Mets Game 113: Loss to Diamondbacks

Diamondbacks 6 Mets 2

So hard to come up with something clever now that the season has been phoned in.

Livan Hernandez chose a poor strategy of giving the D’backs an early lead, then giving back a run every time the Mets scored (not that it happened so often). With that, Livan left the game after only four frames, yielding to Tim Redding.

The offense collected eight hits off Arizona starter Max Scherzer, but that’s all they did — collected. Not much was actually DONE with those safeties.

Notes

This team is playing poorly enough to make me wonder if they’ll keep the Nationals in the cellar. Seriously.

Cory Sullivan led off the game with a double, and Luis Castillo — who was 4 for his last 9 — sacrificed him to third. Right there I knew the game was over … it didn’t matter that Sullivan was stranded.

Australian-born Trent Oeltjen went 4-for-4 for Arizona and was a homerun shy of the cycle. He’s hitting .500 in his first 5 big-league games, has hustled around the bases, and been spectacular in left field. Talk about a man at work! At what point is it just overkill?

With this season resembling a Rutt’s Hut Ripper, it takes some creativity to provide entertaining text. The best I could come up with: should Tim Redding’s nickname be “Mr. Rochester”? It would be for his hometown and also for the plain-faced character of Jane Eyre. The only thing is, I’m not sure he qualifies as a “Byronic Hero“.

Today’s Baseball Lesson

Ron Darling spoke about long tossing, and said that players 20-25 years old should throw around 200-225 feet, and little leaguers should stay around 60 feet — and that the key was to throw as far as you can “without your mechanics breaking down”.

This was fairly decent advice, but allow me to elaborate, as I don’t like limits and I refuse to use negative images (I’d replace “mechanics breaking down” with a positive image). First of all, no matter what your age, you can and should be throwing as far as you can without putting an arc on the throw, and just short of your max effort. Throw the ball on a straight line, or with a little bit of sink, as far as possible, without straining. Extend yourself a few feet every five throws until you get to the point where you can’t reach your partner without a bounce. Once you get there, shorten the distance 5-10 feet and throw nice and easy for another 10-15 throws. If you do this every day, you will build your distance and arm strength.

Next Mets Game

The final game of the series will be played at 3:40 PM on Wednesday afternoon. Oliver Perez faces Jon Garland.