Sports

The John Maine the Mets need in order to maximize their potential over the season’s final 61 games returned last night, throwing seven strong innings in New York’s 6-3 victory over Philadelphia.

That Maine was missing in his previous four starts. After pitching at least six innings in 12 of his first 16 outings, Maine had failed to do so in each of his last four.

The difference between Maine’s outing Wednesday and his previous failures is not throwing more strikes, or even more fastballs. For Maine, it is simply a question of when he throws strikes—early fastballs in the zone allow him to succeed later in at-bats with fastballs out of the zone.  read more »

When Pedro Martinez exited his July 12 start against the Rockies after four innings, the Mets were quick to downplay his injury, which Martinez said was tightness in his shoulder as a result of compensating for a groin injury. Manager Jerry Manuel said there was “no doubt” Martinez would make his next scheduled start, which would have been this past Sunday.

But Martinez did not make that Sunday start, nor is he starting Tuesday against the Phillies, which had been the announced fallback position. The Mets have been increasingly quiet on the Martinez front, though he did receive a cortisone shot—not in his shoulder, nor in his groin, but in his hip.  read more »

Once the Mets traded four prospects to obtain Johan Santana this past offseason, the team had more or less cleared out its farm system of attractive prospects, with one notable exception in Fernando Martinez.

So in this June’s draft, New York knew it had to take players that could make quick work of the minor leagues.

The Mets had three of the first 33 picks, and selected first baseman Ike Davis, shortstop Reese Havens, and pitcher Brad Holt. All three played in the Brooklyn Cyclones’ 5-4 loss Saturday night to the Staten Island Yankees. But so far, only Holt has displayed abilities that hint at a fast trip through the minor league system.  read more »

It is not surprising that Billy Wagner pitched a 1-2-3 ninth to save New York’s 10-8 victory over Cincinnati Thursday night. After all, since coming to the Mets, Wagner has been one of the most automatic closers in baseball, converting 87 percent of his save opportunities. To put that in perspective, just under 60 percent of all save opportunities were converted in the National League in 2008’s first half.

But Wagner seems to have his greatest difficulty in games with either higher stakes, or even higher perceived stakes, as he showed Tuesday night, allowing the tying run in the eighth inning of the All Star Game.  read more »

"We’re moving to a new facility, but we’re bringing all the good memories to the new facility, so hopefully it will be fine," Yankee reliever Mariano Rivera was saying to The Observer Monday night.

"We’re not moving that far, you know; a few blocks, a block, just half a block."

Texas Ranger Josh Hamilton went deep 28 times in the first round of the Home Run Derby earlier in the evening, shattering Bobby Abreu’s single round record, and now the stars of Major League Baseball were scattered around town helping people market products that were tied to the ‘All-Star Week’ events.

“I was able to watch and everything was beautiful,” Mr.  read more »

From the early moments of what ended up as the longest All Star Game in baseball history, it appeared that a member of the New York Yankees would play the hero in the festivities at Yankee Stadium Tuesday night. As it turned out, the hero would end up a member of the Boston Red Sox—J.D. Drew won the Most Valuable Player award in the American League’s 4-3, 15 inning victory.

From the start, most of the hype surrounding the game has been about the venue, rather than individuals or even team rivalries. But at every point, the Yankees were the story. During pregame introductions, Yankees were cheered, of course, Red Sox were booed, and everyone else received largely indifferent responses.  read more »

While the streaking Mets actively shop for a corner outfielder to replace the injured Moises Alou and Ryan Church prior to baseball’s July 31 trading deadline, 19-year-old Fernando Martinez, who can be either the long-term solution in the outfield, or the bait for the team’s short-term answer, showcased his talents at the Futures Game Sunday afternoon at Yankee Stadium.

Martinez had one hit in two at-bats on Sunday, and as he has done since signing with the Mets, excelled against players more experienced and older than he is. But with a number of injuries limiting him to just 791 professional at-bats, even a team that promotes as aggressively as the Mets has to be reticent about throwing Martinez into the midst of a pennant race.  read more »

A day game after a night game is normally the province of a baseball team’s backup catcher. Why, then, was Brian Schneider, the man Omar Minaya described as his “regular catcher” when the Mets acquired him this winter, in the starting lineup for the July 10 day game against the Giants?

