Rule of thirds

Everything is better when in groups of three. Tonight, the topic is "bad news for the Mets."

1) Pedro is hurt. In the 4th inning, Pedro came up tender after his delivery, and "heard a pop." Preliminary diagnosis is a hamstring injury, a la 2007 Phil Hughes. This is just a little worse. Martinez is (was) our #2 starter, not our #5, and he's in his 30's, not early 20's. When you're older, recovery time turns weeks into months. Hughes was out for months. I don't expect Pedro to be back before the all-star break.

2) Robert Andino. A walk-off home run against the Mets came courtesy of a .198 career batter. To boot, he wasn't even supposed to be on the Marlins' roster. Alejandro de Aza got hurt in the last inning of the last spring training game, and Andino was called up as his replacement.

3) Ron Darling is a superb analyst. When Matt Wise fell behind 2-0 on Andino, Carlos Delgado walked into the mound. Gary Cohen and Keith Hernandez commented on how peculiar of a meeting that was. Darling noted that Andino is, in fact, a .198 career hitter with no big league home runs, so Delgado was probably telling him this is the guy they want to get out. Wise threw a circle change right over the plate to make the count 2-1. Darling said "it's okay to do that once, but you can't do it again, you'll get hurt if you throw a slow pitch up in the zone." As he said that, Wise threw the same pitch and Andino put it in the stands. Why is this bad news, you ask? It's bad news because it's the best news that came out of the Mets' clubhouse tonight.



I don't want to end this blog on a bad note, so here's a video I shot and edited today of Marist CF Pam De La Llave hitting a go-ahead grand slam in the top of the 7th inning in the Red Foxes' game at UAlbany. Marist won the game 6-5. Pardon my incessant screaming and shoddy camerawork. I get excited about things.