At his blog, John Delcos is reporting that x-rays revealed Milledge has a contusion on his hand, and will be listed as day to day.

That should alleviate some fears.  While its bad that Milledge is hurt, at least its not a break or anything that should require a long time out.  I'd assume that he will be out for tommorow's game.

Big loss today, as the Mets went down 11-3 on a poor start by Pellfrey.  Pellfrey gave up 4 runs, all earned, three of which came in the third.  Overall, he pitched five innings giving six hits while striking out two. Though not his best outing, he did manage to keep most of his outs on the ground (an 8-5 ground/fly out split).  Of more concern is Sosa, who played only a partial inning during which he walked two and gave us six runs on four hits.  Nall finished out the 7th for Sosa, facing 3 batters but keeping any from scoring. Heilman and Wagner each added one scoreless inning, facing 3 batters each.

It was also another slow day for the Mets offense, with just four hits.  Lastings Milledge reached on a run scoring error, and left the game in the 9th after being hit by a pitch. Jose Valentin is credit with both Met RBI's, off a double in the 3rd.

Not a great, but not a horrible outing from Pellfrey. He did go five innings, and considering he's a 5th starter, we're going to see him have days where he gives up five runs. The bullpen today is where we should have been focused as far as fears and the such.  Wagner threw a scoreless inning despite having pitched yesterday, and Heilman pitched a quick inning as well. The rumors since yesterday are that Sosa is being shipped down to AAA, and todays performance pretty much shows us why.  Adkins did ok, which is good in the sense that its likely he's on the trading block since he's out of options.

Hopefully Milledge is not seriously hurt, one would assume he is being x-rayed at the moment to check for damage. Some nice work by Franco today, aside from some confusion early on between him and Pellfrey concerning who was fielding a ball. That was arguable Pellfrey's fault, and it appeared the two briefly discussed it. Wright had another day batting second, I understand the logic of getting him more at bats, but I still liked him further down the order and Lo Duca batting 2 instead.

WFAN yesterday had Mike and The Mad Dog on location at the Mets game against the Cardinals. Toasted Joe was able to capture some of their priceless comments.

If you were watching the game on SNY yesterday,  you caught Gary Cohen comment “They will let anyone into the building here” when the camera panned into a both showing an animated Russo talking to Francesa.

Nicely played Gary.

If you missed their interview with Lastings Milledge, make sure you go check it out. Milledge was fantastic. He comes off very well. Confident, comfortable, and definitely wins over Mike and Chris with his personality. He's definitely not the type to give the stock interview and he speaks from the heart. Well done, Lastings.

The Mets experienced some losses this winter. They lost Chad
Bradford, he of the 1.16 WHIP, and the one home run allowed (one!) in 70
innings of work, to a three-year $10.5 million contract with the O’s. They lost
veterans Cliff Floyd and Steve Trachsel, allowing them to walk away. Although it’s
hard to argue with Mets management on these moves, I’ll miss reading Cliff’s
quotes, and I find it somewhat distressing that Tom Glavine has been a Met
longer than anyone else on the roster. (Pedro Feliciano was with the team in
2002, a year before Glavine arrived, but Feliciano spent 2005 in Japan
before re-joining us last year). Another loss occurred on the coaching staff,
when Manny Acta departed to manage the Washington Nationals. I normally don’t
spend a lot of time worrying about coaching changes, and at first this one was
no different. But then I read this article in the Washington Times. Compare
this quote from Acta: “We will run selectively. I think one of the things that
doomed this club last year is that they were first in caught stealing.” to this
one from Willie Randolph: “[Beltran] could steal 40-to-50 bases easy.”

Now I’m not knocking Willie, here. Carlos Beltran has
historically been one of the most effective base stealers in the game, with a
career stolen base percentage of 87.6%. That’s an astounding number, and if
Beltran can steal bases at that kind of clip it will be an enormous boon to our
offense. That said, Acta has the correct philosophy. The stolen base is only a
good play with an excellent basestealer. For example, assuming typical hitters
behind him and typical pitchers on the mound, a leadoff man on first base in
the home first inning needs about a 71% success rate to justify an attempted
steal of second. Half the teams in the National League had SB percentages lower
than 71% last season. In two years under Randolph,
the Mets have stolen bases at a truly remarkable 79.9% clip, second in the
majors (the Phillies were successful 80.0% of the time).

Part of me worries that Acta has been the one preaching
selective base stealing, and that Acta is the reason the Mets have done so well
in choosing the right times to run. Another, more rational part of me thinks
that Willie understands who should run and when, and that since the only real
base stealers we have are Jose Reyes and Beltran (and, to some extent, David Wright), we
should be fine. I just can’t help being paranoid when so many teams go so wrong
on the basepaths—so wrong that maybe they shouldn’t be attempting stolen bases
at all.

