David Lennon of Newsday writes about Mike Pelfrey’s mouth guard, the object that divides the Mets fan base more than anything else, including Aaron Heilman or who bats second. In the article, Lennon takes a look at the accident that caused its required use, a line drive that caught Pelf in the face while he was with Team USA.

I wanted to keep pitching, but they wouldn’t let me. I was like, ‘I’m fine. Let’s go.’ I was mad.

Lennon also explores Pelf’s personal preferences in mouth guards, which should be interesting for all the mouth guard lovers and collectors out there (no word yet if any of the used ones are on ebay).

This is easily the most indepth article on Mike Pelfrey’s mouth ever written. At least the most in depth one written in a newspaper, and not a female fans diary.

The Mets (10-6) look for the sweep as they face the Phillies (8-10) in the final game of their three game set tonight starting at 8:05 EST. The pitchers for tonights game will be Mike Pelfrey for the Mets and Adam Eaton for the Phils. Tonights game will be televised nationally on ESPN.

Lineups:

Mets

• SS Jose Reyes
• 2B Luis Castillo
• 3B David Wright
• CF Carlos Beltran
• 1B Carlos Delgado
• RF Ryan Church
• C Raul Casanova
• LF Endy Chavez
• P Mike Pelfrey

Castillo is back batting 2nd, Schneider is out tonight with a sore forearm, and Angel Pagan gets a day off with my boy Endy in there.

Phillies

• CF Jayson Werth
• 3B Greg Dobbs
• 2B Chase Utley
• 1B Ryan Howard
• LF Pat Burrell
• RF Geoff Jenkins
• C Chris Coste
• SS Eric Bruntlett
• P Adam Eaton

As always, head on over to The Hot Foot Bleachers to discuss Aaron Heilman getting back into the good graces of the fans and why we will ride The Big Pelf to victory.

Jerry Crasnick of ESPN lists nine young starting pitchers ‘trying to bridge the gap from hopeful to fulfilled.’

Mike Pelfrey gets an honorable mention noting ‘he’s given New York an early lift in the absence of Pedro Martinez‘

Brian Bannister comes in at #4. Something you may or may not know, Bannister is a fan of Sabermetrics.

The stat folks love him regardless, now that it’s come to light that he’s so sabermetrically-inclined. Bannister studies tendencies and knows which hitters are inclined to hack at a first-pitch fastball, so he adjusts accordingly. He’s conversant in VORP (Value Over Replacement Player) and BABIP (Batting Average on Balls in Play) and knows his way around the Baseball Prospectus Web site. Bill James and Joe Kerrigan would love him.

Maybe if Brian stuck around he could have been a contributing writer at Mets Geek.

No sense in dwelling on what might have been, I am looking toward the future. Go Big Pelf!

The Mets beat the Washington Nationals 6-0 tonight.

• Mike Pelfrey was brilliant, allowing no runs and only five hits and two walks over seven innings. He struck out two and 65 of his 100 pitches were strikes.
• Jose Reyes began the game with a spark, hitting for a single, double, triple in that order in his first three at-bats.  He failed to hit for the cycle, although he singled again in his fourth at-bat.
• David Wright was 3-4 with a 2 2Bs and a 2-run HR to start the game. He scored two runs and had five RBIs, and now has 15 on the season.
• Carlos Beltran was 1-4 with an RBI.
• Ryan Church batted 2nd, behind Jose Reyes while Luis Castillo batted 8th. 
• Duaner Sanchez pitched the ninth for the Mets, striking out one and allowing one hit.

Game ball definitely goes to Mike Pelfrey who had a fabulous outing.  He was in control the whole time and never got out of control.  He was phenomenal.

Reyes had a fantastic game, but his hammy doesn’t seem 100% yet.  If he was hustling the whole way, that 3B could’ve been an inside the park HR, and he was caught stealing in the first inning.  Take your time Jose it’s a long season.  It was also nice hearing fans chant the ‘Jose-Jose-Jose-Jose’ rather than it being blasted over the loud speakers.

Nice to see Wright getting back into the groove of things, a HR and a 2B, plus another hard hit ball to his former high school team-mate Ryan Zimmerman.

Aaron Heilman still doesn’t look like himself, but I still trust him with the ball in his hands…call me crazy. He got out of the 8th unscathed, but it was scary.

Awesome to see Duaner back in a real game again, he can be such a lift to this team.  Plus his goggles are pretty boss.  Also amazing to see how emotional he was after the game in the post-game interview, behind those goggles I swear I saw tears.

