What Have You Learned? Jeff Francoeur

What Have You Learned is our very special off-season series that will outline what you've learned, what I've learned, and hopefully what the 2009 Mets have learned about themselves, others, and 2010. Today, we investigate whether Jeff Francoeur has really turned the corner, whether this is all part of his evil plan as a spy for the Braves, and my new quest to win a Nobel Peace Prize.

I've often thought about how I'm going to make my mark on this world. Should I write a book? Build a better mouse trap? Develop a seed that makes broccoli taste like cinnamon, thus combining health with great taste? Then, President Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize:

"I will accept this award as a call to action -- a call for all nations to confront the common challenges of the 21st century."

The President, with that speech, has inspired me to create a path towards my own Nobel Peace Prize ... and this is how I'm going to do it:

I'm going to bring the sabermetric guys and the scout types together.

If that's not a common challenge of the 21st century, I don't know what is.

And I'm not just talking about locking Theo Epstein and Omar Minaya in a room until they sing Kumbaya together (or until their eyes bleed, one or the other). I'm living on a grander scale. I want to bring everyone together, and make the baseball landscape one big Coca-Cola commercial. It's not going to happen in one post, it's going to take time. But it's going to be my life's mission. Because I want that Nobel Prize, dammit (can you win a Nobel Peace Prize if you say "dammit" all the time?)

It seems like y'all are for one or the other. And I think we can have both. If we had been so resistant to progress back in the fifties, we'd never have created the heaven we know today as Reeses Peanut Butter Cups because combining chocolate and peanut butter would have been akin to raising the dead with pagan rituals. And it's going to take the next genius GM to figure out what the right balance is between the batting eyes and the free swingers. Billy Beane brought us OPS. Then the landscape was changed with UZR. The next stat isn't going to be a stat at all ... it's going to be the one who figures out how to integrate everything including OPS, UZR, flat speed, straight slugging, and yes ... grit and heart (don't worry, I'll never become so blinded in my quest to win a Nobel Prize by ever suggesting this team signs David Eckstein), to build a better baseball team. The balance may not be 50/50 between the stats and the scouts. In fact it'll probably be closer to 78/22 or something. But the right balance will dominate for years.

What does this have to do with Jeff Francoeur? Everything. The three polarizing figures of the stats vs. scouts war are Francoeur, Adam Dunn, and Juan Pierre. Dunn and Pierre are probably the polar opposites in terms of how they're valued, yet the ironic thing is that both players can be of help to the Mets in different capacities. The Mets might need somebody like Pierre to cover the massive amount of ground at Citi Cave, but he doesn't walk. Dunn is a power hitter who walks a ton. But he also strikes out a ton and has as much range as a statue. Too bad you can't call in Dr. Alphonse Mephisto to splice their genes and make one super player that has defensive range and walks a lot ... although with the Mets medical luck, they'd hire a cheaper doctor to create a player who can't move, strikes out 215 times a year and has the batting eye of Mr. Magoo. (Think Dave Kingman ... 1982.)

So what have we learned about Frenchy, the third polarizing player? First off, I can't discount the fact that he's taken to New York quite well, and threw everything he had a smile on his face. On the 2009 Mets, a year where he's hit into a game ending triple play, and a game ending lucky stab by Mike McDougal, that's no small feat. When the trade was made, I thought Francoeur would be miserable going to a big city, going to a rival, and away from his hometown. It was the opposite. No doubt in my mind that put him in the right frame of mind to pick up his game. Amazing what you can accomplish when you're happy. Remember the Robby Alomar years, when he was clearly not happy as a Met? Didn't work out so well, did it?

And I was dead wrong about him in that I thought '09 would be dreadful, and '10 would bring us the new improved Jeff Francoeur. Instead, his '09 as a Met was as good as it could have been. If that was the sugar rush of a new team, much like the last part of '08 was attributed to that new manager smell, is it all downhill from here? If we have indeed seen the best of Frenchy, the saber guys will be all over him ... and rightly so, because that means that barbecue and batting cage time with Howard Johnson will have been a fruitless endeavor where Frenchy learns nothing. And what a waste of BBQ sauce that would be.

