Former Met reliever Ron Villone signed with the Washington Nationals yesterday. The 39 year old lefty was released by the Mets at the end of spring training. The deal with Washington is a minor league deal, as he had with the Mets, and he’s expected to report to the Nationals Triple-A team the Tidewater Tides.
The good news for the Mets tonight is that John Maine looked pretty good. He went five innings giving up two runs, both on solo homers from Hanely Ramirez and Dan Uggla. He threw 83 pitches and 54 strikes. That’s a nice game for Maine who struggled at times during spring training.
The Mets offense came from Daniel Murphy, Carlos Beltran, and Ryan Church who had three hits each tonight. But as a team the Mets were 1 for 12 with runners in scoring position. That’s been plaguing the team throughout the early season. Beltran had a solo homer in the sixth to put the Mets on the board and an RBI ground out in the seventh.
Jeremy Reed came through with a huge pinch-hit single in the ninth to tie the game. But it wasn’t enough as Pedro Feliciano and Darren O’Day coughed up the lead in the bottom of the frame. Jorge Cantu singled in the winning run in the form of Emilio Bonifacio. Bonifacio looks like he’s going to be a good player. He’s got blazing speed.
The Marlins are still undefeated at 4-0 while the Mets drop to 2-2.
I implemented a change to the site today that allows you to log in and post comments to the site utilizing your Facebook ID instead of having to create separate login for this site. It just simplifies things so you don’t need to worry about different ID’s and passwords. Your Facebook ID will be set up as a valid user on my site.
The other nice thing about this implementation is that it allows you to invite your friends to The Mets Report. You can see on the right sidebar that you can see other members of the Facebook community that have visited and your comments can be posted directly to your Facebook wall.
I hope that this proves to be beneficial to everyone and I’d like to hear your feedback. Please comment below if you have an opinion on this.
The Mets arrived in Miami last night to begin their weekend series with the Marlins. The biggest story looming is the addition of Livan Hernandez to the roster so he can start tomorrow night. Of course, this wouldn’t be an issue if Gary Sheffield hadn’t signed as a free agent last week. The big decision is whether the Mets release Marlon Anderson, owing him $1.1 million for this season or go to 11 pitchers. Likely, Darren O’Day would be the odd man out if that was the case. Jerry Manuel has hinted that Anderson will be out.
Also of note is that O’Day and Francisco Rodriguez were teammates last season of Nick Adenhart, who was tragically killed in a car accident after starting for the Los Angeles Angels on Wednesday.
An interesting media story is that Chris “Mad Dog” Russo is not allowed to do his Sirius satellite radio broadcast from Citi Field or Yankee Stadium. CBS Radio and WFAN have exclusive deals with the Mets and Yankees about radio broadcasting rights. Apparently, this was even an issue during spring training last month as well.
New York Mets (2-1 Road: 2-1) vs. Florida Marlins (3-0 Home: 3-0) 7:10 pm
John Maine (0-0 0.00) vs. Anibal Sanchez (0-0 0.00)
What to watch: The Marlins are coming off a sweep of the Nationals. I have the feeling that a lot of teams are going to be sweeping the Nationals this season though. Sanchez is a decent pitcher that barely beat out Andrew Miller for the fourth spot in the Marlins rotation. Maine is making his first start since last August when he was diagnosed with a bone spur in his right shoulder. After off-season surgery he returned to have an up-and-down spring training performance. The Mets need Maine to prove that he’s healthy and back to his 2007 form if they expect to be a solid contender in the NL East this season.
Visit The Mets Report Live Game Chat during the game to chat with other Mets fans.
The Reds beat the Mets and Oliver Perez 8-6 today behind another 3-run homer for Joey Votto.
The Mets couldn’t finish off the sweep against the Cincinnati Reds today. They lost the final game of the series in Cincinnati 8-6. Once again, Oliver Perez got hit hard. He seemed like he was locked in at the start of the game but lost it in the third inning.
Joey Votto killed the Mets again with another 3-run home run, his second of the series in the third inning. Perez lost it again in the fifth inning. He only went 4.1 innings and Darren O’Day came in and threw some gas on the fire. Perez was charged with eight earned runs.
The Mets offense was pretty solid all the way around. Gary Sheffield made a pinch-hitting appearance in the ninth and struck out. He never got the bat off his shoulder. Its only one at-bat so I won’t take too much from it.
The Mets head to Miami today for a series with the Marlins starting tomorrow night.
The Mets Report 