Where the hell did this guy come from? Besides AA, I mean. In four games since he’s been called up, he’s hitting .538 with four homers, including one in his first major league AB, and two last night. The Mets are right in the middle of the wildcard race now, tied with three other teams only 2 games back, and only trailing the Phillies and Astros. They’ve also been getting great pitching and scoring a ton of runs, with an 32 over their past two games. They scored 18 last night with Beltran and Floyd a combined 0-7, and Piazza and Cameron out to injury. Even Seo chipped in with a double, a walk, and a few RBIs.

I know I shouldn’t post this, because their losing streak will start tonight because of it. It’s not like they can score this many runs for Pedro, anyway.

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It’s good to see Beltran back in the lineup, though now Piazza’s out a few days instead. The Mets have been so frustrating this year – Still in last place in the NL East 7.5 games back, but still over .500 and right in the middle of the wild card race. The problem is they have to climb over the rest of the division to win it, but anything’s possible. There’s still a good month and a half left to play. The Padres have dropped below .500 again, so now the whole NL East has a winning record, and the whole NL West has a losing record. I really hope it stays that way.

I got to one of the games at Dodger stadium last week, with a bunch of people from work. It was a great game, except for how it ended. It was nice to see Diaz come back strong with the two homeruns, and they were both monsters. The first one was halfway up the foul pole. Also, it’s always fun to wear my Mets Piazza jersey in Dodger stadium. I can’t believe how much they still boo him when he comes up to the plate there. I’ll be heading up to San Francisco next weekend for the Saturday game against the Giants.

Let’s see if the Mets can make up for losing two outta three to both the Padres and Dodgers by sweeping the Pirates. Might not be easy with Zach Duke on the mound. 😉

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Ever had a team lose all three starting outfielders to injury the same day?

It could possibly have just happened to the Mets today. Cameron and Beltran collided in the outfield, and didn’t catch the ball that eventually led to the gamewinning run for the Padres. They both came out of the game. An inning later, Floyd was hit in the knee with a 91mph fastball. He stayed in the game, but probably only because the Mets had no outfielders to replace him with. He’s having it xrayed.

There’s video of the collision linked off of this article. And pictures here.

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I was checking out the MLB scoreboard on CBS Sportsline, and saw “Reyes scored on balk” as the most recent play in the Mets game. My first thought was, “again?” I knew I’d seen him do that at least a couple of times already this season. A quick google search confirmed: 6/21 and 7/8.

As it turns out, the balk ruling was overturned. http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/recap?gameId=250720121

Jose Reyes doubled in a run in the second with a liner down the left-field line, and New York appeared to have scored a second run on a balk call by home plate umpire Chuck Meriwether with Reyes on third.

But Padres manager Bruce Bochy protested and Meriwether conferred with third base umpire Tim Timmons and reversed it.

Bochy told Meriwether that Williams stepped off the pitching rubber and threw home because Reyes made a move toward the plate. Bochy said he asked the Meriwether to check with Timmons, and Timmons said Williams did.

“Reyes looked like he was going,” Williams said.

If there had been a balk, I’d think three runs scored on balks in a season would have to be the record. Reyes’ current two very well might be. If anyone can help me find out the answer, please let me know.

Anyway, the Mets actually look somewhat decent lately, splitting a series with Atlanta and now taking the first two against the West’s first place Padres. They’re two games over .500, and pulled to 5.5 games back in the East. I shouldn’t post this. Every time I do, they go on a losing streak.

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…is Braden Looper still the Mets closer?

We were so close to a sweep.

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When will I learn? Pedro has a no hitter, through 6.

[color=#3333FF](17:39:31) penner42[/color]: nice.. pedro with a run scored. thats awesome
[color=#FF0000](17:39:55) (my brother)[/color]: and a base hit!
[color=#3333FF](17:40:02) penner42[/color]: more hits than he’s given up 🙂
[color=#3333FF](17:40:21) penner42[/color]: i shouldn’t have said that

Not five minutes later, he gives up a homer in the 7th. Chris Burke’s first major league homerun.

Update: Two hitter, Mets hang on and win 3-1. At least I didn’t screw that up.

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Baseball

Stupid Yankees had to go and take two outta three from the Mets. Actually, the Mets really just gave the games away making so many errors. They really shoulda been able to take the last game. They’re still two games over .500 and only three games back in the NL East, but they’re just so bad. They need to learn to field and pitch. Their hitting (or, ability to score runs, anyway), despite low batting averages, seems just fine. They’ve scored the most runs in the division. Hell, the Yankees, even with their awful start, now have the same record (though they’re 4.5 games back in their division).