Here's where we bring the world together ... ready? Upon further review Francoeur, in the right situation, can be the right fit. Let's say he dips a little bit from the .311/.338/.498 line he put up wtih the Mets last season. If he's batting sixth in a lineup that has some serious juice up top, say, a healthy Reyes, Castillo or an improved version at second, an improved David Wright, a healthy Carlos Beltran, and a shiny new part like Jason Bay or Matt Holliday or Derrek Lee or whoever, Frenchy can be that guy crushing pitches down the middle with the bases loaded, instead of the Mets loading the bases with nobody out and having Anderson Hernandez up, followed by a 4-6-3 D.P. by Fernando Tatis.

Now, if you're going to depend on Francoeur to be your cleanup hitter, you might have problems. Because unless Hojo is part evolutionary psychologist, Frenchy is going to be who he is. It's up to the powers to put a team around him and continue to bring the best out in Francoeur where, walks or not, he can be somebody that everyone can love.

Peace and love. Peace and love.

More Cortisone For Everyone

Ron Darling said tonight that with cortisone, you feel a numbness for about two days.

After getting swept by a Mannyless Dodger team, I think we can all use a little of that action.

How about more for J.J. Putz who, even though the first round of cortisone gave him his zip back, still can't get him a hold when it was sorely needed.

Or maybe more for Jose Reyes, who left the game after aggravating his calf injury. Now who knows how long he'll be out.

Or some for the new shortstop, Ramon Martinez ... because he couldn't do any worse playing while numb.

The one good thing to come out of Wednesday night's broom job was Daniel Murphy's initial first base foray, in which he looked more Keith than Kingman with a couple of sparklers in the field. Makes you wonder what took the braintrust so long to figure this one out. Now all Murph needs to do is start hitting like Keith and ...

and the Mets will still need a shortstop.

But at least the Mets and their fans will get one thing they need tomorrow: a day off.

***

Lisa from Subway Squawkers was kind enough to bring me more insanity from Steve Phillips as he tries to defend his stance on Carlos Beltran:

"While Beltran does have talent, I just don't see him as a winning player. Even after my comments on Sunday night, Beltran let a fly ball drop in between himself and Angel Pagan in the Dodger game."

Why let the fact that Pagan didn't have the good sense to get out of the way of the center fielder calling him off six times get in the way of validating Phillips' point, right?

"I see him putting up numbers but not making plays to win games. I would take Torii Hunter, Grady Sizemore, Curtis Granderson, and Nate McLouth over Beltran, and use the financial difference to improve the team in other ways. Beltran isn't a $17 million dollar a year player. He just doesn't have the kind of impact for that kind of money."

He's right, Carlos Beltran isn't a $17 million a year player. He's an $18.5 million a year player. Torii Hunter, so you know, is an $18 million a year player, with one more season on his contract than Beltran. Congratulations Steve, you saved -$16,500,000 on that one. Ponzi schemes have more financial security.

"Many people think that Alex Rodriguez is the best player in the game, but he's never won anything. I look at Beltran in a similar fashion as Rodriguez--a great talent that just doesn't seem to have what it takes to win championships. Maybe the Mets can keep him and add pieces to the core around him and still win. But when you're dealing with a budget and the screams of immediacy in New York, I'm not sure the Mets can wait to piece it together around him."

Why not? The Mets waited to piece it together around Tsuyoshi Shinjo? Yes! Let's get Shinjo back! S-H-IN-J-O and Shinjo was his NAME-O!!!!! YES!!!!!! SHINJO MAKES PLAYS TO WIN GAMES!!!!!!

Oh, and so does Steve Reed. Remember him?

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to put on my sunglasses, as the trophies from all those championships that Hunter, Sizemore, Granderson, and McLouth have won are starting to blind me.

***

On a serious, sad note, many condolences to Scott Schoeneweis and his family. Keep them in your prayers tonight.