It’s because Ramon Castro, whose strong bat has been a big part of New York’s recent success, had played the night before—a far more regular occurrence since Jerry Manuel took over as manager from Willie Randolph.

“It does feel better to be playing more,” the 32-year-old Castro said as he put on his uniform in front of his locker Thursday afternoon, prior to New York’s game against the San Francisco Giants.  read more »

The Mets did a lot of heavy lifting on their recent road trip, amassing a 5-3 record against the National League East-leading Phillies and the wild-card-leading Cardinals.

The success of the road trip, punctuated by three straight wins in Philadelphia, catapulted New York into the thick of the National League playoff race. The Mets further solidified these gains with a pair of shutout victories Tuesday and Wednesday against the Giants, and they now stand just 1.5 games out of first place in their division, and just 3.5 games behind St. Louis for the wild card.

But how successful the Mets are down the stretch will be determined in large part by the team’s success on and off the field between now and the end of July.  read more »

Oliver Perez is an enigma.

While many pitchers have displayed inconsistency, Perez’s highs and lows are remarkable, not just from game to game, but season to season.

There are endless theories for Perez’s problems, ranging from the mechanical to the psychological, and many prescriptions to solve them.

He showed encouraging signs Sunday against the Yankees, striking out eight and walking none over seven innings, but he’s been so inconsistent that it’s hard to know if it was meaningful progress or just another blip. The one thread running through Perez’s numbers appears to be a simple one—if he throws even a decent amount of strikes, he will be successful.  read more »

Monday night’s 7-1 loss to the St. Louis Cardinals will be particularly disappointing to fans of the New York Mets, particularly if it provides a harbinger for how the Mets play over the next week.

With another three games against the Cardinals, who lead the National League wild-card race, followed by four with the Phillies, who lead the National League East, the Mets will be facing two teams that stand between them and a playoff berth.

A strong week would likely put New York squarely in the middle of the wild-card chase, and could catapult them into the division lead. But a poor week could leave New York on the outer reaches of the playoff picture; long shots for October play.  read more »

It’s only been eight games. But Jerry Manuel has made it clear that he has a very different plan to manage the Mets than his predecessor, Willie Randolph. These changes range from the tactical to the philosophical, with some tone changes thrown in for good measure.

The most famous of these changes so far has been Manuel’s freewheeling press conferences with reporters, including jokingly threatening to “cut” Jose Reyes (and not as in releasing him) over an on-field tantrum, and referring to the vocally negative feedback from some Mets fans as potentially helpful “fertilizer” at Shea Stadium.

Manuel’s tactical adjustments—the things that actually relate to baseball—have gotten much less notice.  read more »

With Moises Alou on the disabled list, Mets manager Jerry Manuel has said that the team needs to plan as if he isn’t coming back. And Trot Nixon, who has started in left field eight times since the Mets acquired him from the Arizona Diamondbacks (where he had been playing for Arizona’s AAA club) on June 15, wants to put himself squarely at the center of those plans.

So far, the results haven’t come for the longtime Red Sox standout, whose season line stands at .148/.281/.296. But Nixon, who New York acquired in part for his seemingly endless hustle, said he isn’t pressing.  read more »

With Chien-Ming Wang on the shelf until at least September with a torn tendon in his foot, the Yankees are scrambling to replace one of the few givens in their 2008 rotation. The Wang Replacement Derby is wide-open—expect plenty of quick hooks and Plan B's until New York settles on a pitcher—or trades for Cleveland’s soon-to-be free agent ace, C. C. Sabathia. Here is a guide to the likely participants, in predicted order of usage:

 

Dan Giese

If possession is nine-tenths of the law, then Giese has the inside track on the position, having taken Wang’s spot the first time through the rotation Saturday against Cincinnati.  read more »

If Willie Randolph’s situation with the Mets was most like that of Davey Johnson, who was also fired less than halfway into a season less than two years removed from an appearance in the NLCS, then Jerry Manuel, who was named interim manager of the Mets early Tuesday morning, is Bud Harrelson, Johnson’s replacement.