Finally, I told all my friends today it was a guaranteed win because I wore my Mets tube socks today.  Make fun of tube socks all you want, but they get it done for our Mets.  Everybody then asks, why I don’t wear them everyday and you simply have to understand that you cannot abuse the power of the Mets tube socks.  Might’ve been a bit early too early to bring them out, but this was a nice win and I don’t regret it.

By the way, Luis Castillo should bat ninth. 

Michael Millici who blogs about the Phillies over at Bugs and Cranks can’t stand Mets pitcher Mike Pelfrey’s mouthpiece. Well, I’ll use my “mouthpiece” here at Hot Foot to say TOO BAD!! You Go Big Pelf!! If it helps you in anyway that’s great and if you annoy Philly fans in the process even better.

Lets face the hard honest truth.  We will probably never see Orlando Hernandez in a Met uniform again.  Maybe never’s too strong a word. Perhaps, once CitiField is open, the Mets will put a larger embrace on their history. They could hold Old Timers Games, and Duq being both a former Met and old, would hence be eligible to participate.

Regardless, Duq has had more setbacks, and Pelf starting shortly gets another shot. With Pedro also in less than stellar health, Pelf has a big old case of opportunity knocking. Oppurtunity is no stranger to the Pelf. He’s come knocking before.  In times past however, Pelf turned out all the lights, grabbed his pet kitten (named Mookie), and dove under the dining room table, gently weeping. Opportunity then left, and gave a quick visit to Dave Williams, before giving up and chilling with the Rockies.

Flashforward to 2008. Pelf is a year older. Duq is 10 years older. And lady luck once again is giving the big man a chance. For all his struggles last year, Pelf was not as bad as he seemed. He improved as he went, but also suffered by a subpar Mets offense that seemed unable to do anything against opposing fifth starters. Granted, he was no Tom Seaver, but his pitching did not lose all those games.  He struggled in the spring, starting strong and tapering off. But tonight (well, ten minutes ago) he gets the ball for the first time in 08.  If he can do something with it, there’s a good chance that rotation spot could become his for good. If he’s the Pelf of old, we’ll probably start hearing a lot more internet rumors about Vargas and other castaways in search of new homes potentially being Sheaward Bound.

Last season, I watched Opening Day from Row U of the Upper Deck of Shea Stadium. This year, having advanced in age, I decided to watch Opening Day from the comforts of the couch in my rec room. Each method of game-watching has its advantages. As it turns out, I’m very glad I didn’t have to wait for the 7 train amongst a mass of angry fans after the disaster that took place out on the field yesterday.

Before I get into the negatives from the game (and of course, there were plenty), let me mention two very small positives to take away. I enjoyed the cut of the outfield grass. I can’t remember seeing Shea in that particular triangle pattern before, and the contrast in greens really showed up well on the broadcast. Our stadium looked as good as it can in its final opener.

Also, I was weirdly happy for the home plate umpire, veteran Doug Eddings. Eddings has had his share of hard times (see his indecisive umpiring in Game Two of the 2005 ALCS for the most obvious example), but maybe those hard times forced him to perfect his craft. I think I agreed with every one of his ball and strike calls—and I never agree with the home plate umpire on balls and strikes. Not only that, Eddings was clear, immediately declaring “ball outside” or “ball low” as soon as the pitch hit the catcher’s mitt. He’s come full circle from his own Buckneresque moment of a few years’ back. If we get quality umpiring like this all season, I’ll have that much less heartburn.

Unfortunately, neither of these positives has anything to do with the quality of our baseball team, but I think right now we should take whatever victories we can get.

The game itself started to go bad for us when Oliver Perez walked the 45-year-old opposing pitcher who was trying to sacrifice bunt. It continued to go bad when every other one of our pitchers continued to walk everyone else. Met pitchers had seven walks yesterday against two strikeouts. That’s just not going to get it done against a good team.

Then, of course, we have the glaringly obvious problems with our team that were on full display in the home opener. 1) Our manager doesn’t know how to use his bullpen. Many of us have been saying it over and over—Scott Schoeneweis should never face a righty. And yet Willie Randolph had Show in there against two righties yesterday. Unfortunately, I don’t expect this to change. Show faced more righties than lefties last year. Utterly ridiculous. 2) Carlos Delgado is not good at playing first base. His lack of defense was much less of a problem when he was hitting 38 home runs. Now that those days are past him, it’s clear we’re going to get well-below-average production from the first base position this year, much as we did last year. 3) Many of our guys are old. Case in point, 32-year-old Luis Castillo pulls himself out of the game (presumably because it was too cold out), and he is replaced by someone six years older. A lot of our regulars are teetering on the brink of the DL all the time, and we’ll have to deal with it all season long. 4) We’re just not that good, especially without Pedro Martinez. I’m sorry, but it’s true. Over our last 162 games, we are now 86-76. Even if Johan Santana adds five wins to our total (and that’s a monster number for one player to add, considering that he’s replacing a serviceable major league pitcher in Glavine), that makes us a 91-win team. Ninety-one wins would be all fine and good, but it’s foolish to think we’re an elite team who can threaten 95 or 100 wins. We’re a decent team, but certainly a flawed team, at least for now—and we’re going to need some things to go right to beat out the Braves and Phillies for the division title.