The Manifesto (New And Improved)

Guess that sabbatical I suggested last year wouldn't have been such a bad option, eh?

There's a saying, you might have heard of it.

"Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me."

That's how I feel. Not that this team duped me, but that I let this team dupe me. To a certain extent, we were all fooled by this team ... that this time would have been different. This team, with Daniel Murphy and Argenis Reyes and Nick Evans and an improved Mike Pelfrey and a more focused Oliver Perez and a rejuvenated Carlos Delgado and a revived Jose Reyes and a more honest Snoop Manuel and a less complicated Dan Warthen and Billy Wagner pitching from the windup and all of the moving parts that made the 2008 team less "bored" than their 2007 counterparts and that this team was choke-proof.

We put our blinders on and begged this team to tell us it would be all right. And if it wasn't going to be all right, we begged them to lie to us.

I was fooled. Again. Roger Daltrey, I'm not.

I was looking for the footnote to 2007. Seven games with seventeen to play is a monumental choke job. There were two footnotes that were possible when history was to look back on 2007. One of them was: "The Mets would bounce back from that horrible collapse to make the playoffs the following season." The other was "The Mets would plunge into the abyss after the collapse, missing post season play for the next 25 seasons."

No way did I think of the third option: "The Mets repeated their historic collapse of 2007 in 2008 when they were once again eliminated on the final day of the season by the Florida Marlins." But that's what we're stuck with. Because one choke is a fluke ... two is a trend.

(And three is grounds for contraction.)

Here's what's bothering me already about Collapse Part II: Every time somebody who watches maybe nine innings of baseball all year tell me that this team needs intangible, imaginary concepts like "heart" and "fire" and "guts". I've heard it already. I've used those terms. Sometimes, they apply. This year, they're inconsequential. We don't need "heart" or "fire" or "guts".

We need a bullpen.

Whereas 2007 was one giant choke, 2008 was more like many small chokes encompassed into a big picture that you need to look past the "big picture" to really see. Not that it's any consolation to us, but 2008 was less choke and more suck. If baseball was an eight inning game, the Mets would have had an eight game lead going into the final weekend of the season. Curse you Abner Doubleday for choosing the number 9.

But most of all, curse you Mets bullpen. Curse you Mets bullpen for being the sole ... and I mean the sole reason that the Brewers are going to Philadelphia and not to the golf course where they've been every year since Ben Oglivie roamed County Stadium. And curse you for forcing me to resort to the most simple and the least eloquent to put your accomplishments into a tidy twenty words or less:

You all suck.

When Oliver Perez was slugging through his innings of work on Sunday, I thought of the relief pitchers I would want to keep for '09. The first guy I thought of was Joe Smith. And I'm guessing that Snoop agreed with me. When Perez started slowing down, in came Smith into an impossible situation: bases loaded, one out. He was lucky to escape with only letting one of Ollie's runs to score.

The second guy I thought of? Brian Stokes ... because we need a long man. And he was second in to preserve the tie game that Carlos Beltran created with his two run HR that rocked the house for ... what turned out to be ... the final time. Stokes also didn't disappoint with a scoreless inning.

After that, I really don't trust anybody to come back. But if you had put a gun to my head for a third guy? You guessed it, the third guy in. Scott Schoeneweis.

Um, never mind. I'll stick with two.

But really, if everybody in that bullpen was to depart I wouldn't be heartbroken. Certainly, the only way anybody in that bullpen besides Smith and Stokes attends Opening Day at Corporate Field is either with a ticket or a contract with the Padres. And I'm to the point now ... at this very moment ... if anybody besides Johan Santana were to leave this team, I'd shrug my shoulders in an act of indifference. That includes the Carloses, that includes Jose Reyes, that includes the very handsome David Wright, that includes everyone.

And that's why I'm glad that the current team didn't show their faces at the Shea Goodbye ceremony. Some may disagree, but it took a lot of effort to get the angry crowd (or the portion that didn't leave right after the game like myself) to feel good about anything. And the ceremony actually accomplished that ... seeing this current crop of star-crossed imitators posing as Mets would only send the crowd back to step one of the twelve step program.

