Uh-Oh, Johan Has Irritated Triceps Tendon

I have no idea what that means but here’s what’s going down:

Johan Santana says doctors told him it’s the triceps tendon that is causing stiffness in his pitching elbow. With pitching coach Dan Warthen and manager Jerry Manuel already on the bus for Lakeland, Fla., Santana said he’ll wait until Sunday to map out a plan for pitching. But it’s clear he won’t be in a Grapefruit League game for a while. Santana said he hopes to throw a light bullpen session on Sunday. He then wants to face hitters in a batting-practice-style setting two or three times before entering a game. With potentially two days rest in between each BP, we’re possibly talking two weeks before a game appearance. -Daily News

Now, there’s mixed feelings about this everywhere. While the Mets camp is saying don’t worry the fans are feeling something else. HELLO! IT’S JOHAN SANATANA! If we lose him you can forget about our season. The worst part of all this is that even Johan himself wouldn’t assure the media that he would be o.k and ready to pitch on opening day which is 36 days away. “I’m not going to rush anything,” he said. “I have 162 games. With what we want to accomplish, we have 162 games. We’ve got to go one game at a time and everything starts April 6. Whether it’s going to be me or somebody else, that’s tough to say right now. Right now, on paper, I’m supposed to be the one, but we have to wait five more weeks to know that.”

According to him this isn’t the first time he’s been pushed back from starting a spring training game. Back in Minnesota Johan says it happened a few times but that he was always ready by opening day. About the tightness Johan said, “They told me it was my triceps tendon or something. I always go through a lot of tightness in my whole body; it was just that day I felt like ‘Wow.’ “

Yesterday I was watching the MLB Channel and one of the guys said that it’s probably nothing to go crazy worrying about. It’s normal for players and pitchers alike to get muscle tightness or spasms because during the offseason the muscles tighten back again after being loose all season. It makes sense, but you can’t help but worry either way because we don’t necessarily know exactly what’s going on even though they said he has an irritated tendon.

Let’s just pray this is nothing serious and that our ace is ready for opening day and for the rest of his regular season starts. We can’t afford to lose him.

“Profesor Reyes Is Back” – Yay!

Having made the case before that they should bring back Reyes’ Spanish Academy it made me happy to read that it will in fact return. All I can say is… awesome! I love watching people trying to speak Spanish – it makes me all warm inside and it’s funny.

The hysterical Spanish lessons Jose Reyes taught fans at Shea Stadium, which he halted last season, will be back for Citi Field.

“I tell the fans: Sorry for the vacation last year, but Profesor Reyes is back,” Reyes said.

Reyes made the announcement after his six-RBI performance. – Daily News

Mets In Top 100 Prospects

Baseball America put up their list today of Top 100 Prospects.

Four Mets were included and here’s how they ranked:

#30 – OF, Fernando Martinez – ETA: 2010

#47 – SS, Wilmer Flores – ETA: 2012

#77 – LHP, Jonathon Niese – ETA: 2009

#94 – RHP, Brad Holt – ETA: 2010

Rounding up the top 3 spots were Orioles Catcher Matt Weiters, Rays LHP David Price, and Cards OF Colby Rasmus.

Santana Taking Perez Under His Wings

Joel Sherman of the NY Post has a very interesting piece in which he explains how Oliver Perez has become ace Johan Santana’s “special project”.

Mets pitching coach Dan Warthen told me that over the final two months of last season into this spring training camp that Santana has taken on  Oliver Perez Oliver Perez as a “special project.” According to Warthen, Santana is a tremendous asset in the continuing efforts to get Perez to a) concentrate consistently and b) deliver each pitch with conviction, purpose and accuracy.

If you were able to transplant Santana’s seriousness/pitching intellect into Perez you would have a version of Steve Carlton Lite. “Maybe for the first time in Ollie’s life he’s ready to listen and Johan is there to help,” Warthen said. The Met pitching coach said that Santana’s stature and ability to speak to Perez in Spanish help deliver messages that Warthen might have difficulty getting Perez to fully comprehend. “We are mainly talking pitching theory and philosophy, and I think it means something coming from Johan Santana,” Warthen said.

Warthen is 100% correct. Could you imagen the pitcher Oliver will become if he takes all this advice and applies it to himself? He already has the stuff – and it’s great, but now it’s time for him to step it up and finally try his hardest to learn to concentrate and say in control. If Oliver Perez manages to get those two problems settled with the help of fellow lefty Johan Santana and piching coach Dan Warthen… watch out!

Mets Picture Day…Pictures

Photos from Getty Images

Murphy Might Have LF All To Himself

Skipper Jerry Manuel told the media today that there’s a strong, almost definite possibility he might give Murphy a full-time job at Left Field instead of platooning him with Tatis. Tatis – last years ultimate comeback story – can become that much needed righthanded bat off the bench and can fill-in for Wright and Church for when they need their rest.

