Baseball’s owners have approved changing the format of this year’s AL and NL Division Series from a 2-2-1 format to a 2-3 format, giving the team with home-field advantage the last three games of the five-game series.
Thursday May 17, 2012 — 8:00 PM
May 17
Lawrie drops appeal of four-game suspension
Brett Lawrie has dropped his appeal of a four-game suspension from Major League Baseball for his dispute with home plate umpire Bill Miller. This means that the Toronto Blue Jays will not have their starting rookie third baseman for this weekends series against the Mets. Lawrie will be eligible to return on Monday. Here is the cause of Brett Lawrie’s four-game suspension:
May 17
Mets 9, Reds 4: The Comeback Kids are Back!
The New York Mets (21-17) defeated the Cincinnati Reds (19-18) by the score of 9-4 today at Citi Field. The Mets split both home series’ this week, with the Brewers and now the Reds.
R.A. Dickey’s Knuckleball was outstanding today. Dickey pitched 6 innings and allowed three earned runs on seven hits with eight strikeouts. Dickey has just been flat out awesome all season long.
The Mets bullpen finally pitched well. Bobby Parnell, Jon Rauch, and Frank Francisco each pitched one inning of relief. They combined for three innings, three strikeouts, and Parnell received the win.
The Mets found themselves down early… again. However, like the Mets have done all year, they came back and won the game with key hits. The Mets also took advantage of the Reds miscues and mental lapses. The Mets scored un-answered runs, after being down 4-0.
A little side note: The Mets had 30,000 fans at Citi Field today, which was awesome to see. It’s tough getting fans out there for weekday day games, but what can I say… Mets fans are the best!
The Mets have been fighting all season and hope to continue their winning ways. The Mets will take on the Blue Jays this weekend in Toronto starting tomorrow night at 7:07 PM EDT. Jon Niese will face Ricky Romero to kick-off this three-game weekend series.
May 17
This is what the Mets look like in hockey jerseys
David Wright is hiding from the camera
All of these pictures are from @Mets on Twitter. The team is wearing hockey jerseys because they are making a trip to Toronto tonight. When the Mets traveled to Houston recently, they wore cowboy outfits.
To see pictures of the Mets in their cowboy outfits, click here.
May 17
My take on the D.J. Carrasco, Robert Carson, Tim Byrdak situation
The News:
The Mets designated RHP D.J. Carrasco for assignment.
— New York Mets (@Mets) May 17, 2012
The Mets recalled LHP Robert Carson from Binghamton (AA). He had a 1.84 ERA with 1 save in 12 games for the BMets.
— New York Mets (@Mets) May 17, 2012
My Take:
Carrasco started the season on the disabled list, but recently re-joined the team. He made his 2012 major league debut on May 9. He allowed a run and two hits in an inning pitched. His next outing whent better, pitching a scoreless inning. However, it only went downhill from there. Carrasco allowed a solo homerun in one out pitched yesterday, and then he came in and allowed three runs off of six hits, including two homeruns. Basically, Carrasco allowed six runs and twelve hits in 7 1/3 innings pitched this season.
To put that into perspective, Carrasco allowed just 68 hits in 78 1/3 innings pitched back in 2010. He was 3-2 with a 3.68 ERA that season. Since then, Carrasco has been awful. Sandy Alderson signed him to a two-year, $2.4 million contract before the 2011 season.
The Mets chipped away at some of their problems by making this move.
Image from MetsMerizedOnline.com
First off, D.J. Carrasco is unfortunately not nearly as good as he used to be. The Mets could not afford having him take up a roster spot. By designating Carrasco for assignment, the solved that problem
Tim Byrdak has been used way too much this season. The Mets have played in many close games this season, against teams with solid lefties in their lineups. Tim Byrdak has done a solid job getting these guys out.
However, Byrdak has already played in 22 out of the team’s first 37 games of the season. He is on pace to appear in about 96 games in 2012. There’s absolutely no way that Byrdak will actually play that many games. However, if Terry Collins doesn’t start giving Byrdak more rest. The Byrd man could get tired sooner rather than later.Remember Pedro Feliciano? Similar situation.
The Mets have added Rob Carson. Carson is a left-handed relief pitcher–something the Mets desperately need. The only problem is that Carson has never appeared in any games above the Double-A level. Before this season, Robert Carson was unsuccessful when facing Double-A hitters. He had an 8.32 ERA when he first joined Double-A Binghamton in 10 games in 2010. In 2011, he started 24 games and pitched in relief in another one. He finished last season 4-11 with a 5.05 ERA.
Before this season, Carson was seen as a starter. But, he has completely transformed as a reliever.
The bottom line is this: Carrasco is not good anymore, Byrdak will be overworked soon, the Mets’ bullpen is terrible, the Mets need another lefty in their terrible bullpen, and Robert Carson has dominated Double-A hitters. The question is: Can Carson dominate big league hitters? There’s definitely a pretty big jump from Double-A Binghamton to the New York Mets. It’ll be interesting to see how Carson handles the situation at hand.
May 16
Final: Mets 0, Brewers 8
May 15
Game Preview: Brewers @ Mets 7:10 PM ET
The New York Mets (20-15) look to sweep the Milwaukee Brewers (15-20) in game two of their two game series tonight at Citi Field at 7:10 PM ET.
The rain forecast tonight isn’t that promising. However, it appears that the Mets believe they will be able to get tonight’s game in. For information about the status of tonight’s game, go to this live post and refresh it throughout the night. We will be updating it all night.
Starting Lineups:
# Mets Tuesday lineup vs. Milwaukee: Torres-CF, Nieuwenhuis-LF, Wright-3B, Duda-RF, Murphy-2B, Davis-1B, Cedeno-SS, Nickeas-C, Gee-RHP
— New York Mets (@Mets) May 15, 2012
Lineup vs Mets: Aoki CF, Weeks 2B, Braun LF, Ramirez 3B, Hart RF, Lucroy C, Ishikawa 1B, Izturis SS, Greinke P
— Milwaukee Brewers (@Brewers) May 15, 2012
Starting Pitchers:
RHP Dillon Gee (2-2, 4.78 ERA) will take the hill for the Mets.
RHP Zack Greinke (3-1, 3.35 ERA) will take the hill for the Brewers.
Game Notes:
- I’ve said this many times. But, I hope Ike Davis has a good night at the plate.
- Ronny Cedeño is the only Met will a hit against Greinke. He is 3-for-10 against him. Scott Hairston is 0-for-3 against Greinke and Rob Johnson is 0-for-2. The rest of the team hasn’t faced him.
Let’s Go Mets!
May 15
Live Post: Weather and game time updates
We will be updating this post throughout the night, passing along any info about the status of tonight’s game. So, refresh this page, if you want to know about the status of tonight’s game.
5:45 PM:
Good evening Mets fans! It appears the bulk of the rain activity has moved out of the area. Dry conditions are likely through at least 10pm, but a stray light shower or two may move in after 10pm.
5:19 PM:
Tarp coming off the field at Citi Field.
— Adam Rubin (@AdamRubinESPN) May 15, 2012
5:02 PM:
Mets rain update: Tarp on the field, but it’s not raining in Queens right now. They will get this in, even it means playing til 2. #mets
— Mike Kerwick (@mikekerwick) May 15, 2012
4:04 PM:
Terry thinks they will play tonight #rain
— Kevin Burkhardt (@KBurkhardtSNY) May 15, 2012