Ramblings:

-I don’t know if we’ll see a lot of doomsday predictions on
Oliver Perez following his 2 IP, 4ER outing today, but any such predictions are
not justified, in my opinion. First, his velocity clearly isn’t there yet, as
it typically is not there for any pitcher this early in the spring. Ollie
topped out in the high eighties today. We all know he has a mid-nineties
fastball when he’s full-strength, and that his fastball is one of his best
weapons. Second, Perez for the most part got hurt in the strike zone today. His
location wasn’t always perfect, but it was far from terrible. He threw more
than twice as many strikes as balls. For his first outing of the spring, I
think that’s a pretty good sign. In short, I wouldn’t read anything at all into
today’s start by Ollie. I still think he’s a big favorite to begin the season
in the rotation.

-It was the first game for everyone today, and that certainly
includes new third-base coach Sandy Alomar, Sr. On Julio Franco’s two-run
single in the eighth, Alomar stood still as a stone while Lastings Milledge approached
third base, even though it was immediately clear that Milledge had to be sent.
Not knowing what else to do, Milledge slowed down, and then decided on his own
to keep chugging along. Only after Milledge had rounded third and taken several
steps towards home did Alomar give a half-hearted “Go” signal. (Milledge ended
up scoring anyway.) The announcers, meanwhile, assigned almost all the blame on
Milledge, accusing him of not picking up the third-base coach. They never
realized there was nothing to pick up. Keith Hernandez finally did say that
hey, there was a new third-base coach out there and maybe that had something to
do with it. Also, it seemed to me that Gary Cohen et al were far too
results-oriented in analyzing Perez’s start. Every hard-hit ball he gave up was
“up in the zone” or a “hanger,” but his strikeout pitch, which clearly looked
like a hanger to me, was “down.” Ron Darling described a pitch that Curtis
Granderson ripped as “middle-middle.” I actually thought Perez got good
location on the inside corner on that pitch and that Granderson, a
good major league hitter, just turned on it. I love Cohen, Darling, and Hernandez in the
booth, but they’re definitely in preseason form right now.

-I found it an odd coincidence that two members of our last
World Series team were just traded for each other in the Atlantic League. Best
of luck to Edgardo Alfonzo and Pat Mahomes (but especially Fonzie) as they try
to work their way back to the bigs.

-Can someone explain to me how getting a major league
prospect to run around the bases qualifies as a practical joke? “Hey, this guy
is really good at this thing, so wouldn’t it be so funny if we get him to do
that thing he’s really good at? Then we’ll all have a hearty laugh!” When I
heard that Randolph
had played a practical joke on Carlos Gomez, I was thinking shaving cream, or some bubble gum, or at least a fat frog had to be involved somehow. I guess I’ll just never
understand jock culture.

Marty Noble on Mets.com reveals the Mets considered bringing in Frank Robinson, whom Lastings Milledge admires, to come in to mentor Lastings.

“We talked about it a little,” Minaya said on Monday. “But we have other people coming in — not just for Lastings Milledge.”

He referred to Rickey Henderson, who again is to serve as a Spring
Training instructor. And the club is trying to arrange another Spring
Traning appearance by Darryl Strawberry.

Milledge sought out Julio Franco when he arrived at Spring Training, reports John Delcos on his Lower Hudson blog.

Nate Silver on Baseball Prospectus implores Omar Minaya not to trade Lastings Milledge for Joe Blanton, citing that Blanton is comparable to Mike Pelfrey and Oliver Perez. Also, he points out that Milledge hit exceptionally well in a tough park in Norfolk, and should improve with more major league seasoning.

Billy Beane seems to think the Mets are so desperate for starting pitching they'll do whatever it takes, but with a Omar in charge, I don't think they will take the bait. At least i'm hoping that is the case. I think the Mets can still do much better than that for Milledge, and if not, i'd much rather just hold on to the kid and allow his stock to rise back up.

According to the Newark-Star Ledger, the Mets have had discussions with the Blue Jays about a deal that would send OF Vernon Wells to the Mets.

Any deal involving Wells would have to include Aaron Heilman, Lastings Milledge and either Mike Pelfrey or Phil Humber.

I know I'm in the minorty here, but with the way our bullpen is right now, I cannot trade Heilman. I know we won't be able to get any deals done if he isn't part of it, but you cannot expect Ambiorix Burgos and his 12 blown saves to replace Heilman in any capacity.

According to the Denver Post, the Rockies and P Jason Jennings haven’t been able to come to any sort of agreement on a contract extension, opening the possibility of a trade. The Post lists the Cardinals, Cubs, Astros, Twins, Mets and Yankees as possible suitors for Jennings’ services.

Notably, the Post lists Mets P Brian Bannister as someone who interests Rockies GM Dan O’Dowd.

However, Metsblog suggests that any Jennings to the Mets trade would have to involve any combination of Ps Phil Humber and Mike Pelfrey and OFs Ben Johnson and Lastings Milledge going to Colorado.

If Bannister is the main component of any trade which would net the Mets a pitcher of Jennings’ caliber, I’d do it in a heartbeat. The same cannot be said if we would have to part with one of our prized prospects. While Jennings is a good pitcher, I don’t feel he is on the same level as a Jake Peavy or Dontrelle Willis, pitchers we could have with these same players. To me, a Bannister and Ben Johnson for Jennings trade would make the most sense for the Mets, but I’m not sure the Rockies would bite on it.

Gotham Baseball reports that the Rockies may have interest in Lastings Milledge.