metirish

Thanks for the KTE Doc...

Perez - 5 Reyes - 3 LoDuca - 1 Green - 1

I like the way Willie is breaking in the young pitchers.

Edgy DC wrote: Somebody e-mail the score to him.Yancy might think we were pulling his leg.

Ron Darling was in a cab accident today,said the driver had a big gash but is OK,Ron had to change his shirt though......

Bases loaded again,third time tonight?..or fourth?...

Mets games are becoming boring....

No suds fpr Delgado but nice to see him get that hit.

Delgado gets in the party.

I love how the ump rings the hitters up,looks old school.

Ollie looking just brilliant,low pitch count,love to see a complete game from him....

Reyes got around the bases there at what seemed like a few seconds..

I'm not as surprised as Gary that Redman is still in the game.....surprised maybe that the Mets didn't drop the hammer early on.

My first reaction was the same,thought it was a bad move,but LoDuca called it so he knew who was running...

Nothing dumber than the Atlanta chop......

Not only is he slim but he's wearing a very baggy uni....looks like a bollox.

I'm always amazed but never surprised at what teams will do to get fans to come to the game,you think anyone said during a meeting that college nights might be inviting trouble.

You may well be correct FK but Neil Best from Newsday has this.... ]Turner bought the rights to the four Division Series and NLCS this fall and will debut a regular-season slate of national games next year. For now, Ripken and Gwynn are signed for only this season. I'm reading that as post-season games this season.