Last weekend, I went to NY for a friend’s wedding, and managed to get to a game against the Cards in between picking up my tux at 10am and the wedding at 8pm. It was a 1:10 start, and ended in plenty of time for me to get home and change. It was also a great game, though the result was disappointing, thanks to the Mets terrible bullpen. Anytime Pedro can give up 5 runs and leave with the lead, the team should fricken win. It should have been a great pitching matchup, but neither Pedro nor Mulder were sharp. Unfortunately, the Cards bullpen didn’t allow a run, while the Mets pen allowed two, for a final score of 7-6. It was my first game this season, and I think my first time back at Shea since I moved out to California. At least it was fun.

Bowling

I bowled again this weekend, for the first time since I got hurt. I pretty much picked up right where I left off. Saturday morning, I threw a 619 series. Saturday evening, I shot really badly in a 9-pin no-tap tournament, and didn’t even break 600, but I wasn’t really trying. Honest. My third game of that tournament was my best, and I was using my spare ball for the whole thing. Yesterday, I bowled in the last week of my Sunday night league, with a new glove.

All I needed to do was throw a 218 the third game for another 700 series, and if the pins had cooperated, I would have. Every shot except for the split in the middle was right in the pocket. I left three 7 pins, two 10 pins, and a solid 8 (which I didn’t pick up). All of them solid in the pocket, but I just couldn’t get any carry. Still, I can’t complain about a 665 series, especially as my second series back from injury.

And no pain, stiffness, or other bad or strange feelings in my wrist. That’s a good sign.

Poker

I’ve been playing online poker a bit more again lately, and badly. I’m making bad plays and terrible calls, and I know it when I do it. I need to get out of my rut. Maybe the blogger trip to Vegas will help. It’s less than two weeks away. I finally booked my flight and room. I somehow managed to pull off a room at the Plaza, where lots of other bloggers are staying. Their website shows nothing available for Friday and Saturday night, but http://www.lasvegashotel.com/ let me book a room there. I’ll be splitting it with Joaquin, who was looking for someone to share a room with. That website still shows available rooms at the Plaza, so if there are any bloggers looking to stay there who don’t have their rooms yet, you should check it out.

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Tendonitis

The trackball at home didn’t seem to help. I rearranged my desk, and started using my mouse again, and so far so good. The SmartGlove seems to be helping a bit. I picked up some stress balls from Staples. Get ’em while they’re on clearance. I’m taking glucosamine and chondroitin. I still haven’t been playing much online poker, but my wrist feels much better. I played softball for the first time since I got hurt this week. I did fine, but we still got killed. Next week, I’m going to try to start bowling again. We’ll see how that goes. It has been almost two months now.

Poker

While I haven’t been playing online poker much (I played – badly – in the WPBT WSOP Satellite last night), I did manage to make it up to Chumash last Friday. The game there is now $100 or $200 (not in between – weird) buyin NL, $2/$5 blinds. I played for around 5 hours and made $215. I didn’t play any terribly exciting hands, and was never all-in. Just won a few decent sized pots and stayed out of the way with my junk. It was good to play live again after my horrendous play in Vegas last month. I actually felt like I played well this time.

I really do want to get back into playing online poker again, but don’t want to reinjure myself. I rearranged my desk so my keyboard and mouse are on the desk instead of in the keyboard drawer, and I think that will help, but there’s not enough room on the desk for it. So… I just ordered my second 2001fp (for $352.90 after crazy coupons and the $150 Dell gift card I got from ECD), and it will replace my CRT on my desk. That should free up enough space to leave the keyboard and mouse up there permanantly. Then I can get back to playing online again, I hope. ECD and PSO have so many new rooms that I need to do (Noble Poker, Superior Poker, Poker Rewards, Paradise Poker). Plus, I’m letting Party skin bonuses slip away because I can’t play. On top of all that, I actually want to play. It’s frustrating not being able to.

For the record, I just bought a 20.1″ LCD monitor for my health.

Spam

I recently installed a plugin for WordPress to force comment previews. Hopefully, it’ll be a while before spammers catch on to this one. It seems right now they just submit and then ignore whatever comes back. I haven’t gotten any spam since I installed it, and you should be able to leave comments now without getting redirected elsewhere. You’ll just have to preview it first, which I like having there anyway.

