A third-round pick in 2009 out of Division II Florida Southern, shortstop Robbie Shields came back from Tommy John surgery to hit .290/.331/.457 with five homers and 26 RBI in 39 games for the Sand Gnats last season. The 23-year-old, who has lost a year of development, returned to Savannah this season and after a [...]
I realize that coming off a loss of a winnable game in the rubber match against the Yankees is not the best time to ask this question but how do you feel about the 2011 Mets? Personally, I like this team. And I'll like it even more when four players came off the DL and [...]
Generally a pitcher is never as good as he looks on his best days nor as poor as he looks in his worst outings. That being said, Pedro Beato looked outstanding Saturday night. He faced five batters in 1.2 IP and did not allow a ball out of the infield, as he got four groundball [...]
Don’t look now, but the Mets are finally back at .500. They have raced out in May with a 11-6 record, and despite some major injuries they are making it fun to be a Mets fan again. To get back to .500 it took some grit, hard work, solid production from reserves (the legend of [...]
One of my favorite bad movies is Road House where Patrick Swayze plays a bouncer brought in to clean up a particularly rough bar. There’s one scene where he’s on the phone with his pal, who asks him how things are going. Pal: You having trouble? Swayze: Oh, you know – nothing I’m not used [...]
The Mets have had their expected full lineup for a total of exactly one game. That was back on April 21 in which the Mets won 9-1 over the Houston Astros, a game which sparked a six-game winning streak. Since that time, the Mets have had to work around injuries to Angel Pagan and Ike [...]
1986 TOPPS BRUCE BERENYI Every extraordinary event has its Bruce Berenyi. They are the faceless actors who make a barely measurable contribution to a great achievement. Perhaps they performed a quick spot weld on the plaque that was attached to the ladder of the Apollo 11 lunar excursion module. Or maybe they knocked a dowel [...]
Monday I made a big deal about Tim Byrdak and the difference in his effectiveness versus RHB and LHB. But the truth is that Byrdak does not have the biggest L/R platoon split among the team’s relievers. That distinction belongs to Taylor Buchholz, who has been murder against RHB and nearly as bad against LHB [...]
The only thing hotter than Justin Turner’s bat right now is his red hair. In his first 44 at-bats this season, he’s sporting a .318 average with 10 RBI, 3 doubles, 1 home run and an .816 OPS. Average that out for the course of the full season – say 440 at-bats – and Turner’s [...]
Editor's Note: I wrote this story and then saw the news he had been sent down. As a general rule, people mistrust new things and nowhere is this more evident than in baseball statistics. I am among a generation of people who grew up getting my baseball numbers primarily from the newspaper, baseball cards and [...]
The New York Mets player development department made its first significant move last week. New York promoted righthander Jeurys Familia from Class A St. Lucie to Class AA Binghamton. Familia, just 21, dominated in the Florida State League, going 1-1 with a 1.49 ERA. He yielded just 21 hits and eight walks with 36 strikeouts [...]
At best I was ambivalent about the hiring of Terry Collins as manager. But he’s done a nice job of keeping the team together after a 5-13 start which could have buried others. He’s handled the loss of three starters to the disabled list, another to the waiver wire and a starting rotation which has [...]