“I don’t want him to get into a strictly platoon situation,” Manuel said of Murphy, who produced four hits in 10 at-bats off lefties last year. “I think he’s a little better player than that. Also, with Church being left-handed, I kind of see Murphy being a better hitter right now.”

I think this is great news. It’s statements like these that can give a rookie like Murphy that extra confidence boost that can certainly help him throughout the season. Murphy showed to be a promising player that eats, sleeps, and dreams hitting. That’s his thing – and he’s damn good at it. Last year was his first year in the bigs and he hit an impressive .400 against lefties and .306 against righties with an overall .313 BA and .473 SLG.

Giving him a full time job would be the best thing to do for him at this point – giving him a chance to showcase and practice his skills not only offensively but defensively.

If Murphy proves this year that he was the real deal, which it seems like he is, he will for sure become another key in our predominantly young, homegrown core alongside Reyes and Wright.

Patches Patches & More Patches

May I present to you the “patched”  caps our Metsies will be wearing all season:

This patch you see above will kinda be like the unofficial – yet official… patch. The idea is that it’s going to be on everything from merchandising to all over CitiField. The ugly patch will shall not be named will basically just be on the jersey and a few things online.

THANK GOD!

I know a lot of people got mad that the patch was getting all this attention but I must say – as a fan – I don’t want to see my team made fun of by the media anymore than they already are. That CitiField patch was almost like a sick joke and I’m glad to know it won’t be all over the place and on every Met merchandise.

The only problem I have with it is that now the Mets will have this patch on their caps all season and the ugly one on their sleeves all season. That’s a lot of patchwork for one man… this isn’t nascar. It’s not advertisement but it’ll look funny. I was watching a few ST clips on TV yesterday and the guys’ hats looked weird from afar. I guess I’m just nitpicking at stuff now but oh well, in the end it truly isn’t about the logos or the patches, it’s about the Mets and hoping they can push these past two seasons away and finally win a championship again.

LET’S GO METS!

Video Of Shea Coming Down

Jose Reyes Is A Good Sport

David Lennon of Newsday has a piece in which he quotes Reyes responding to things such as the Phillies’ Met obsession and batting 3rd.

When it came to the Cole Hamels and his”choke artists” comment, Jose had this to say: “I don’t know why they always focus on us. They are the ones to win the world series. We don’t say nothing about them. We just say congratulations to the phillies. They always say something about us and we don’t even focus on them. We focus on them when we play against them.

“We don’t worry about the Phillies – we focus about the New York Mets,” Reyes said. “They have to be happy because they win the World Series. Why do they focus on us? What did we do to them? If they don’t like us, that’s OK.”

He was even surprised when he learned of the picture the guys in the Phillie clubhouse put up of him after Victorino seemed to celebrate his home run off the Dodgers saying: “I heard that,” Reyes said.”I don’t know why they said that because I’m not the only when I hit a home run that I ‘pimp’ it. A lot of people do that. A lot of people from Philadelphia too. They stand there for a couple seconds and nobody say nothing. I don’t know why the Phillies focus so much on the New York Mets. We just worry about us.”

And when it came to Jerry Manuel’s plan comments on maybe shifting the lineup a bit and letting Castillo lead off while bumping Reyes down to 3rd, Jose was great about it and said this: “I’m here to do whatever they want me to do,” Reyes said. “People call me and say I’m not going to lead off anymore but I’m here to help this team win. no matter where they put me – third, second, fourth, fifth, whatever. I’m here to play baseball and help this team win a championship.”

That last quote Jose made just made me a bigger fan of his. Maybe I’m looking a bit too into it but it does seem like Jose has a great deal of respect for Jerry and is being very mature on the whole situation – I wasn’t expecting him to say much more than something along the lines of “wherever Jerry decides to put me I’ll just do what I have to do”.

Goodbye Shea…

UPDATE:

Here it is guys – Shea is no more.

UPDATE:
Shea Stadium is officially gone. Seeing a picture of the empty space is gonna be heart breaking.

Now lets shed some light on the situation. On a more positive note, Jeffy’s saying the bases, the pitchers mound, and home plate will all be marked in the soon-to-be parking lot space for CitiField.

From MetsBlog.com –Update, 11:34 am:

According to William Valderrama, the last piece of Shea Stadium came down at 11:26 am EST.

This is all that’s left, and in an hour or so it will be gone. But that beautiful structure behind old Shea will be there to greet us for seasons to come and hopefully ease our aching souls- that of course come with the job of being a Met fan – by giving us a championship in its inaugural season.
I’ll miss you Shea.. but it’s time to move on.
<3