Harrelson took over a 20-22 Mets team during the 1990 season, and led them to a 71-49 record—good enough for 91 victories, but falling short of the postseason. And this standard—significantly improved play, even if it falls short of a playoff berth—is likely Manuel’s bar to clear so he can remove the interim tag from his job title.  read more »

Yet another world championship was in the bag and the Boston Celtics were running out the final few minutes of garbage time in Game 6 of the 1986 NBA Finals when Tommy Heinsohn, then CBS' top NBA analyst despite the Celtic green tint of his bloodstream, turned his thoughts to the next major event on the league's calendar.

"This draft," he announced, "is a very important draft for the Celtics."

He had no idea how right he was.

That overheated June afternoon marked the 16th time in 29 years that an NBA season had climaxed with a Boston championship. Since Red Auerbach's arrival in 1950, the team's longest drought between titles had been just five years, a near-seamless parade of glory that owed itself to the franchise patriarch's knack for crafty trades and inventive draft maneuvers, not to mention a few timely doses of the luck of the Irish.  read more »

The last days of the Willie Randolph era, much like the Mets’ historic end-of-season collapse in 2007, were both tragic and horrible to behold.

On June 15, at the end of a long, seven-hour day at a stadium that will be pulverized and paved into a parking lot later this year, the Mets announced their attendance for a Father’s Day double-header at 55,438. That was laughably deceptive.

Seats were empty all afternoon, and by the time the second game started—the Mets dropped the first half of the double-header to the Texas Rangers—it was quiet enough for the players to be able to hear the yelled suggestions of individual fans: “Carlos! Hit it to third base! They got a shift.  read more »

Laura Green, 29, a busty brunette who lives in Sunset Park and sells scrapbook supplies over the Internet, was sitting in the N train on a recent smoldering Wednesday evening, sporting a Yankees cap and a coy grin. “What would you do to Derek Jeter?” she asked as the subway lurched over the Manhattan Bridge.

“Ugh—sooo many horrible things,” replied her friend, who said her name was “Freda,” that she lived in Queens and that her dad was obsessed with the Mets.

“Horrible as in good things,” Ms. Green said, and sighed. “I could marry him!”  read more »

A few seats away, an older gentleman who was eavesdropping shook his head and hunched into his New York Post.

The Mets had no shortage of disappointing losses during Willie Randolph’s tenure, but the team chose to fire him, along with pitching coach Rick Peterson and first base coach Tom Nieto, around 90 minutes after Monday night’s 9-6 victory over the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.

Randolph will be replaced by former White Sox manager Jerry Manuel; Dan Warthen, who had been the Mets’ pitching coach at AAA New Orleans, will assume Rick Peterson’s duties. AAA Manager Ken Oberkfell and AAA coach Luis Aguayo will also join the staff.

Randolph’s fate was the subject of speculation since the end of the 2007 season, one in which the Mets lost a seven-game lead in the National League East with 17 games left to play, one of the biggest collapses in baseball history.  read more »

Joba Chamberlain’s adjustment to the role of starting pitcher in the major leagues, taking place under the most intense of media glares and in mid-season, has not been noteworthy for the fits and starts along the way. Rather, what is striking is how few of them he has encountered.

Following an 89-pitch outing with a maximum allowance of 95 pitches against the Houston Astros Friday, which equaled six strong innings in a 2-1 New York victory, Chamberlain is now a member of the Yankee rotation without restriction. He has posted a 2.84 ERA in his first three starts. As he displayed in his most recent start, his rawness can provide some revelatory moments—both of the fact that he has been facing major league hitters for less than a year, and that despite that fact, those hitters have a great deal of trouble with even his mistake pitches.  read more »

It’s still too early for the Mets to make the irrevocable decision to be sellers at baseball’s non-waiver trade deadline on July 31. But just barely.

The Mets found themselves seven games out of first place Thursday evening following a 5-4 loss to Arizona, pending Philadelphia’s game at Florida. The wild card offers even worse news; the Mets trail St. Louis by eight games, pending the Cardinals’ game at Cincinnati.

The Mets have lost six of seven games; a similarly poor performance over the next few weeks, or a strong one by St. Louis and Philadelphia, could put the Mets 10 games out of a playoff spot by July 1.

