Centerfield

Cespedes is not going to be a Met after this year. I don't see any way this is possible. Any player going into free agency at the age of 30 has to test the open market. This is his one chance to set himself up financially. He would be foolish not to take that opportunity. Exceptions are made, usually in two scenarios. (1) The player has a history with a club, and strongly prefers to stay, so he takes a reasonable contract offered by the team. I don't see this happening here. (2) The Mets make a "blow him out of the water" type offer. I don't see this happening either. And though I hate the Wilpons, I'm not sure this type of offer should be made. Cespedes, although he is one of the 2 best hitters in this lineup, is no sure thing, and is a step down from the first tier superstars. His career OPS is .789. His career high in HR is 26. He doesn't hit for a great average, and he doesn't walk a lot. I am all for the Wilpons blowing. But if they have limited blows, I'm not sure Cespedes is blow-worthy.

I am fucking giddy. I think it is because for the first time (much more than the 11 game winning streak) I feel like we have enough talent on this team to be a legitimate contender.

One reason could be he is collecting a major league salary during the time he is on the DL. Who knows. Can't imagine any kid would rather stay in Florida when the big leagues are knocking.

It's amazing how fluid a major league roster is through the course of a season. Of our current guys, 5 were not in the organization as of Opening Day. Another 4 came from within the organization but were not on the Opening Day team. That's 36% of the team that has turned over since April.

I don't know how to post one of those twitter thingies. Maybe an admin can help. Anyway, good to see Big Mike at the game yesterday. He probably would have batted cleanup in that lineup they ran out against Kershaw.

Nodding vigorously.

Centerfield wrote: I suspect that will be the last we see of first place this season. That ride ended fast. Wow. I am full of all sorts of great predictions this year.

Yeah. I love our radio team. I'll grumble about the owners all day, but we have the best broadcasters in the world. I mean, except maybe that Scully guy.

Adding some legitimate big league bats around him probably helped as well.

Hopefully there is no let-down tonight. I wonder how long the Mets will stick with Colon if he struggles again. They are in a pennant race and he has been their weakest starter for some time. Do you go down and get Gee? He's been pitching a little better of late.

You can add last night's game to this list.

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: I'm converting to Dudaism. It's a cool religion. On Fridays you have to start drinking 3 hours before game time.

Lucas Duda over his last 8 games: 11 for 28 (.393), 3 BB, 1 2B, 9 HR, 12 RBI I dub July 25 through August 2 "Dudakkah 2015".

Up to .790 in OPS. Now 9th in RF'ers in OPS!

Centerfield wrote: Yikes. That is brutal. But[crossout]G[/crossout]given how [crossout]the[/crossout] [crossout]offense[/crossout] resilient this team has been I'd guess this is where [crossout]Washington pulls away for good. But you never know.[/crossout] we rise to the occasion and catch them in the standings. Prove me [crossout]wrong[/crossout] right Mets! Like I said back in June, this presented a great opportunity for the Mets to prove they were among the elite teams in baseball. Never a doubt.

Best game I've ever been to at CitiField. In fact, other than the No-Hitter I can't think of another game I would have rather seen. We could tell things would be different the minute we arrived. We have never had to park so far away and wait so long to get into the stadium. (the delay meant we had no time to eat at the club before the game). The crowd was buzzing right from the get go. We were all dying to give Cespedes a nice welcome and reward Wilmer Flores. deGrom was, obviously, shaky in the first. You could tell right away that he didn't have his slider. It also felt like he was getting squeezed by the home plate ump (especially on the 3-2 pitch to Werth), but it's was hard to really tell from our seats. The Desmond hit was softly hit. We were all shocked to see it find it's way through. Falling behind early was a bit deflating, but there was still a lot of energy in the bottom of the inning. Cespedes got a huge ovation. I feel like he may have been trying too hard to do something special in his first at bat. There was a "holy shit" moment when Flores hit the deep fly ball. I felt like it didn't have enough off the bat, but it kept on carrying. Too bad. It would have been incredible. The energy started to drain as the game wore on. deGrom was not finding his slider, the Mets were not hitting. It seemed like everyone wanted to cheer but there was nothing to root for. The Duda home run got everyone going. deGrom didn't find his slider but seemed to get his change up working. Things were looking better. The second Duda home run was the loudest I have ever heard CitiField. Everyone was jumping and screaming. It was funny, I felt like the place should have been shaking. Here is my suggestion for next year, weaken the CitiField infrastructure. Matt Williams makes some curious decisions. I thought he might walk Cespedes, but I thought he even he would not be so dumb considering Duda is raking. Thanks Matt. The go-ahead double was even louder than before. Good chance for Wilmer to get a cheap RBI and let us cheer him. It was not his night. Familia = awesome. We were all on our feet. Fireworks were nice. Great game overall.

Edgy MD wrote: smg58 wrote: The other possibility is that the Astros made the Brewers a bigger offer than the Mets were willing to match. The only ones that can know for certain are the Cardinals. Holy crap. That is really funny.

Seriously. I have been watching this HR on loop all morning. What a fantastic moment. A couple of things I read this morning that I missed last night. http://espn.go.com/mlb/recap?gameId=350731121 From that article: Fans jumped out of their seats and roared in a delighted frenzy as Flores pumped his arm and circled the bases, pointing to the word "Mets" across his chest when he came around third. I didn't see him do this. But if that is true, that is fucking awesome. I also missed this too: http://metsblog.com/metsblog/emotional-flores-i-just-love-being-in-new-york/ �I just love being in New York,� he told SNY�s Steve Gelbs before getting doused with a bucket of water by teammate Kevin Plawecki. ALSO FUCKING AWESOME. Way to take this story that could easily have been another negative one about the Mets and turn it into the best storyline in baseball.

Harvey 4 Flores 4 Familia .5 Clippard .5 Robles .5 CTorres .5

Nice game to see in person.

0 for 5. No teammates greeted him at home plate to end the game. It's early, but right now, it's Flores 1, Gomez 0.

Fman99 wrote: WILMER FUCKING FLORES![/bigpurple] Yup.

themetfairy wrote: Aren't you glad you kept me? Perfect.

That was a great game. And to think he was just getting started on a monster weekend.

Can he be here by gametime?