Colorado Rockies 1976 Posted April 1, 2013 Share Posted April 1, 2013 Rough day today...such a paradox: Opening Day, which is always fun no matter how good/bad your team is projected to be, and for what it represents: warmer weather, longer days, and the beauty and joy of summertime, after yet another seemingly endless winter. But man, this is going to be one fugly Mets team to watch. Just going to focus on the performance and growth of the (hopefully) future cornerstones, and try to ignore the many rough patches. It's all about 2014. LET'S GO METS! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colorado Rockies 1976 Posted April 1, 2013 Share Posted April 1, 2013 Wow, nice Opening Day for Niese...2 for 2 with a walk and an RBI, and 6.2 innings of 2-run ball. Good for Jon! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devils Dose Posted April 1, 2013 Share Posted April 1, 2013 Boy, has this been fun one! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nmigliore Posted April 1, 2013 Author Share Posted April 1, 2013 Grand slam Collin Cowgill!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colorado Rockies 1976 Posted April 1, 2013 Share Posted April 1, 2013 Boy, has this been fun one! For everyone except Ike, lol. 0-for-5 with 4 K. Ouch. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NJDevs4978 Posted April 1, 2013 Share Posted April 1, 2013 Yeah and he was booed after that last K, or at least it sounded that way to me. Good grief Met fans Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devils Dose Posted April 1, 2013 Share Posted April 1, 2013 Boy, has this been fun one! For everyone except Ike, lol. 0-for-5 with 4 K. Ouch. I was gonna say. I hope he doesn't end up starting this season the way he started the last one. That would be quite a bummer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colorado Rockies 1976 Posted April 1, 2013 Share Posted April 1, 2013 I was gonna say. I hope he doesn't end up starting this season the way he started the last one. That would be quite a bummer. That's probably why he might have heard some boos. At any rate, your cleanup hitter has a day like that and your team still manages to put up 11 runs, hard to bitch about much. Enjoy the wins as they come, because we're going to see a lot more losses. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nmigliore Posted April 1, 2013 Author Share Posted April 1, 2013 (edited) Aside from Ike whiffing at everything, really couldn't have asked for a better Opening Day. I'm really happy they are giving Cowgill a chance to run with the CF job; he's not a big guy but he's got some pop. Nice job by Niese with pitching and hitting today, ha. Edited April 1, 2013 by nmigliore Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
'7' Posted April 2, 2013 Share Posted April 2, 2013 Marcum felt some neck pain and has been scratched from his start Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colorado Rockies 1976 Posted April 3, 2013 Share Posted April 3, 2013 (edited) Blast from the past time...I know I've talked about Dwight Gooden before, but I went to Baseball Reference and checked out some of his seasonal game logs. He had a 50-start stretch from August 11, 1984 to May 6, 1986 that was just ridiculous: 1984: 8-1 record, 76 IP, 42 H, 9 ER, 13 BB, 105 K, 7 HR, 1.07 ERA 1985: 24-4 record, 276.2 IP, 198 H, 47 ER, 69 BB, 268 K, 13 HR, 1.53 ERA 1986: 5-0 record, 52 IP, 30 H, 6 ER, 8 BB, 39 K, 2 HR, 1.04 ERA Totals: 37-5 record, 404.2 IP, 270 H, 62 ER, 90 BB, 412 K, 22 HR, 1.38 ERA This has to be one of THE most dominant 50-start stretches ever. 62 ER over 50 starts? An average of over 8 innings per start? As we all know, he never came anywhere near dominating like this again...I was a teenager back then, and every Met fan kept hoping he'd have another stretch like this again. The signs were there that he was losing his stuff just a little...not only did he have a bit of a gut in '86, the Ks per inning were dropping with each season. And in '86, after that 5-0 start, though he didn't suck, he was much more human for the rest of that year. Edited April 3, 2013 by Colorado Rockies 1976 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
