Billy Wagner on the reception he received in Philly:

When I ran in, I thought (Scott) Schoeneweis was with me.

Don’t ever change Billy.

Remember Ramon Castro? Well you won’t, cause he’ll be out awhile longer. Rumor is, he reinjured himself performing a stunt for the upcoming Shrek 4. Was shut down after running earlier today.

Moises Alou? Still not even playing in the minor leagues. So..awhile. He did go 1 for 4 in a extended rehab game. Possible to be in A level ball soon.

Is Jose Valentin even still with the organization? Did he retire? Is he hurt? I kind of forgot about him.

Pedro Martinez is hard at work in the Dominican. He says he’ll be back in May. Omar says June. So at the very least, his boasting and quote giving ability is back at All Star level.

And as always, finally El Duque. Still wearing a boot.  So enjoy Nelson for awhile longer, its a good story and as long as it remains so, the quiet El Duque retirement press release will be painless a month or two from now.

After getting a little bit of sleep following last nights marathon, the Mets are in Philly this weekend where they will…well, play the Phillies. Maybe grab a cheesesteak, meet Ben Franklin…there’s really not much to do there aside from play the Phillies.

Johan Santana will pitch for New York. Johan is 1-2, 3.05 ERA. He’s done better work on the road (hint: stop booing him at home), going seven full innings in both road outings. In his sole game against the Phils, he pitched 4 and 2/3 innings giving up one run on two hits. He faces Cole Hamels, who’s kind of doing good right now. Just a heads up there. He won his last two starts, giving up just one run over 14 innings. His sole loss was in a 1-0 game, in which he surrendered the sole run, but lasted a full eight. Cole has a 2.77 ERA in four starts against the Mets, striking out 26 Met batters while giving up 5 Met homeruns.

Lineup:

• SS Reyes
• RF Church
• 3B Wright
• CF Beltran
• 1B Delgado
• LF Pagan
• C Schneider
• 2B Castillo
• P Johan Santana

Beltran (neck) and Scnheider both return to the lineup tonight, which will feature all the regulars despite last nights never ending story. Jose hits .331 at CBP and 317 against the Phils in general, so lets see if the return of happy Jose plus the return to CBP equals success. He’s hitting .296 going into the game, mostly do to having gone 8-15 against the Nats. David Wright however…has just one hit in 11 at bats against Cole Hamels, with a meager .242 average against the Phillies. On the plus side, 14 of his 101 career homeruns were against Philly, which considering he has less than 60 hits against them, is pretty good.

Game time is 7:05. Listen to it on WFAN. Watch it on the CW. Picture it in your mind. Talk about talk about it talk about it talk about moving…to the hot foot bleachers where as always you can join other Met fans to discuss the game, Mets baseball, and if its ok to hug Manny Acta.

David Lennon of Newsday reports that the Mets manager Willie Randolph is not entirely comfortable with the way many in the organization get a little too friendly with Nats mananger Manny Acta. Acta previously was a coach with the Mets. From the boss himself:

“How does that happen? How does that become normal?”

Wright too agrees with Willie’s sentiment.

I’ll be the first one to be friendly with other players before we come to the park or after leaving the park. But as far as that time when I have my uniform on and they have their uniform on, I want to go out there and kick their butt.

As the article points out, while fraternizing with members of other teams while in uniform is prohibited, it is a largely unenforced rule (much like the ones about steroids, the balk). Similar reports surfaced yesterday, as reported by Mets Blog’s Matt Cerrone.

While I can understand Willie’s feelings here, especially after yesterdays dragging 45 inning game in which the team seemed to take its time to victory, the other side of the coin is that you can’t expect these guys to end their friendships everytime the ownership and GM let a player go or trade someone away.

Astro Miggy Tejada has told ESPN that he is in fact, 33, as opposed to the 31 he had led us to believe he was. Tejada was approached by ESPN after they had acquired a birth certificate, the date indicated his claimed age might not be 100% accurate.

I’m at a loss here. Although contractually obligated, an El Duque age joke just seems a little too easy right now. Regardless, doesn’t ESPN have better uses for its crack research teams? Like steroids? NBA refs with mob ties? Hot lady golfers?

The series is won, but can we sweep? Will the feel good story of Nelson Figueroa have yet another happy chapter, or will he be killed by the dark wizard?

