Alright, we’ve been having some technical difficulties here at Baseball Historians but I’ve been told everything is now fixed so I apologize for the abscence. Anyway, the Mets may be in second place, but they’re just a half game back and they did it behind a series win over the team with the best record in baseball right now, the Brewers. If you look at the rest of the teams in that division, you can see why they might have the best record because things thin out pretty quickly in the NL Central while in the East, the Mets have the Braves and the Phillies to worry about.
Oliver Perez got it done for the Mets today with his fourth win of the season and he bounced back pretty nicely from his rough outing on May 7. Most important, if you take out that one crazy game where he walked seven, he’s kept the intentional passes under control. Just from looking at his splits, getting that first pitch over for a strike is huge. Heading into today’s game, his OPS against when he gets a first pitch strike is .514 while the OPS against when it’s a first pitch ball is .740. It also looks like Perez runs into a bit of trouble once he gets through the lineup twice. You wonder if it’s a combination of getting tired or just the batters being able to better see what’s coming, or most likely, both.
David Wright hadn’t stolen a base all season until yesterday. Today he picked up three. And while Wright’s 31 strikeouts are somewhat concerning, he’s also on pace to pick up more walks then in any other season in his short career.
Damion Easley homered for the fifth time and he’s done it in only 53 at bats. Not bad for a guy who hasn’t gone yard more then 20 times in a season since he was with the Detroit Tigers since they played in Tiger Stadium.
The Cubs are on deck and while they haven’t particularly been tearing it up after they finally broke a three game losing streak, they had a nice run prior to that. Alfonso Soriano has been hot though and he’s a guy who can hurt you by himself. Still though, just in looking at the pitching matchups in the first three games, the only problem I see is Jorge Sosa against Rich Hill on Wednesday.
