The Mets Police

Harvey said that physically, it was a “huge step in the right direction” regarding his delivery, as he didn’t have to think about that and could instead focus on attacking the strike zone and executing pitches. He said using his sinker on the hands to right-handed hitters opened up his slider away and led to some strikeouts, a plan they’d been working on all week.

He said it was “definitely better than the first start,” one in which the Toronto Blue Jays waited on his fastball and hit him around a bit as Harvey’s secondary pitches didn’t get them off the barrel or really fool anyone. (via Baltimore Sun)

 

That’s all well and good, but it appears to me that manager Brandon Hyde is clueless or a spinmeister.  Nobody has paid more attention to post-Mets Matt Harvey than I have.  I probably have seen more of his innings than his family or Boras, and definitely more than Hyde.

This start, manager Brandon Hyde said, was “a really good outing.” He thought Harvey “threw the ball great.”

On the Orioles’ radio broadcast, the only transmission of the game to those not present, analyst Brian Roberts noted that Harvey’s sinker was effective early but that he was struggling to get Pirates hitters to chase his secondary pitches. The broadcast booth, using the typically accurate scoreboard velocity readings for Harvey, had him consistently in the 92-94 mph range with his fastballs.

Hyde, though, said both Monday and Tuesday that Harvey was 94-95 mph with “a lot of 95s” and was up to 96 mph. There’s a difference between operating in those velocity bands, but without the ability to see it or verify otherwise, it’s a challenge to know for sure. (via the Baltimore Sun)

Look, I hope Matt is their Opening Day starter because these posts do really well.  But the Orioles have to realize his starts aren’t going to be groovy 4 innings of 2 run ball.  They are going to look like this in Camden Yards.

It’s another mostly rerun post. I forgot to knock one of these out too. Man, I am as off my game as Pete Alonso will be in June when you guys are booing him.

The rules? Be Irish, have Irish Ancestry….or be “close enough” that we can include you (you’ll see what I mean soon enough).  No birth certificates will be checked.

This year…some major changes!

And it is a Happy St. Patrick’s Day from William A. Shea Stadium (and a big thanks to Bill Shea for giving us the gift of baseball) – lets welcome Bob Murphy to the microphone (Tim McCarver is up in the TV booth) to introduce the Irish Mets – a list of Mets who have at-least Irish-sounding names, or have some Irish in their heritage.

Introducing the pitchers:

Our starters: Nolan Ryan, Tim Leary, Terry Leach, Jim McAndrew, and David Cone. (Half-Irish Matt Harvey has a photo shoot and is unable to join us today.).  Sam McWilliams joins the AAA All Irish Team in case we need to bring someone up mid-season.

The bullpen:  Sean Patrick Gilmartin,  Colin McHugh, Tim Burke, Greg McMichael, Chuck McElroy, Tug McGraw, P.J. Conlon & Roger McDowell. Sam McWilliams joins the AAA All Irish Team in case we need to bring someone up mid-season, and Sean Reid-Foley has a shot at making the squad.

Behind the plate: We have a new starter James McCann!  Mike Fitzgerald, Todd Hundley, Duffy Dyer and of course Charlie O’Brien

Third base: Daniel Murphy gets moved over to cover.  Murph is a good guy always willing to switch positions to help the team.

Shortstop: Roy McMillan

Second base: Jeff McNeil takes over for past incumbent Doug Flynn

First base: he is part-Irish on his mother’s side, The Captain, Keith Hernandez

In left: Kevin McReynolds

In Center: Brian McRae

And the Right Fielder: Dave Gallagher

We have room for five players in the bench: Super-sub Joe McEwing, Justin Turner (with that hair I am assuming he is Irish), Jeff McKnight, Doug Flynn, WBC Team Israel’s star Tyler Patrick Kelly (son of Patrick Kelly),  and this year Tom O’Malley is depth at  AAA All Irish Team.

Pete Flynn will take care of the grounds, and to manage this not-so-impressive lineup, I have no idea what his ethnicity is but both Terry and Collins are names found in Irish households, so please welcome number 10 – Terry “Colactus” Collins, along with his bench coach Regis Philbin.

There were several others who didn’t have enough games to make the cut (O’Malley has the fewest total at 91, Erik O’Flaherty from 2015).

Every year I miss somebody, let me know who.

LGM

I totally forgot to bang out this post this year, so here’s a mostly rerun!

We begin with the Green Murph.

The one above is not mine, but actually Nick’s.  Nick is not messing around. He also has the Kid 8 patch on his 28 who emailed me a few jersey pics.

Nick really brought his A game. Here is a 1985 version via Mitchell & Ness. If you don’t know who 18 was on the 1985 Mets then you are in the middle of the wrong post for your level of nerdiness.