While teams have managed to overcome deficits that large, such stories are rare. And with the team’s depth and talent base depleted by poor drafts and the Johan Santana trade, along with a core—David Wright, Jose Reyes, Carlos Beltran, John Maine and Santana—that is still in its prime, retooling for 2009 could end up being their best (only?) shot at getting back into the company of the premier clubs.

If the Mets punt on 2008—and unless things change soon, it will come to that—here are some of the selling options they have if young talent is available in return:  read more »

While the hysteria over Joba Chamberlain continues in the Bronx, Austin Jackson, a 21-year-old outfielder with New York’s AA affiliate in Trenton, calmly prepares to be the next big thing. And Jackson knows exactly who to talk to about that process.

“Reggie Jackson comes and visits us every spring,” said Jackson, as he dressed in front of his locker prior to Tuesday night’s game against the Connecticut Defenders. “The past two years, we got to sit down and talk. That’s huge from a friend standpoint. Sometimes he would be struggling, but he was always confident.”

Tellingly, the younger Jackson seems most engaged when he’s talking about hitting. That alone has to make the Yankees feel reasonably good about their decision to draft him with an eighth-round pick in the 2005 draft.  read more »

Martinez is Least of Mets’ Worries There are no shortage of problems for the Mets, from Ryan Church’s concussive complications, to Moises Alou’s inability to heal, and even Billy Wagner’s ability to save his only poor performances for the worst possible moments, as he did Sunday, giving up a home run to Tony Clark as the Mets lost their fourth straight to the San Diego Padres, 8-6.  read more »

Unlike in the NBA or NFL, players selected in the Major League baseball draft are not expected to contribute to the big-league roster immediately, or often for years. But both the Mets and Yankees seemed to draft with the current problems with their respective teams in mind.

For the Mets, the issues addressed were in the starting lineup and depth of starting pitching. For the Yankees, the effort was made to collect high-ceiling young pitchers, hoping enough will stick to make a pitching staff.  read more »

Starting on Saturday, June 7, the 2008 European Championship – co-hosted by Switzerland and Austria – kicks off in Basel, Switzerland with a noon game between the Swiss and the Czech Republic.

The Euro is an international soccer tournament fashioned much like the World Cup, but with half the teams. The field of sixteen is first divided into four groups (A, B, C and D) and the two top teams in each group advance to the knockout stages. All games past the group stage are single-elimination and ties are broken by penalty kicks.  read more »

Last Friday evening, Dodger manager Joe Torre was sitting in the visitors' dugout at Shea Stadium, fielding questions from about a dozen reporters about his struggling team. The Dodgers, who limped into a New York fresh off a three game sweep at the hands of the Chicago Cubs, had lost the series opener against the Mets by a score of eight to four, stretching their losing streak to four games.  read more »

Hours before the game, the army of Joba-clad supporters swarmed into Yankee Stadium to welcome the newly crowned king, Joba Chamberlain, to the starting rotation Tuesday night at Yankee Stadium against the Toronto Blue Jays.

But Chamberlain lasted just 2 1/3 innings in his first major league start. Uncharacteristically wild, he walked four hitters. By the final out of New York’s 9-3 loss to Toronto, most of the Joba jerseys had made their way to the exits.  read more »

It is commonly assumed that if Joe Torre had been a free agent, rather than property of the Los Angeles Dodgers, he, and not Willie Randolph, would currently be manager of the New York Mets. That chorus will likely quiet a bit after the Mets completed a 5-2 homestand by defeating the Dodgers Sunday night, 6-1.

But the funny idea of the whole Torre-for-Randolph idea is that there’s no evidence that the aspects of Randolph’s managing that have come under fire most—his lack of demonstrated passion, his deference to veterans and his problems managing his bullpen—would have altered with this particular regime change. After all, Randolph learned his style by Joe Torre’s side as a bench coach for much of Torre’s Yankee tenure.  read more »

David Wright is miscast in a Met uniform.