Figueroa, after his first start in over 3 years, is 1-0 with a 4.5 ERA. His first four innings were hittless, he went six overall. John Lannan takes the mound for DC. He’s 0-2, 6.75 in just two starts. He’s faced the Mets just once before, giving up five runs in five and two third innings. A similar start would be an improvement for him, he gave up six runs in four against Atlanta in his last outing.

The lineup you say?

• SS Reyes
• RF Church
• 3B Wright
• 1B Delgado
• LF Pagan
• CF Clark
• 2B Castillo
• C Cassanova
• P Nelson

Beltran (sore) and Schneider (no reason) both have the day off. Cassanova is a career .302 against the Nats, this will be just his second start as a Met. Reyes went 2 for 3 with a double in his only game against Lannan. Brady Clark gets his first start, he’s seen just 3 at bats as a Met.

Game time is 7:10, as always you can enjoy it on WFAN or SNY. The choice is yours. For the best Mets themed in game chat in the Nation (plus wherever CVER is), head on by the Hot Foot Bleachers where we’ll be discussing the game, Mets baseball, and the upcoming firing of New York Sports Icon, Isiah Thomas.

The Mets will honor the NY Jets as part of their ongoing salute to Shea getting exploded at years end.  The NY Jets, prior to being forced to play at Giants stadium, were once forced to play at Shea Stadium. For 20 years.  The salute will occur on April 28th (Pirates @ Mets), and all fans wearing Jets jerseys will get a sympathy hug from Giants fans.

No word on if Chad Pennington will suffer a season ending shoulder injury to celebrate the occasion.

Now I understand that NYC is the media capital of the world.  If you count the Post, there are approximately 300 daily papers in the city, of which only the New York Times could be actually considered a legitimate news source. Being such, the folks who keep track of whats going on in the City tend to be ready to jump on any sort of good story, even if seems made up. Sports are not immune. And the teams of NY have done their best to keep the back covers filled with zaniness. They have hit their own teammates with golf clubs, tossed bleach at people, refused to shave sideburns, and agreed to shave their goatees. They have been in Texas style bar fights, on field broo ha has, and old school pitcher vs pitching coach rivalry brawls. They’ve set their equipment on fire, gotten drunk, high, played that way, gone to jail, gotten out and gone back in. And in all of this, none of it quite tops making up a curse and having a part of your stadium dug up. Not even rumors of decapitated kittens (false ones) or anything involving Mackey Sasser.

Now I’m not saying that someone across the city is lying. I’m just saying that…well ok, I guess I probably am saying that. My bad. It just seems all so….fake. Manufactured. Made up. Fabricated. Cheesie day time tv. A Boston fan hired to work on Yankee stadium, no one noticed that? No one noticed him burying a jersey? He went to all that trouble then told people? Then he told them exactly where it was buried?

Plus it was a Ortiz jersey. Those are expensive. All jerseys are expensive. It will cost you $100 to get a John Maine jersey, who is slightly less famous than Ortiz. Who’s just tossing one of those away, just to spite the Yankees? Maybe if I got a used Bobby Bo Jersey off ebay for $5 (including shipping), I’d be willing to toss it away to spite the Phils, but even that seems like a lot of effort.

I think when all is said and done, we’ll eventually find out that there was some bad concrete in that section of the stadium, or someone read the blue prints wrong and corrections had to be made. Rather than admit the mistake, some PR guy made up a story about a construction worker and a curse. I can’t say I blame him, I’ve had several dates that end that way.

According to the AP, Paul Lo Duca is prepared to return to Shea as the enemy.

“I’ve got a great last name, because if they’re booing me, I can say they’re saying, ‘Duc.”

Lo Duca also tells them that despite some bitter feelings for the Mets management and the way his time ended in NY, he holds no ill will to the members Shea Nation.

They stuck by me. I owe a lot to them.

Lo Duca was signed as a free agent by the Nats in the offseason, where he joined traded outfielder Lastings Milledge. This will be their first return to Shea. Lo Duca is hitting .200 so far this season and suffered a mild injury during the offseason.  Lastings meanwhile, is doing better. He’s hitting .308 with 4 doubles and a homerun. He has not as of yet highfived anyone at RFK II Stadium.

It should be interesting either way. At the very least I’m sure we’re to get some sort of classic Paul Lo Duca saying something he probably shouldn’t have post game interview.   