'7' Posted April 3, 2013 Share Posted April 3, 2013 Also the drugs...I remember seeing highlights of him pitching in cold weather and he is sweating profusely. I mean like Al Leiter sweat dripping all over. Signs of cocaine use also didn't Stottlemyre ruin him by insisting he pitch to more contact? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nmigliore Posted April 3, 2013 Author Share Posted April 3, 2013 (edited) Yeah those numbers are just ridiculous. Pedro Martinez's 1999-2000 might be the best two year stretch of all time. The raw results may not seem as impressive as Doc's (1.90 ERA to the 1.38 ERA in that sample), but once you adjust for the era, the 265 ERA+ is flat out INSANE. Edited April 3, 2013 by nmigliore Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colorado Rockies 1976 Posted April 3, 2013 Share Posted April 3, 2013 Gooden was always a sweater...he had been shelled in the two starts just before that 50-game burst. Part of the reason was it had been very hot and humid, so he had been sweating earlier during warmups and mistakenly assuming that he was loosened up and ready to go. Someone suggested to him that he warm up an extra 10 minutes, regardless of how hard he was sweating, and then he went on his tear. There's a good book on the '86 Mets called "The Bad Guys Won", written by Jeff Pearlman. Yeah, clearly by that time, cocaine had become of a part of Doc's life, and he wasn't the only Met who was using. But Pearlman said a lot of Doc's problem was that he was the kind of guy who wanted everyone to like him, and wouldn't stand up to coaches if he didn't agree with their advice. Clearly Doc was the top pitcher in the game over that 50-game stretch, but when Pete Rose said something along the lines of "If Doc ever learned a change-up, he'd be unhittable", pitching coach Mel Stottlemeyer started screwing around with Gooden's game to add that pitch to his repertoire, and eager-to-please Doc was taking in all of the advice everyone was heaping on him and trying to make everyone happy. Mel was obsessed with making Gooden "a complete pitcher". Look at those 50 games...exactly how much more unhittable was Gooden supposed to have been? As Pearlman pretty much said (paraphrasing): "Some players are hard to coach because they won't listen. Gooden's problem was the opposite: he listened to everyone." And hitters were also starting to realize that the oh-so-tantalizing high fastball Doc was fond of throwing wasn't a strike, and were learning to lay off it. Clearly Gooden was not going to keep pitching to THAT level, but sadly, due to outsiders, hitter familiarity and Doc's own demons, the perfect storm was there to make that insane level of domination relatively short-lived. When he began to struggle a little in '86 (at least compared to what came before), I forget who said it, but someone said "Dwight Gooden is never going to be any better than he is right now." At the time, not one Met fan wanted to believe that...but that observation turned out to be 100% accurate. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colorado Rockies 1976 Posted April 3, 2013 Share Posted April 3, 2013 Yeah those numbers are just ridiculous. Pedro Martinez's 1999-2000 might be the best two year stretch of all time. The raw results may not seem as impressive as Doc's (1.90 ERA to the 1.38 ERA in that sample), but once you adjust for the era, the 265 ERA+ is flat out INSANE. Both the era and the league of course...many feel that pitching in the AL is good for about for about a half-run added to one's ERA...it's not a deep formula, but that would make the comparison 1.40 to 1.38, for whatever that's worth. You are right, those two years are stupidly insane for Pedro...597 K in 430.1 IP?! Against 69 BB?!?! Even the most dominant CLOSERS in the game rarely pull off that kind of ratio. Yeah, what Doc did was amazing, but I gotta give Pedro the nod on that one. You almost wonder how ANYONE scored on Pedro in those two seasons. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nmigliore Posted April 3, 2013 Author Share Posted April 3, 2013 (edited) Both the era and the league of course...many feel that pitching in the AL is good for about for about a half-run added to one's ERA...it's not a deep formula, but that would make the comparison 1.40 to 1.38, for whatever that's worth. You are right, those two years are stupidly insane for Pedro...597 K in 430.1 IP?! Against 69 BB?!?! Even the most dominant CLOSERS in the game rarely pull off that kind of ratio. Yeah, what Doc did was amazing, but I gotta give Pedro the nod on that one. You almost wonder how ANYONE scored on Pedro in those two seasons. Absolutely. Those are just crazy, video-game like numbers. Doc's 1985 was special (239 ERA+) but pales in comparison to Pedro's 2000 (291). I'm pretty certain you aren't going to find a better 2-season stretch than that. Really unreal. Edited April 3, 2013 by