His youth, affability and seemingly boundless enthusiasm are, by themselves, sufficient to draw a sharp contrast to the gaggle of older, often listless imports that surround him. Add the fact that he’s not only the best player on the Mets but also one of a scant few whose career remains on the ascent, and you begin to understand that by nearly every metric, Wright is the anti-Met.  read more »

In recent years, the New York Yankees have made a habit of starting slowly, only to confound critics by coming on strong and making the playoffs. The team started 11-19 in 2005 and 21-29 in 2007, only to rally to make the playoffs in both seasons, winning 95 and 94 games, respectively.

The early returns on the 2008 Yankees have been about as disappointing as those previous starts. But there is also reason to believe that the 2008 Yankees, who currently hold a 26-27 record, will be able to pull off a similar finish.  read more »

The New York Mets are, in a word, awful. After collecting a cadre of superstars with big contracts and making a series of pretty shrewd trades, the Mets have lost more games than they’ve won during the first two months of the 2008 season, this after they made baseball history last fall with an ignominious collapse that cost them a spot in the playoffs.

A good many Mets fans think they’ve identified the problem: His name is Willie Randolph, the team’s manager.  read more »

Speculation about Willie Randolph’s hold on his job as manager of the New York Mets seems to be reaching a breaking point. First, Randolph was forced to apologize for public comments that, among other things, asserted that the SNY network, which is owned by the Mets, slanted coverage against him. Then he and the Mets proceeded to lose six of seven games to the Atlanta Braves and Colorado Rockies.

When Randolph reached out to Mets ownership, his call was reportedly returned by General Manager Omar Minaya.  read more »

Let this be a lesson for managers and coaches in New York: When your team is down, don't pick a fight with the media.

Willie Randolph, the Mets manager whose team is now under .500, has made two mistakes this week, at a time when his job is looking more and more unsafe.

Randolph told the Bergen Record that he was getting a lot of heat from the media because he's black, and that SNY--which the Mets organization owns--delighted in catching him at unflattering moments in the dugout.

He asked to speak with the Mets' owners, the Wilpons, to apologize, and his offer was rebuffed (instead, he spoke to the team's GM, Omar Minaya).  read more »

It is an acute irony that Darrell Rasner, who improved to 3-0 with seven shutout innings in New York’s 8-0 win over Baltimore Wednesday night, has the best ERA among the team’s starting staff.  read more »

This weekend, as Mets and Yankees reprised their biannual rivalry, the familiar summer smell of sizzling hot dogs and grilled hamburgers was trumped by the cloying stench of mutual desperation. After 40 games and more than $347 million in payroll, the Mets and Yankees entered the series a combined 40-42. Worse still, they saw their respective divisions led by the Florida Marlins and Tampa Bay Devil Rays, two teams whose payrolls rank last and next to last in Major League Baseball.

So what’s the problem?  read more »

While the Mets and Yankees played just two games this weekend, due to a Friday night rainout, there were a few illuminating aspects to both games for the heretofore struggling New York teams.

Wang’s Increased Use of Slider is Double-Edged Sword  read more »

It is a peculiar irony of this largely disappointing Mets season that one of the loudest sustained cheers any player at Shea received this year was on Sunday, May 11, for left-handed reliever Scott Schoeneweis, quite possibly 2007’s least popular Met.

Schoeneweis kept a sense of humor about the fan reaction. He claims never to hear plaudits, only criticism. Therefore, on Sunday, he heard only an absence of boos.  read more »

Morgan Ensberg, backup third and first baseman for the New York Yankees, knows that fans don’t flock to Yankee Stadium to see him.

“For the fans, I am so overshadowed, which makes sense,” Ensberg said, sitting at his locker with a copy of a Dan Brown novel in his left hand prior to Thursday’s game against Cleveland. “I’m not that big-name guy. They get to see me if somebody is hurt, or needs a rest.”  read more »

It’s open season on Mets starter Oliver Perez.

Billy Wagner ripped him for failing to compete, after Perez gave up five walks and seven runs in 1 2/3 innings on April 30. Earlier, Willie Randolph had criticized Perez for failing to go deep into games, even though Randolph twice removed Perez in the sixth inning when Perez had yet to allow a run. After his recent poor outing, the New York Post led with, “The Mets are running out of patience with the maddeningly consistent Oliver Perez.”