The Mets offense was hitting, but their pitching fell short and the double play ball killed them, as the Brewers won in the series finale, 9 to 7.  Ollie struggled giving up six of the Brew Crew runs despite only going 4 and a third. He tossed a wild pitch, though Schneider did not help by having three balls pop out of his glove. He added a hit batsmen and a homerun, both in the first inning, bringing a quick close to his streak of scoreless innings pitched.  The rest of the Mets arms weren’t much better, with two Sosa wild pitches and another hit batsman (Kendell) by Heilman. Kaplar (3 for 4, HR, 2 doubles) and Cory Hart (4 for 5) both owned the Mets staff.

The Mets bats connected for 14 hits, but 5 double plays killed their attempts to rally, including one to take out a run at home and a bad luck line drive to Prince Fielder.  On a plus side, Wright his his 100th career homerun.  Schneider went 3 for 5 with 3 RBIs.  The Mets had 3 doubles, including ones from Castillo and Pagan, both who went 2 for 4 with a walk.

While 5 double plays and a 10 left on base hurt, its hard to blame this on the Mets offense. Fourteen hits and 7 runs should normally get the job done.  Ollie’s struggles are more to blame for this loss than anything else, even rally killing double plays (a Met record, true).  And don’t blame Willie for waiting so long to pull Ollie. Both starters were struggling, and we can only tax the bullpen so much in this sort of game. 

Tom Glavine left today’s Brave game without having recorded an out.  He appears to have suffered a hamstring injury. He faced four Nat’s batters, giving up 3 hits and a walk before the injury sidelined him. It joins an occasion in 89 and The Game That Shalt Not Be Mentioned as one of his shortest outings of his career.Glavine entered todays game with a 0.79 ERA and a 0-0 record over two starts. He’s given up just one earned run and ten hits.

Game three on a Sunday afternoon as the Brewers and Mets square off. The Mets are down with OP (yeah you know me). Ollie has pitched the last 11 and 2/3rds of ball without giving up a run, and the Shea faithful hope he can add to that number. In his two starts, Ollie has one win and 10k, but has given up 8 hits. The only number that matters though, is that 0 runs. If he can continue that streak and go long, it will be a pleasant Sunday in Flushing. He faces Jeff Suppan, a career 3-2 against the Mets with a 2.81 ERA. He was 4.38 against the Mets last year, and he’s given up 7 Met homeruns in just eight games.

lineups:

• LF Pagan
• 2B Castillo
• 3B Wright
• CF Beltran
• 1B Delgado
• RF Church
• SS Easley
• C Schneider
• P Perez

Angel Pagan is hitting .371 so far this season, and has hit in his last five games. Wright is 4 for 9 against Suppan, with 3 walks. Both Carloses have struggled against the Brewers, going 221 and 223 respectively. Luis Castillo is making his second start after sitting a few days with knee problems.  He went hitless yesterday, as well as his three previous games. All four of his hits to date came against the Marlins.

Gametime is 1:10, listen on WFAN or watch on the CW. As always, feel free to visit the Hot Foot Bleachers, to discuss the game, Mets baseball, or why you’re ashamed of yourself for booing your own team and how you’ll make up for it by supporting them. Jerk.

While as NYer, it is your right to boo pretty much anything, there are probably a few things you shouldn’t boo. The Ace of your baseball team. Your top run producer. The guy on the subway with a gun. Scarlett Johanson. And of course, Eddie Money.

Many of our friends cross the Internet agree, except maybe about the last one.

• Cross the city in Brooklyn, BMF reminds us real Met Fans don’t boo Santana. And that Fox sucks.

• SNK doesn’t quite understand the booing of Eric Gange. Or Santana. Castillo. And asks us to try and get over last season rather than blame the new guys.

• On the other side, and because he needs readers, IMFM says the boos were at least partly deserved:

The boos didn’t issue forth from history, they were about your inability to keep the ball in the park and the crappy defense you and your teammates put on display today.

Special bonus for mentioning the Magna Carta in a post about the Mets.

• To help clear the IMFM out your system, Kay from Metsmerized reminds you booing the Mets is like booing your family. Oddly enough, I boo my family (sorry Grandma).

Dontrelle Willis, formerly of the Marlins, has been placed on the DL after hyperextending his knee. The subject of off season rumors involving the Mets every year going back to when he was good, Willis ended up in Detroit.

It just gets worse and worse for Detroit, as human triples machine Curtis Granderson still sits out hurt as well. One has to wonder how much D-Trains lack of being in shape plays into this, as the once dominant pitcher now is hurt and coming off a less than stellar season.