]By ALAN SCHWARZ Published: April 6, 2007 The pitch was nothing remarkable: Pat Venditte, Creighton University�s temporarily right-handed pitcher, threw a fastball past a Northern Iowa batter for a called strike three. It was his next windup that evinced this young pitcher�s uniqueness and, perhaps, professional future. Skip to next paragraph Keep up with all the news from spring training on The New York Times's baseball blog. As his teammates whipped the ball around the infield, Venditte smoothly, unthinkingly, removed his custom glove from his left hand and slipped it on his right. Moments later he leaned back, threw a strike left-handed to the next batter, and finished the side in order. Venditte is believed to be the only ambidextrous pitcher in N.C.A.A. Division I college baseball, the ultimate relief specialist. A junior, he throws left-handed to lefties and right-handed to righties, and effectively. In a home game in Omaha last Friday, he allowed only one hit in five and a third shutout innings to earn the victory against Northern Iowa. Because neither arm was particularly tired afterward, Venditte also pitched in both games of Creighton�s doubleheader against Northern Iowa two days later, retiring the only batter he faced (left-handed) in the first game and then tossing a shutout inning (pitching both ways) in the nightcap. He also pitched two innings, alternating arms, in Tuesday�s game against archrival Nebraska. Venditte (pronounced ven-DEH-tee) has a fine 3.29 earned run average in 18 appearances this season. �I don�t think twice about it,� said Venditte, whose father, Pat Sr., taught him to throw with both arms when he was 3. �You grew up with it, you love it, you want to keep playing as long as you can.� Venditte has improved so much in the past year that major league scouts are starting to consider him a possible late-round pick in this June�s amateur draft because of his versatility. �He could be an economical two-for-one,� Jerry Lafferty, a longtime scout for the Philadelphia Phillies, said last Friday while assessing the 21-year-old Venditte from behind the backstop. College baseball has had a few switch-pitchers in the past 15 years, but the major leagues have had only one since the 19th century: Greg Harris, primarily a right-handed reliever for many clubs from 1981 through 1995, pitched one inning using both arms for the Montreal Expos in his final season. That outing was considered more stunt than strategy. Video More Video � Venditte is smoothly proficient from both sides. His deliveries are not mirror images of each other: as a right-hander he throws over the top and relatively hard, up to 91 miles an hour, with a tumbling curveball; as a left-hander, he relies on a whip-like sidearm delivery and a biting slider. Umpires working Creighton�s games have to dust off seldom-used rules regarding switch-pitchers. Like everyone else, Venditte gets only eight warm-up pitches upon entering a game and five before any inning, whether he chooses to throw left-handed or right-handed, and may not warm up again if he changes arms midinning. A switch-pitcher facing a switch-hitter could make a fine Abbott and Costello routine. Against Nebraska last year, a switch-hitter came to the plate right-handed, prompting Venditte to switch to his right arm, which caused the batter to move to the left-hand batter�s box, with Venditte switching his arm again. Umpires ultimately restored order, applying the rule (the same as that in the majors) that a pitcher must declare which arm he will use before throwing his first pitch and cannot change before the at-bat ends. �Eventually, after 10 or 15 minutes, they got it figured out,� Venditte said with a smile. Venditte�s customized Louisville Slugger glove is as distinctive as its owner: four fingers are flanked by two thumbs, perfectly symmetrical, so that he can slip it on either hand with ease. It allows him to change throwing arms so seamlessly during warmups � one second No. 27 is throwing left-handed, the next right-handed � that many unaware fans and opponents do double-takes. �The first time you see him, it�s definitely a distraction,� said Northern Iowa shortstop Brandon Douglas, who struck out (right-handed) against Venditte last Friday. �On the bus ride to games people talk, �You should see this guy. It�s pretty neat.� � Until teams actually face him, that is. Creighton�s coach, Ed Servais, initially resisted using Venditte both ways because, he said, �I am a traditionalist when it comes to baseball, and I didn�t want it to become a circus.� But Venditte proved his ability last season, when he used both arms in 22 games and struck out batters each way in 12 of them. The Bluejays use Venditte as a long reliever so that he can be deployed at any point in any game. In the Northern Iowa game last Friday, for example, Venditte quelled a third-inning rally and then, facing a lineup that alternated its lefty and righty hitters, calmly switched throwing arms 10 times in the next five innings and allowed no runs and only one single. (Pitch limits are looser with Venditte because he shares the workload between his arms.) �Usually you have to follow the hitter: a left-hander�s coming up, so you have to decide whether to bring a lefty in,� Creighton�s pitching coach, Rob Smith, said. �In this scenario, you have the control. It helps the depth of the bullpen a lot � you don�t have to burn a guy to get the matchup you want.� Venditte is naturally right-handed. But his father, a former college ballplayer who at 61 still catches for his Men�s Senior Baseball League team, noticed his 3-year-old son picking up a ball and throwing it with both arms on his own, and encouraged him to pursue it. �You�ve got to cultivate that,� said Pat Sr., who later built a batting cage, complete with lights, near the family�s home in an Italian neighborhood of Omaha. To build his son�s muscles for baseball, Pat Sr. also taught Little Pat to punt with both legs and throw a football with both arms. �If I�d stuck with it,� he said, �he could have been a QB with both hands.� Venditte�s mound versatility could become an interesting test of baseball�s trend toward specialization. Major league teams have long forced college stars who both pitch and hit � players like Dave Stieb, John Olerud and Brad Wilkerson � to focus on either pitching or hitting as professionals, claiming that one is difficult enough. But as bullpens become ever more segmented, with left-handed and right-handed specialists entering games for only one or two batters apiece, a pitcher who can do both for one salary would certainly be intriguing. Venditte said he would probably return to Creighton for his senior season, trying to add a few miles an hour to his fastballs and enjoying the camaraderie of college ball. After throwing his five-plus innings last Friday, Venditte characteristically shunned ice treatment and skipped the trainer�s room. He joined the rest of his teammates by pulling the tarp across the diamond � with both hands, naturally. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/06/sports/baseball/06pitcher.html

You know what,you're right,it's his voice .

TBS start doing post season games this year,Cal Ripken in the studio and Tony Gwynn doing the game,I assume the regular TBS guys will do commentary,Gwynn was a great player but is a terrible color commentator.

Barry Bonds in 2002 said he thought Perez had "the best stuff of any left-hander in the game.",that quote came from Peter Gammons insider blog on ESPN ,he was blogging about the Mets.