Baseball

I’m heading to New York this weekend for a Mets game wedding, and will be going to my first game at Shea in a few years while I’m there. The Mets are in second to last place in the NL East, but they’re really not too bad. Well, they have the best offense in the East, I think, but their pitching sucks. Only Philly in their division has given up more runs. Anyway, they’re still over .500 (barely – by one game), and only 3.5 games out of first place. There’s still plenty of baseball left to play, plenty of time for them to drop out of the race entirely. Or replace the entire bullpen, starting with the closer. This will be my first baseball game of the season.

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Softball

My company softball team had our last game (I think) of the season last night. We were 1-6 or so, and the only game we won was the game I wasn’t at. Last night, we played against the one team we beat. They had a double header that night, their first game against the only undefeated team in the league. That team now has one loss for the season. I walked in the first inning. I don’t like walking in slow pitch softball, but only one of the pitches was even close. I ended up scoring, and after one inning we were up 6-4. Our second inning started off with two quick outs. I followed with a two out single, and we went on an 8 run two out rally. I got two hits in the inning. My next time up, I grounded into a double play (I woulda beat out the throw, but I thought there were two outs), and my last time up I lined out hard to left center. I didn’t botch anything in the field, and almost made a really nice play on a ground ball off the third baseman’s glove (I was at shortstop) to get the runner at first. Almost. We won the game, 22-9. It was a good way to end the season.

Baseball

Stupid Marlins. They signed Carlos Delgado, which means the Mets didn’t. The Mets traded for Doug Mientkiewicz instead. If he can return to his 2003 or 2001 numbers, I can deal with that, though he’s certainly no Delgado. If he hits like he did last year, they’re gonna need to get someone better. At least he’s solid in the field.

Poker

I’ve been working off another promotion through PSO, this time the Golden Palace one. I should be finished with it tonight. I’m down around $25 there, after being up around $90 my first night. I’ve just had a string of really bad luck, but I’m perfectly happy with how I’ve been playing. Last night I had AAx4, KKx2, QQ, JJ, TT and none of them held up. I think my last 7 pocket aces have been cracked there, mostly playing 6 handed. Amazingly, I’ve really gotten to the point where I can just shrug it off and move on. I’ve also gotten to the point where I can lay it down when I know it’s beat, even at 1/2 limit, which is a good thing. Unfortunately, I couldn’t lay down my AQ to the A379T board with a lot of action. I was beat by both A3 and A7. I think that was the only hand I really misplayed and cost me more than it should have. I should have folded to the flop action. Overall, I do like Golden Palace’s interface and software, though it only wants to let you play at two tables at a time. You can trick it by getting on the waiting list for a third, which will then pop up when your seat is available. I’ve read that it’s a real pain to cash out from there, though, but I don’t want to do that yet.

I also did something last night I thought I’d never do: I signed up at a regular online casino (not a poker room) similar to คาสิโนสด UFABET. ECD has a promotion through Music Hall Casino for 600 ECD points. The EV of meeting the wagering requirements at 50 cent blackjack was around -$6, and 600 points is the equivalent of $60, so it’s a +EV move. I had to make some changes to the autoplay strategy (check the ECD forum for details) to make it play perfectly, and then just set it to autoplay enough hands to clear the requirement. The variance worked out in my favor, and I made $75 doing it, too. I busted out my bonus money, but overall it was a good first experience at a regular online casino. I’m not against signing up for more, but will only do it when its +EV, so there needs to be a bonus or promotion that makes it worth signing up.

I got my complete set of chips through ECD and PSO now. I don’t know what I’m going to spend the rest of my points on, but I’ll figure it out. Those cards in there weren’t the ones that I got with the set; those are my Binion’s Horseshoe Kems I got in Vegas.

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Well, it looks like the Mets actually managed to pull of (another) big free agent signing. Carlos Beltran is as good as signed. Combined with Pedro, the Mets might actually have a shot at not finishing in the cellar this year, and maybe even finishing with a winning record. Beltran is certainly a step in the right direction, but I’m still far from convinced the Mets will really be competitive. I do like the rotation, even without Leiter, but it could be better. I don’t know what’s happening at first base, but the rest of the infield should be solid (if they can stay healthy, which I doubt.) The outfield could use another big bat, but I guess it’ll have to do. Middle relief needs some serious work, but it’s possible something will get done about that.

I don’t think 2005 is the year anyone unseats the Braves, unfortunately. I’d be very happy with the wildcard, though. 🙂

Hopefully, Omar Minaya is here (well, there… why did I move out to California again?) to stay.

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