Tag: Yadier Molina

Peter Gammons Backs Omar Minaya

NEW YORK - APRIL 10: General Manager Omar Min...
Image by Getty Images via @daylife

The roller coaster season continues, but the noose has seemingly disappeared from Omar Minaya and Jerry Manuel’s necks (for now). This weekend The Mets did what winning teams are supposed to do: beat bad teams. Philly fans can poo-poo the weekend as we’d expect, but the truth is that is how you stay in contention.

It is crucial for teams to beat up and pad stats on their lessers. This team must put some distance between themselves and the .500 mark in preparation for tougher series’ ahead. Now that we seem to do be doing so, Minaya is getting a much needed pat on the back from one of baseball’s senior voices. In an article for MLB.com, Peter Gammons praises Minaya for his ability to whether the storm in New York.

People up and down the Mets’ organization are fiercely loyal to Minaya, because he accepts the heat and deflects it from those who work for him.

Gammons also continues pointing the finger at the Mets’ leadership around Minaya for perpetrating a “blame game”. Gammons’ isn’t really shedding light on anything Mets fans don’t already know. We are impossible to deal with at times, and ownership needs to block out the sports talk radio hosts as well as the papers. Nowadays, everyone thinks they have the right to play GM, maybe because of the endless access to information/opinion from blogs (ahem). Continue reading “Peter Gammons Backs Omar Minaya”

Mets 2 – Cardinals 1 April 17, 2010

Mets' Wright throws his helmet after striking out against the Cardinals in MLB game in St Louis

http://cdn.pis.picapp.com/IamProd/PicAppPIS/JavaScript/PisV4.jsThis game was so crazy I can’t even describe the whole thing without writing a novel. I’ll hit the highlights and make sure you check out the messy box score link at the bottom of the post. The game had a bunch of great defensive plays and sitting on the edge of your seat moments. If you didn’t put seven hours into watching this one, here are the highlights:

  • There wasn’t a run scored until Jeff Francoeur hit a sac fly to score Jose Reyes in the top of the 19th
  • Alex Cora had a game saving catch diving into the stands to catch a fly ball while he was playing first base, of all things
  • The Cardinals loaded the bases three times in extras without scoring
  • Of course, Yadier Molina singled home Albert Pujols in the bottom of the 19th to tie it
  • K-Rod blew the save in the 19th
  • Mike Pelfrey got the first save of his career by pitching the 20th inning
  • Two position players pitched for the Cardinals: Felipe Lopez and Jeff Mather

This game was wild. There’s usually one of these crazy games every few years. So it’s good to get it out of the way early in the season. They’ll play on national TV again tomorrow night on ESPN in the rubber game of the series.

Box score

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Mets Lose Bengie Molina, Fans Rejoice

San Francisco Giants Photo Day

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If you could draw up a player that doesn’t fit the Mets team and their new stadium, that player would be Bengie Molina. As part of my full disclosure, I’ll tell you that I can’t stand Yadier Molina. Sure, it goes back years now to 2006. But it’s hard for me to picture in my mind a Met player with “Molina” on the back of his jersey.

Bengie ended up signing a 1-year/$4.5 million deal to go back to the Giants and I couldn’t be happier. I wrote that I’d like to see the Mets go into the season with a Santos/Thole platoon behind the plate. The biggest reason was because the list of free agent catchers this year is so weak. That won’t happen because Henry Blanco will be on the roster. But I can live with that.

Molina has some nice offensive stats but a 35 year-old, overweight catcher is just what the Mets don’t need right now. That’s not the profile of the type of player that the Mets should be committing their financial resources to. The Mets would be much better served to put a little more money into a starting pitcher than they had planned, and work on upgrading at first base.

Continue reading “Mets Lose Bengie Molina, Fans Rejoice”