I'm really looking forward to this season and like Yancy looking forward to Perez,had good stuff in spring training so lets hope it carries over,not going to say anything disparaging about Redman lest he makes like Kip Wells.

]BY DAVID LENNON dave.lennon@newsday.com The most accessible athlete in New York these days has to be David Wright. Not even Derek Jeter has appeared on more magazine covers, video game boxes or ESPN promos lately than the Mets' photogenic third baseman. Wright even has his own wax figure next to the Yankees captain's at Madame Tussauds, despite lacking Jeter's October resume. It was about midway through last season that Wright officially became the face of the Mets, and split from his fellow boy wonder, Jose Reyes. The two young stars always had been linked together, and a picture of them high-fiving each other adorned the cover of the team's 2006 pocket schedule. But somewhere between Wright's appearance last July on the "Late Show with David Letterman" and the marketing strategy for Vitamin Water, he became the darling of Madison Avenue. Reyes had to settle for being the most electrifying -- if understated -- Met. Around the same time Wright dished to New York Magazine for a behind-the-scenes exclusive last month, Reyes was featured in a lengthy and glowing Village Voice article, but with the caveat that he "has given very few interviews." On the surface, that makes Reyes seem almost reclusive when it comes to the media, but that is hardly the case. The only person easier to speak with in the Mets' universe is longtime PR guru Jay Horwitz. So why is Reyes, an All-Star and MVP candidate, still waiting to be featured solo on the sides of buses and subway cars? Not because of his gleaming smile, infectious laugh or pure joy on a baseball field. Despite New York's love affair with the Dominican shortstop, there often can be a gap between the Latino or Asian player and the fan base, from both a marketing and media standpoint. "I think there is," said Carlos Delgado, a 13-year veteran. "It doesn't matter how many international players we have, the main media in the United States speaks English. So you can have players from Japan like Ichiro, who gets the recognition, but he doesn't get the same exposure to the extent that he gets in Japan. Even like Chan Ho Park in Korea. There's still a gap there." The results of an annual study by the University of Central Florida released last week showed more than 40 percent of major-league players are Latino (29.4 percent), African-American (8.4) or Asian (2.4). The Mets are well ahead of that curve, with 14 of their 25 players (56 percent) in those categories, including 12 (48 percent) of Latino descent. They also have one of six African-American managers in Willie Randolph and the only Latino GM in Omar Minaya. That makes for a very comfortable environment for Reyes and many others who communicate almost exclusively in Spanish at times, depending on the group they are hanging out with. But Reyes is very conscious of the need for him to get better in English, and he never shies away from a conversation. "The most important thing about English," Reyes said, "is that you have to keep talking it." The Mets created a perfect bridge to the fans for Reyes last season when they came up with the Professor Reyes segment on the leftfield DiamondVision screen. In the show, Reyes picks a Spanish word, such as guapo (handsome) or veloz (fast), and selected fans try to pronounce it, with Reyes critiquing their efforts. It was one of the most popular segments, and Reyes taped new episodes during spring training. "I watch it sometimes on the field," Reyes said. "Everyone seems to like it and that's fun for me." Unlike Wright, who polled fans through Internet voting to determine a song for his fourth at-bat, Reyes picked all four himself for Monday's home opener at Shea Stadium. The first two are Reggaeton beats, including one of his own making, followed by a couple of hip-hop tunes, DJ Unk's "Walk It Out" and Mims' "This Is Why I'm Hot." Reyes' favorite, however, is the "Jo-se, Jo-se, Jo-se" chant that fills Shea just about every time he steps onto the field. "It makes me feel like I have to do something special for them," said Reyes, smiling. "It always gets me fired up to do something good." Reyes usually succeeds, and Delgado believes it's only a matter of time before his accomplishments on the field increase his appeal off it. "You can also make an argument that he's still young," Delgado said. "The one reason why there's a gap is because of the language and cultural barrier, and I'm 100 percent positive that his talent and his character are going to overcome that. It's just a matter of time before he blossoms even more."