This next one Nick says is late 1980’s, but MBTN shows Mark Carreon wearing 45 in 1990 – regardless, Lukas is gonna lose his mind when he sees the font.

The next one Nick says is early 1990’s. Hubie Brooks? D.J. Dozier?

Next, Nick shares his 2006 Joe Smith.

And finally Nick has this 2008 style. I think I boycotted these or wasn’t in jersey-mania mode yet. You know who #5 is right?

This next one wasn’t an on-field one, but it’s back from when the Mets did Player’s Choice jerseys (those were cool fun) and this is one of my favorite possessions which I got for $30 in the team shop the year Murph was out and you Ike Hypers thought we’d never see Murph again.

You can see the cool front here…

 

Here are some Mets caps from over the years.    I find the third one “racist” (for this post lets just use the word to mean perpetuating a stereotype, and we can parse language some other day).

People get mad at me for calling out this cap.  (It’s cool to be racist as long as its Mr. Met being racist or something.)   I would like to point out that the Mets have not broken this out in a few years.  Bravo Inclusive Mets.

The first one cap is boring and the middle one an abomination.

 

Again, good job by the Mets moving away from that ill-advised stunt cap.

This was the boring 2016 cap.  Looks like this is a league wide template and everyone gets white on green. Zzzz. At least it doesn’t have a stereotype.

 

For 2017, this cap

And for 2018 which is not as nice as last year’s.

 

Here’s my not-inexpensive Green Reds Seaver.  I don’t think I have worn it, maybe once, because I am afraid to get it dirty.

 

 

Here’s a screen grab I took in 2015.  There is that yucky racist Mr. O’Met.  Again, for those of you who get mad why don’t you imagine what that cap would look like on say Cinco De Mayo or Chinese New Year and tell me it’s still cool.

Fortunately this cap seems to have disappeared as people become more aware of the issues.  In general, I didn’t find too many offensive stereotype driven products this year.  Good job everyone!

 

This is my old Original Irish Night cap I have from way back at Shea whenever they did Original Irish Night.

And here’s probably the best of the Irish caps.  The Irish hybrid.  And yeah that’s Regis Philbin!

And now the non-rerun part.

This is the 2019 cap.

And the 2020 and 2021 cap.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day, and remember don’t embarrass my Irish ancestors by acting like a buffoon.

I think I am ready to declare Francisco Lindor my favorite Mets player because he unserstands how broken the sport is!

This is from a wonderful profile in Sports Illustrated that you should read.  You can’t help but love the guy.

“I do worry,” he says. “I worry that we won’t have the freedom to play the game the way we want to play the game. . . . I was worried that the game was going to go to so much analytics that it was going to take over it. Well, it took over. You saw it in the World Series.

“Now it’s like I have to look in the dugout to know where to play. They take starting pitchers out in the third inning. They do matchups according to computers. The front office is managing. You see GMs making more money than managers. That should tell you who is running the team. I just want the freedom to play the game.”

….

UPDATED FAVORITE METS

1.  Lindor

2.  Dom

3. Thor (my #1 follower)

4. JDG

5. Yamamoto for converting to LGMism.

25.  Vulgar Pete

26.  The Big Zero

It was a rematch of the 1979 World Series, and Matt Harvey looks super-focused in this picture from today’s fame.

And let’s watch the second pitch of the game….OH NO!

#Pirates 1 @ #Orioles 0 [T1-1o]:

Ke’Bryan Hayes homers (1): fly ball to LF(solo)

Pitch: (RHP Matt Harvey, 2)

— Home Run Tracker (@DingerTracker) March 15, 2021

Well, it’s early I am sure he will settle in.

The #Pirates get one run back in the top of the third as @KeBryanHayes drives in @A_Fraz12 with an RBI single. In the top of the 3rd it’s #Pirates 2, #Orioles 2 #BuccosCove

— Buccos Cove (@Buccos_Cove) March 15, 2021

 

O’s and Pirates tied 2-2 to B4. Matt Harvey – 4 innings, 5 hits, 2 runs, 0 walks, 4 strikeouts, 1 homer.

— Steve Melewski (@masnSteve) March 15, 2021

Not awful.  It’s not quite Next Seaver, but it is 5th starter on a bad team that’s not even trying this season.  Maybe he can stick around!  Of course he’s gonna die up 500 home runs pitching in Camden Yards, but I am in favor of it and these posts are quite popular.

Good news, with the Mets off today, Steve Gelbs was able to interview Matt after the game!

“Matt, how did it feel to start gibing up home runs on teh second pitch of the game.”

“Obviously, it’s not the kind of start I would like and I need to make better pitches.  I felt like I had good movement today and things are starting to come together.”

And that’s it from wherever this game was played.  There was almost no media coverage, so I am fortunate I was there with my camera to take all these photos!