We certainly needed one today with the range of emotions the crowd had to go through today. Ticket holders today had just about an hour and a half to go from happy to angry to morose to sullen to nostalgic all at once. After the sixth inning, I'm thinking about changing work schedules so I could get to Game 3 of the Cubs/Mets playoff series on Saturday. By the ninth inning, I'm looking up at the soda stains on the back of the upper deck stands ... trying to take in every nook and cranny that this Stadium had to offer me in the last 32 years of my life, and resigning myself to the fact that "Holy crap, this is it. Once I leave here, that's that."

And that's why I had to stay. Some left, and I can't blame them. Everybody has to deal with these things in their own way. I stayed. I'm glad I did. It started with some reminders as to why we're thought of as second class citizens by the people that provide us with this stupid sport called "baseball", as we were told at 5:23 that the ceremony would start in five minutes. Eight minutes later we were told the ceremony would start in two minutes. This confirmed what we already knew: that this team's only good at counting when they're counting the money they're going to make by selling the dugouts and the championship banners and the NYC parks logos that encase the trees.

Sorry if that comes off as being petulant.

(Some Phillies website referred to my Choke Manifesto from last season as "petulant". I don't necessarily disagree, and there's sure to be more of it in the coming post, and in the coming weeks and months. So if you're expecting anything different, you might be disappointed.)

Then we were reminded that there were very important Mets that had "other things to do" rather than be here for the only closing ceremony that Shea Stadium will ever know. Great, more misery. Not that Nolan Ryan, Hubie Brooks, Mookie Wilson and the like didn't have better things to do. But after what Mets fans had to endure on Sunday, the previous week, and the previous two years, everything felt like a slight.

But then the players who were here came out. And we were excited again for a few minutes. The highlights, of course, were guys like Doc, Darryl, Piazza, and Tom Terrific. But what got me were the guys that helped introduce me to baseball that you don't see anymore. Did anybody really expect to see Dave Kingman come back (or for that matter, show his face in public anywhere?) When was the last time Craig Swan was at Shea Stadium? And my first ever favorite Met, Doug Flynn? They really invited Doug Flynn? Boy, I didn't think this organization had it in 'em to be all-inclusive and recognize players from all eras and not just the good ones. The Mets have been accused of not recognizing their history. Every single criticism in that regard has been well deserved.

But Doug Flynn? Well played, evil geniuses ... well played.

It was all emotional, and it made us forget for a little while that our franchise is once again the joke of the sporting world. But it reminded us that this is it. The old barn is gone forever. No playoff games with the Cubs ... and no next season. It'll be knocked down and made into a parking lot by April.

It's a lot of childhood they're knocking down.

Unfortunately, every time I think about all the good times I've had at Shea, and even the multitude of bad events I've witnessed personally (Pendleton in '87, Gibson in '88, the Yankees clincher in 2000, Scott Speizio in '06), I'll think about the fact that while our bullpen sucks, it was former Met Matt Lindstrom officially closed out Shea Stadium by knocking the Mets out of the playoffs. And that it was the Marlins who were scooping dirt from home plate as a keepsake ... and as a symbol of conquest.

And that the Honeymooners episode that was shown tonight was the one I referenced yesterday: the one with the cornet. Everything was supposed to be louder than everything else. Instead, Shea Stadium exits stage left ... quietly.

In An Alternate Universe

In an alternate universe, if Pedro Martinez was a Yankee, Joe Girardi would be complaining that it's not good baseball etiquette to work so many high counts on his pitcher during spring training ... breaks some sort of unwritten rule or something.

In an alternate universe, the flying bat shard that gave Carlos Delgado four stitches (and the equipment manager some nasty blood stains to practice on) would have been thrown by Roger Clemens, providing the smoking gun that would put him in jail for something once and for all (attempted murder).

In an alternate universe, a Molina brother (or non-brother like Gustavo) could get a green light from first to third without people screaming "Noooooooooooooooo!"