nmigliore Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colorado Rockies 1976 Posted April 3, 2013 Share Posted April 3, 2013 Absolutely. Those are just crazy, video-game like numbers. Doc's 1985 was special (239 ERA+) but pales in comparison to Pedro's 2000 (291). I'm pretty certain you aren't going to find a better 2-season stretch than that. Really unreal. Not taking a thing away from Pedro, and I agree with you, that two-season stretch is absurdly dominant, and is likely the best of all-time. The one thing I will say is that, back in Doc's day, hitters weren't striking out as often. Randy Johnson from 1999-2002 was pretty insane too. 1417 K (average of 354 per season) against 288 BB in that timeframe, 81 wins, 27 losses, and pitched a lot of innings to boot (1030 in those four seasons, with only 787 hits allowed). 2.48 ERA in that span as well. Not saying that it's better than what Pedro did, but it's still impressive as hell. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nmigliore Posted April 4, 2013 Author Share Posted April 4, 2013 (edited) It's such a pleasure watching Matt Harvey work. He has been brilliant tonight. Nasty 90 mph slider. Edited April 4, 2013 by nmigliore Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
'7' Posted April 4, 2013 Share Posted April 4, 2013 I was in and out of this game...but whenever I saw Harvey pitching somebody was whiffing at whatever he was throwing out there. And to think they say Wheeler is better! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colorado Rockies 1976 Posted April 4, 2013 Share Posted April 4, 2013 Well, this is what this season is all about...watching guys like Harvey develop. That's what will make this season worth watching...the W-L record likely won't be very good, but at least it's not a group of past-their-prime vets with no kids coming up. Looking forward to seeing Wheeler eventually. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colorado Rockies 1976 Posted April 4, 2013 Share Posted April 4, 2013 The Nats' offense is hitting .204 so far and has scored just five runs. Guess it doesn't matter when your pitching throws back-to-back shutouts though. Nats pitchers have allowed just 7 hits in their first 18 IP. Damn. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colorado Rockies 1976 Posted April 4, 2013 Share Posted April 4, 2013 (edited) Third straight terrific performance by a Met starter this season, even with Gee throwing a fair number of balls. After scoring 19 runs in Games 1 and 2, guess the Mets were due for a quiet day with the bats. Still time to score some runs in this one though. Nice job by Rice to get out of a bases-loaded situation. Too bad Gee can't get a win today. 10 Ks for Mets hitters today...we'll definitely see more of that as the season goes on. 10-pitch walk by Tejada...nice work. 3 Ks for Wright today...we'll be seeing more of that too. And another K for Ike. 6 of those for him on the season. One massive HR and 6 Ks. Dave Kingman lives! 13 K through 8 innings for Padre pitchers today...ouch. Edited April 4, 2013 by Colorado Rockies 1976 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nmigliore Posted April 4, 2013 Author Share Posted April 4, 2013 Meh I had a feeling the bats would go quiet after the last 2 games. Ah well. At least they won the series. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colorado Rockies 1976 Posted April 4, 2013 Share Posted April 4, 2013 (edited) Meh I had a feeling the bats would go quiet after the last 2 games. Ah well. At least they won the series. Yeah, can't get mad about it. Would've like to have seen Gee get a win, but oh well. Buck with a 9th-inning dinger...nice! Oh well...2-1. Edited April 4, 2013 by Colorado Rockies 1976 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NJDevs4978 Posted April 4, 2013 Share Posted April 4, 2013 (edited) I have to admit, part of me's been thinking throughout this whole series - I figured Niese, Harvey and even Gee would be solid but I shudder what happens when we start getting to #4 and #5 in the rotation more frequently? Especially with Santana done and Marcum made of glass. Not to mention the still questionable bullpen. At least one of those spots should be solved later in the year with Wheeler though. The Mets aren't a great team where they should sweep these series, but they did what they had to do against San Diego and hopefully do the same against Miami this weekend. Edited April 4, 2013 by NJDevs4978 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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