Spring Training Report - March 13

Here is Saturday's report from RememberingShea's correspondent down in Port St. Lucie, Kevin Goodman, for the Mets vs. Detroit at Port St. Lucie. Some of my thoughts are at the bottom.

Perez looked good, but the detroit lineup only had 2 regulars. Even so, he mowed down the first 9, and was on his way to 4 perfect innings, when he got flustered over a weak hitter fouling off a few pitches and walked him, and the next batter. He then got out of it.

Takahashi looks good. He doesn't throw hard, but he misses bats and gets guys out. HIs motion seems effortless, so I doubt he would have trouble going deep into games. I think he would do ok as a 5th starter. I feel he would be wasted in long relief as he wouldn't pitch that much.

The homers in the 7th were all wind aided. Matthews shot was nice, but it would not have been out without the wind. Even Castillo got into the action with an RBI single. Note that the Mets had Wright, Bay, Murphy, and Francouer batting in succession. I ma not sure the Mets have even had 4 white guys batting in a row under Omar. And of course to start the 7th, it was homer, hbp, single, homer. Only the Canadian didn't get a hit, but rather got hit. Haha....the point was ruined when he homered 15 minutes later.

Mejia is wild but throws really hard. Nobody really looked comfortable, but they were able to know when he was going to throw fastballs and locked in on them. His off speed stuff, if his fastball is working, looks to be unhittable, kinda like Benitez when he was locked in.

One funny note: Omar was sitting behind home plate, about 5 rows back. In the second inning, a foul ball came right to him, he reached for it with both hands, and dropped it. I think if anyone know it was him, there would have been some boos.

Thanks Kevin. This sounds like the "good Ollie" that we all hope for, except that, as usual, something flusters him and he usually becomes unravelled. Credit the catcher for settling him down. What we can all hope for is that in 5-6 days when he pitches again, he pitches solid, gets flustered, and the catcher can talk him off the ledge again, so that maybe we have a working formula. Personally, I don't need a headcase like that on my team though. For a Mets team that struggled hitting HRs last year, I'll take a wind aided HR or even one misplayed by the LF. In the box score, it's still a HR, and 4 in the inning, and can get a team out of a funk in the regular season.


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