In an alternate universe, Fluff Castro would be durable, and there would be no chance of a Molina surname on the Mets.

In an alternate universe, Brian Stokes would be getting everybody out ... but nobody else in the bullpen could strike out their grandmother. So sometimes, the grass is greener in our own universe (kind of like the green on this blog today ... hey, if the Mets can wear green uniforms and throw off my retinas every March 17th, I figure I can do the same thing.)

***

Hey, have you ever had a completely off the chain spring training trip much like the one I had a couple of weeks ago? Better still, have you had a spring training trip that made mine look like a walk around the block? Perhaps you shared a beer with Bruce Berenyi, or you rode the Tower of Terror with Eric Valent in Disneyworld. Maybe when you were a kid Charlie Puleo showed you how to throw a change-up at Al Lang Field, leading you to take up baseball in high school and get lit up for four years (maybe you should have learned a split fingered fastball from Mike Scott instead, eh?)

You get the picture. If you've got a story like that, then Kathy would like to hear from you. E-mail her at chasingmets@verizon.net with your story, which will be included in her next project if it's wild enough. (One caveat: if your story involves Dave Kingman blowing you off for an autograph, don't bother. Dave Kingman has blown off everybody for an autograph. Kathy's looking for happy stories involving autographs, pictures, and perhaps a game of catch with Gary Rajsich.)

Little Mac Hangs Up His Little Macs

You've probably heard by now of the official retirement of Joe McEwing, known for being one of the positive influences in the career of David Wright, and for being all-around good guy. I knew more than one Met fan had an obsessive man-crush on McEwing.

Others know McEwing as the Randy Johnson killer, but in his career, Little Mac only hit .250 against Big Unit. Do you know (without looking it up like I did), which two pitchers McEwing have the highest batting average against with a 20 at-bat minimum? The answer will shock you.

***

Thanks to all that voted in the "What do Metstradamus and Gene Simmons have in common poll." It's now an appropriate time to answer the question. Here were your choices:

• Both were thrown out of the same Ontario bar for refusing to drink. It only received 20 votes, but with Simmons a noted non-drinker, and me having been in a Toronto bar once in my life, it could have happened. But the closest I came to ever getting thrown out of said bar was when I ordered a Labatt's and pronounced it wrong. (For future reference: if you're ever in a bar with me, buying me a Labatt's will make you a friend for life.) The waitress, who was a Shannen Doherty lookalike gave me hell for it all night (or maybe it was Shannen Doherty ... 1998 seemed to be a down year for her).



• They were both refused an autograph by Dave Kingman. 22 votes. To the best of my knowledge, Dave Kingman hasn't so much as met Gene Simmons let alone refuse an autograph for him. And I never had the displeasure of having been screwed over by Kingman for an autograph. Now Pedro Guerrero ... that's another story for another time.



• Metstradamus once dated the daughter of a woman that Gene Simmons dated twenty years earlier. This received 37 votes. How cool a story would that have been?



• Both have received B-12 shots from Brian McNamee. The 47 of you who voted for this option are just plain silly.



• Both attended the same high school AND junior high school. For the 45 people that voted for this (most of which were friends and family I'm sure), give yourselves a round of applause.

***

You might be missing the Australian Open for the simple fact that live action begins at 11PM on most nights. But it's an appropriate time to bust out a very special "Separated at Birth":


That would be John Maine on the left. His twin is Novak Djokovic, a U.S. Open finalist last year. When he's not busy looking like Maine, Djokovic also does a mean impression of Maria Sharapova.

***

I have a solution to this Johan Santana mess: If Omar can't trade for him, just tie Santana by his ankles and put a Met jersey on him.

***

Trivia answer: Joe McEwing's most successful groups of at-bats came against Tom Glavine (.348 in 23 at-bats) and, oddly enough, Greg Maddux (.318 in 22 at-bats). McEwing will now be a coach for the Charlotte Knights, a role that we all knew would probably come.

With All Apologies

Sorry Scott.

