Wednesday, May 16, 2007

Return To Shea

Well, after spending last week touring other teams' ballparks, I returned this week to good 'ol Shea. It may not have the modern luxuries or amenities of the new stadiums around the league, but it has a certain charm to it and Shea will always be Shea. That being said, I am counting down the days till CitiField opens its doors just like everyone else.
I was at the games on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, so I will share with you my brief thoughts on those 3 games.
Sunday: Oliver Perez was outstanding, giving up 1 run on 2 hits over 8 innings. I was actually almost a little happy that he gave up that 2nd hit to start the 9th so that I wouldn't have to look back at the game and see Chris Capuano's bloop single in the 3rd inning as what stood between me seeing the Mets' 1st ever no-hitter in person. We actually had no idea that Carlos Gomez had been called up before the game. As we walked in the stadium, we saw that there was no picture in the 8 spot where it shows the lineup outside the park, but we were just confused by this. Then, as we sat in our seats in Field Level on the right field line, we realized that the RF's jersey said "Gomez" on the back, which took a few seconds to register before I was like, "Wait, is that CARLOS Gomez?" We frantically started making our calls and learned that he had been called up that morning and had been head-shaved as soon as he arrived. (On that front, it is interesting to note that it seems the Mets' minhag is to keep the 1st days of the Omer and allow haircuts after Lag Ba'Omer, except for Aaron Sele, who keeps inventing different excuses for why he can't join the rest of his team.) We started several Car-los Go-mez chants in our section to celebrate his debut. If he would like further such chants when he appears at Shea Stadium he will have to either have a hall of fame career with us and return with another team or make an all-time great catch in Game 7 of the NLCS. Nothing else will do.
Monday: I have been complaining all year that there was a certain type of game that the Mets had won all the time last year but had been unable to pull out yet this year. They finally did it Monday night. The type of game in question is the one where the starter doesn't have it early and we fall behind and get bailed out by the offense. Glavine didn't end up getting 295, but it was good to see the offense finally get a starter off the hook when they didn't have their good stuff. Really solid win for the Mets, culminating in an amazingly disciplined, 10-pitch at bat that ended with Delgado drawing a bases loaded walk-off walk. Let's hope he can start to get things going.
Tuesday: Several times in my life I have been fortunate enough to sit in seats in field level behind the plate, several rows back, under the net. Every single one of those times, the Mets have gotten crushed. Last night was no exception. We sat in the Hagler seats, which are about 12 feet behind and 4 feet to the right of the home plate umpire. So we had a perfect view to watch John Maine and Scott Schoenweiss get drilled all night. My worry about Maine is that he was getting a lot of outs early in the year by getting batters to swing at pitches out of the zone and that the league has caught up to him and are now taking those pitches. As a result, he has been walking more batters the last few starts and falling behind in the count, forcing him to leave more pitches out over the plate that then end up bouncing against the wall. Let's hope he can find his stuff again and make the necessary adjustments going forward.
It looks like it's gonna rain tonight, so we could be looking at a doubleheader tomorrow. Stay tuned...

1 comment:

Zoooma said...

Citi Field. Not one word without a space... Two words, my friend.