OK, so now what?  read more »

When the Yankees chose to open the 2008 season with Phil Hughes, 21, and Ian Kennedy, 23, in the starting rotation, some growing pains were expected. But while Kennedy had less of a track record to count on, there was ample reason to think Hughes, who got the call Tuesday night at Yankee Stadium against the Detroit Tigers, would be ready to log at least league-average innings.

But Hughes hasn’t merely been mixing good starts with bad thus far—he’s been almost uniformly awful.  read more »

The Star-Ledger reports that Newark Mayor Cory Booker and the New Jersey Devils are trying to assemble investors to buy the Nets basketball team from development firm Forest City Ratner.

Should the Nets be sold—Forest City denied that the team is for sale—it would presumably kill the more than $4 billion Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn, developed by Forest City under the premise that a new Frank Gehry-designed arena would be created for the Nets.  read more »

Sixteen different New York Yankees played in a dramatic 4-3 loss to the Cleveland Indians April 26. None of their names were at the top of The New York Times’ game story the next morning. Instead, The Times led with the news that Joba Chamberlain had not appeared.

Ross Ohlendorf, the pitcher who gave up the winning run in the bottom of the ninth, didn’t appear till paragraph three. It took six paragraphs for The Times to mention any of the Cleveland players by name, and nine to identify catcher Victor Martinez as the one who got the hit.  read more »

Heading into the 2008 season, the Atlanta Braves were the fashionable pick to win the National League East. Seven different ESPN writers had Atlanta on top, with one picking them to win the World Series.

That’s nothing new, particularly. Atlanta is expected to be successful, having won 14 consecutive division titles from 1991-2005, a feat that hasn’t even been approached in baseball history.

But unlike those championship teams, this iteration of the Braves suffers from a lack of overall talent and health, particularly on the pitching staff. Those limitations were on display during this weekend’s series with the Mets, as New York won two of three games.  read more »

After last year’s wildly successful draft that saw Aaron Ross, Steve Smith, Jay Alford, Kevin Boss and Ahmad Bradshaw all contribute to the Giants’ Super Bowl run, New York could afford to take some risks. This year’s edition was more about creating depth and looking toward the future.

Overall, the Giants addressed the few concerns they had, especially after an off-season that saw them lose three starters on defense. What they received were prospects with the raw talent to produce but some gaping holes in their skill sets. But they are Super Bowl champions, and they clearly aren’t setting out to remake the team right away.

Drafting Miami safety Kenny Phillips with their first pick will soften some of the blow of Gibril Wilson’s defection to the Oakland Raiders. Phillips is athletic and smart and has the kind of speed to cover wideouts as well as the agility to make open-field tackles. The knock on him is that he’s a little raw in reading coverage, but with New York signing Jaguars veteran Sammy Knight to shore up the safety position for the next few years, Phillips can develop and mature.  read more »

On Saturday, the New York Jets used the sixth overall pick in the 2008 NFL draft to select Ohio State defensive end Vernon Gholston.

By most accounts, Gholston is a talented if somewhat inconsistent prospect who projects as a fine player in the NFL. Nevertheless, this weekend’s draft may ultimately be remembered less for the picks the Jets made than for the one they didn’t: Arkansas running back Darren McFadden. Despite the public-relations spin, the fact remains that the Jets desperately needed McFadden. Chad Pennington needed him. Kellen Clemens needed him. Eric Mangini, too. But above all, their bedraggled, tempest-tossed fans needed him. They needed him both to jump-start a moribund offense and to redefine a staid, faceless and increasingly boring organization. As is their wont, the Jets missed the opportunity, ignoring the overwhelming fan sentiment for McFadden. They knew better.  read more »

With Pedro Martinez eyeing a late-April return, the Mets would appear set to move forward with their planned five-man rotation intact. But if New York wants to make the decision best for the team now, later in the season and even for 2009, they ought to consider a wacky idea: expanding to a six-man rotation as soon as Martinez or Orlando Hernandez is healthy enough to take the mound.

While the starting rotation has been a strength thus far, much of that success has come from the young Mike Pelfrey’s development, and from surprise success story Nelson Figueroa.  read more »