I really had no way of knowing that one of the eight-year-old kids that I kicked off my lawn today would sneak off to Shea Stadium and hit a home run to beat you.

I should have known better. I should have known that if there was a chance you would enter the game tonight, that an eight-year-old child would hit a home run off of you. My bad.

***

But really, outside of the fact that some eight-year-old named Brendan Ryan would hit his first major league home run off Scott Schoeneweis after hitting six total home runs in his four year minor league career, the Mets are still fine. One of the things that drew me to the Mets in the first place (when I was Brendan Ryan's age) was that good or bad (happy or sad), the Mets would always put up some sort of fight in the ninth inning, no matter how many runs they were down by. During the latest bad stretch, the Mets would be dead in the final inning (more like the final four innings). No fire, no effort. Kind of like a game I saw back in 1981 (or so) Dave Kingman taking three straight weak hacks at fastballs while at the dish as the last hope for the Mets (he must have had a plane to catch that day).

With Shawn Green's walk in the ninth, I stopped worrying. Good at bats like Green's against Jason Isringhausen are all you can ask for when you're the last hope. So with Valentin up and Green on first, I was overtaken with a sense of calm. Because everything felt all right.

That is until that eight-year-old wouldn't get off Scott Schoeneweis' lawn. (Sorry again, Scott.)

***


Scott Schoeneweis. Pug. Same being? You decide.

***

Anybody else find it weird that the Yankees sign the first players from China, and then just days later they sign an endorsement deal with a Chinese dairy company?

Personnel moves decided by advertising? Oh that's rich.

***

Has Carlos Gomez gotten dusted yet?

At Least Pete Goes To Barbados

This was not the way that my first game at Shea was supposed to go.

But at least the seats were good.

Actually, that's a severe understatement, the seats were unbelievable! To give you an idea of how good these seats were that were basically field level right behind the plate, the seat number started with an "X" to give you the feel that you were going to a trendy club.

(Actually, those blue seats that were added in front of those original orange seats behind the plate are like going to the club since they were actually chained off. All that was missing were the bouncers that kept you away from the models...just ushers that popped up out of nowhere like they were in a jack in the box to keep people out of those seats in the eighth inning after the cat was already let on to the porch at 9-3. Aah, ushers.)

The seats came courtesy of a commenter we know as "Kingman Fan", who I had the pleasure of meeting through the poetically indestructible Greg Prince, who I had finally had the pleasure of meeting in person (for those wondering if two bloggers getting together would create a more powerful and ground-breaking perspective the likes of which have never been seen before, all we really decided was that maybe Mike Pelfrey needs another trip to New Orleans...and he really didn't need me for that.) Now when I say "Kingman Fan", I really mean it. He had the authentic "KINGMAN 26" authentic jersey to prove it. He'll be happy (or disturbed) to know that he was not the last Met fan I saw today with a Kingman model, as another authentic Kingman authentic popped up at the Roosevelt Ave. train stop while transferring after the game.

(But the winner of today's "jersey you don't see every day" contest goes to the guy with the powder blue Milwaukee Brewer "VUKOVICH 50" jersey. Dude, you win. And did you know he played Clue Haywood in "Major League"?)

Unfortunately, the 1982 references weren't done there, as the Brewers and Mets both played like their 1982 counterparts, which is to say that they played like the American League Champs that they were and we...well we had Dave Kingman. Pelfrey was the Mike Scott of the group, and not the Mike Scott that had learned his "split fingered fastball" (which was a middle fingered fastball in the '86 NLCS), but the Mike Scott that was nicknamed "the human white flag" back in '82. Pelfrey didn't get a whole lot of help from his defense, which somehow turned a fourth inning Prince Fielder pop-up with the bases loaded into a double play, but not before Craig Counsell and Tony Gwynn Jr. tagged up and scored while the Mets were infatuated with getting J.J. Hardy out on the basepaths.