But there is always hope. Today, hope comes in the form of our beleaguered starter Mike Pelfrey. I think I speak for all of us when I say Go Big Pelf! Let’s put the seven walks, one error, and two passed balls behind us and let’s actually enjoy baseball tonight. Let’s Go Mets!

A few notes from Willie Randolph’s weekly Mike and The Mad Dog call…

• Nelson Figueroa is on standby and Willie indicated that he would likely take Pedro Martinez’s place if he is DL’ed which Willie also said is most likely.
• Oliver Perez should be the home opener starter the way things are lining up.
• With off-days they may be able to get through without needing to replace Pedro, but Figueroa is the likely starter if they do need one.
• On Oliver Perez : “I thought he had a decent spring. He had some issues with his arm slot at times. I think Ollie is oblivious from everything that goes around him”
• Willie considered putting Raul Casanova in tonight for Ryan Schneider to give him some rest but Schneider talked him out of it.
• Said Ryan Church needs to show him more from a left-handed standpoint, but he has a “beautiful” swing and just needs to get into a “nice little rhythm”
• Mike Pelfrey was “lights out” in the bullpen but has to transfer that to the game. “I think this kid is gonna be fine. His sinker is so powerful. I think this kid is gonna win some games for us”
• On John Maine : “When you look at John you can see him coming into his own. He was in the best shape of anyone in camp. He is starting to really feel himself. He got a little swagger going.”
• On last nights game : “I keep telling our guys to stay through the middle and taking small bites. Be patient. Last night we had that kid on the ropes but we took some overaggressive hacks”
• On Ruben Gotay and Brady Clark : “Gotay really is one dimensional. Gotay doesn’t play the outfield, he doesn’t play the corners. I like Gotay a lot but he didn’t fit into this team. I think Clark right now is a better bat off the bench. Clark can get on base, he can walk, he will scrap and battle. With the left handed dominance in our line up we need a Clark in there to give us an at bat.”
• On the bullpen : “A guy who could be a sleeper for us, even though he gave up the home run last night is Wise, he has a great change up, maybe the best on our staff. He struck two guys out and then he hung a change up there. Sanchez coming back, getting him in the loop is gonna help. I think he will be back towards the end of April.”
• On the Marlins : “We need to get some payback on some people and this is one of the teams.”
• On carrying “The Collapse” : “No, I put my finger on the pulse of this team early on. Everyone let it go, spring training. We understand where we been but we don’t dwell on it. We got some serious payback coming. They know what they have to do and they want to rectify it this year”

Rosters for everyone!

Mike Pelfrey will be your fifth starter. Brady Clark is your bench guy. Joe Smith is in the bullpen. We’ll keep updating you as more news roles in, most of which while just be the likely DL moves and corresponding roster awards (ie Castro and Casanova). Info courtesy of John Delcos at LoHud.

After all the speculation that Fernando Tatis had edged ahead, it goes back to the expected, and Clark gets the nod. Its a good move, Tatis is a one trick pony, Gotay’s waivel was a bad idea, and Tatis will never live up the almost decade old hype and expectations. 

Joe Smith is no real surprise either, having done well at least in the first half last year. Now lets see if he can stay on his game for a full season instead of a half one, if he’s lost that dead arm problem. Though it could be pointless since Dirty Sanchez will in theory be ready in a few weeks. From the first half last year though, Smith looked good, and he seemed to work well in a role where he’s paired with Feliciano. Though one two Smith Pedro punch seemed quite effective.

 Lastly, Big Pelf. Its safe to assume Duq will hit the DL within the hour. Even Pelf admits he faltered at springs end and that Duq healthy goes to play. But here’s your chance Mike. Stop tipping your pitches, start getting some outs, and this spot could be yours. Duq is a stubbed toe away from retirement, especially since a stubbed toe with his delivery will probably cause his entire leg to fall off.