carter is going to Buffalo and Frank Catalanotto is staying with the Mets. If it has to do with options, why was Figueroa cut? Calero is an established quality reliever. Igarashi is not only a less known commodity than Calero, he's a less known commodity than Parnell. And what part of his 8.53 ERA and 9/8 BB/K ratio this spring made him look like a major league pitcher? Parnell had a 3.46 ERA out of the pen last year; what did he do wrong? And like Carter, what exactly did Figueroa have to do? Igarshi was brought in based on a long body of work in Japan that the Mets feel comfortable with, I'd rather rely on that than say "oh no he walked 8 guys in the spring getting ready" agreed on Carter and Parnell, they should bnoth make the team based on what we know they can do from last year, forget spring training

Mejia is 19 and hasn't pitched above AA, I'm in favor of leaving him down there. If he has a chance to be a good starter then I want him starting in AA/AAA at that age. How many innings would he have potentially pitched for the big club in April anyway? 10? lets see what the other guys can do and if the bullpen is still a mess in a month we can convert 19 yaer old starters into relievers then, there shouldn't be any rush. I'm not especially happy about Carter getting cut though, especially with Murphy hurt thats alot more than I want to see of Mike Jacobs

Keeping Pelf away from the Marlins seems silly, if we're operating that way we should add Figueroa to the rotation and just keep Perez away from everyone!

good riddance! let him write about just the yankees where i'll have no compulsion to ever read him.

CBS Sports wrote: News: The Bergen Record reports that Mets closer Francisco J. Rodriguez has left the country to attend to a personal matter and might not be back by opening day. Analysis: No one knows exactly where K-Rod has gone... Francisco Rodriguez has left the team to attend to attend to a family matter in Venezuela. He is expected to return in time for Opening Day against the Marlins on Monday. Source: Brian Costa on Twitter

I got all the Shakespeare plays, I'm resigning as sporcle champion.

1. First hit David Wright 2. First double David Wright 3. First triple Jose Reyes 4. First home run Jason Bay 5. First stolen base Jose Reyes 6. First baserunner caught stealing/picked off Luis Castillo 7. First guy to hit into a double-play Jason Bay 8. First batter to strike out Jeff Francoeur 9. First fielder to commit an error Mike Jacobs 10. First guy to score a run David Wright 11. First guy to drive in a run Jason Bay 12. First Met player to field a batted ball Luis Castillo 13. First Met to draw a walk David Wright 14. First Met relief pitcher to make an appearance Pedro Feliciano 15. First Met to reach base on an error Jose Reyes 16. First winning Met pitcher Johan Santana 17. First losing Met pitcher Jon Niese 18. First Met to throw a wild pitch Mike Pelfrey 19. First Met to be hit by a pitch Luis Castillo 20. First Met pitcher to plunk an opposing batter Oliver Perez Tiebreaker bonus (if necessary): Date of Jerry Manuel's first ejection APRIL 25

I hope the Mets give Carter a shot, but either Carter or Jacobs could do better than the 2009 Murphy. I'm hoping that one of them has a big year and/or Davis is wrecking AAA and forces a callup around June 1st. Murphy would look better on the bench.