And really, even though the Brewers opened the spigots with eight more runs including Hardy's grand slam against Joe Smith, the game was over after the Mets "Hardy Boy Mystery" in the fourth (first and last time for that reference...promise). Not even David Newhan's pinch home run brought the crowd fully back into the game, as the prevailing thought was that the game should have at least been tied after the botched rundown. But Newhan's home run did send a guy named Pete to Barbados as it was the hometown home run inning, so somebody besides the Brewers fans in the stands went home completely happy.

***

Here are some things I learned for being at Shea for the first time this season. Some things most of you know (since I hope you've all taken at least one trek out to Shea before me in '07), others you may not:

• The bleachers are roped off into sections now. 50, 52, 54, 56, and I think 58 (kind of like jersey sizes, but they're actually a continuation of the upper deck sections). The bleachers is one spot that I have yet to sit in, because it's exclusively either group sales (I don't have that many friends), or Pepsi can night (I'm a Coca-Cola guy). So that's my mission before Citi Field takes its initial bow.
• Speaking of the new park, it has now become officially bizarre to see scaffolding directly behind the outfield. I thought it was weird when it happened in Cincinnati, especially since they tore down the outfield stands of Riverfront Stadium while construction for the Great American Ballpark was happening while the Reds still played in the old cookie cutter. But to see it behind Shea is just totally mind boggling and surreal.
• What is with the spinning Dunkin Donuts coffee cup in the left field bullpen which spins after a home run? It's gotta be the most out of place product placement gimmick ever. But knowing the way our franchise works sometimes, I could totally see that thing following us to the new park, while the Home Run Apple gets left behind or put on eBay because some think it's cheesy. This possibility scares me to death.
• This next thing was also noted here, but I can say it too because I came up with it all on my own, I promise. But do you find it weird that after a fan was banned from Shea Stadium for shining a light into Edgar Renteria's eyes, the Mets have Flashlight day? (I heard that the Mets are going to have reflective mirror night in June, sponsored by Dunkin Donuts of course.)
• During the fateful eighth inning, I ran to the food line behind the plate. I thought there was a really long stoppage of play because there were loud commercials hawking concerts and what not on the television screen. But while I was listening to that thinking I wasn't missing anything, Joe Smith hit Gabe Gross. And I had no idea the game was even going on. Can we turn down the commercials on the concourses while the game is going on, please? Dopey people like me get confused.

***

Sunday is Chris Capuano vs. Oliver Perez, and the Mets had better find a way to bounce back and take two of three from Milwaukee. Because, to paraphrase our ticket benefactor Kingman Fan, they're running out of body parts to shave.

Hit It to Shawn!

There was always that one little league kid you stuck in right field because he couldn't catch. Kids, being stupid, never picked up on that when I was young because everybody wanted to be Dave Kingman and pull the ball to left field. Slowly but surely, little leaguers and softball players alike would start learning how to take the ball the other way, and you see these types of players coming up in the majors now. They didn't watch Tom Emanski tapes...they just finally figured out that if you hit the ball the other way, you're going to find the weak link.

Unfortunately for Shawn Green, he was the little leaguer in the field today, as his drop of a Matt Diaz sac fly in the sixth enabled the Braves to score two extra runs as the Mets lost their first of the season 5-3.

Not that Green was totally useless, he did some good things...really! He got three hits including an RBI against lefty Mike Gonzalez in the seventh. But with Lastings Milledge hovering over him (Joe Buck compared him to "The Shadow" today), and growing groups of angry fans with pitchforks and torches marching towards Green's locker, it will be the dropped ball in the outfield with the bases loaded and one man out which will be focused on and scrutinized. (Not that Green was the only defensive choke artist today...Carlos Delgado dropped an Easy...please note the capital "E"...throw from second on the first Braves batter of the game to set up all sorts of mayhem today, and it seemed like Delgado couldn't catch anything coming his way today. )

With Alex Rodriguez hitting a grand slam with two outs in the ninth inning right as the Mets game was starting up, the first thing I thought was "great, now the focus of New York's ire is going to be Green". Once A-Rod starts hitting, the New York papers are going to move to a new goat. What better candidate than Green, who is unpopular to begin with? Now after the drop, I fear that the target on his back only grows.