Mets Injury Update

After an off day on Monday, the New York Mets will gets a couple of players back from injury before they open a series with the Washington Nationals. First, Jose Reyes looks to come back from a strained hamstring that he suffered earlier in the week, which has put him out for the past series with the Brewers. Also, from reports and interviews with Willie Randolph, it sounds that the Mets will get some bullpen help from Duaner Sanchez on Tuesday. The Mets setup man who hasn't pitched in a MLB game since 2006 will be back with the team tonight and the team will send rookie Carlos Muniz to Triple A.

On the bad side of the injury bug, according to Bart Hubbach of the New York Post, Pedro Martinez is expected to be out until the middle of May, possibly into June. The Mets will continue to use Nelson Figueroa as their starter, but if he falters at any point the Mets wont be afraid to go to newly signed Claudio Vargas.

Best Outing Of Spring For Perez

The Mets got back to their winning ways toady by defeating the Orioles 6-2 in Port St.Lucie. Oliver Perez started for the Mets and was opposed by the new #1 for Baltimore, Jeremy Guthrie. New York had the majority of their starters in the game, but still were without second basemen Luis Castillo.

• Perez threw 4 innings giving up 1 run on 3 hits while striking out one
• Jose Reyes collected his first triple and his first stole base of this spring
• Angel Pagan came up huge again with a pinch hit 2-run homer in the 7th inning. Pagan leads the league in hits with 18 this spring
• Delgado went 0-3 today making him 0-5 with 5 k's since his hip injury
• Wagner and Heilman both threw scoreless innings following Perez in the 5th & 6th inning

The Mets and Mike Pelfrey will travel to Jupiter on Thursday to take on the Cardinals and Braden Looper

It's nice to see the Mets get back on the winning track after a few games with Boston. Two great signs from this game for me. One, Angel Pagan continues to show the coaches he deserves to start in left field on opening day. I watched this kid play 3 games in person and i like him. He is very athletic and runs very well to add to the team speed. I still wouldn't mind another insurance guy like Thames (he can still backup Delgado) but only if its for a guy like Schoenweis. The 2nd thing is that the main bullpen arms are doing well this spring. It's nice to those guys putting last years collapse behind them. The alarming thing to me is the two Carlos's. Not so much Beltran because he is making some contact, but Delgado is not doing much at the plate. He is 0-5 with 5 strikeouts since coming back from the hip injury, and with him coming off a year like last year it's starting to scare me that he is breaking down. I can only pray for two more weeks with no more injuries.

Down In Port St.Lucie....

Hey everyone, I am currently down here in PSL enjoying my share of Mets Spring Training games. I'm not going to talk about what happened during the games so much, but talk about the players and the interactions during the games. I'll post links at the bottom of the post of complete game stats from Mets.com.

First game was on Friday in Winter Haven where the Mets took on the Indians. I arrived before the Mets buses so I took in some of the Cleveland players on the practice fields. C.C. Sabathia is a large man, in height and weight. Also Josh Barfield and a few other players stopped and signed autographs for the fans. When the Mets arrived, two buses of players unloaded with a lot of unfamiliar faces. The only players that were recognizable to most fans were Oliver Perez, Angel Pagan, Pedro Feliciano and Anderson Hernandez. I recognized a few of the other young players myself, but there were a ton of faces and names I never heard of. The young players were very friendly and willing to sign for me; also the coach's were nice enough to stop too. I ended up with 12 signature's that day including "Hojo", Jerry Manuel, Sandy Alomar Jr and Sr, Anderson Hernandez, Matt Wise, and Pedro Feliciano. All in all it was a good day with a Mets victory.

After a 3 hour road trip to PSL I arrived in town at 10am on Saturday just in time to watch the Mets finish up their stretching and throwing on the back practice fields. The whole team looked to be out there, with a few bodies missing like Pedro and Beltran; their parking spots were empty all day too. The team joked around with each other for some time while stretching. Scott Schoeneweis was the only player to sign before security escorted everyone back to the gates. During batting practice I was able to snag some autographs from Joe Smith, Matt Wise, Hojo, and Guy Contti. On the back fields Jose Valentin was showing he was healthily by belting a few home runs over the right field fence through a strong wind. He is scheduled to play in Sunday’s game. Also, the Mets got Ryan Church, Damon Easley and Brian Schneider back on the field during Saturday’s game. Church had two hits, Easely and Schneider both had a home run. Reyes and Wright had left the players parking lot before the game ended with a Mets loss.

I’ll be posting pictures of my trip after I get back during next week.

Mets Vs Marlins
Mets at Indians