Mets 9, Marlins 2
(Source: fangraphs.com - what's this?)
John Maine's pitching line:
IP H R ER BB SO HR PC-ST GS 7.0 2 2 2 4 7 1 107-66 68I guess a lot of people still get worked up about the Mets not ever having thrown a no-hitter. I couldn't really care less, actually. That's not to say that I don't get excited when a Mets pitcher gets close and disappointed when he invariably falls short; I do. But I certainly don't sit around lamenting the team's lack of no-nos every time another one gets snuffed out. Also, to be clear, John Maine wasn't really anywhere close to pitching a no-hitter last night. Given his pitch count at the time, he would have had to throw 140 pitches just to make it through nine innings, and I'm not completely sold that Willie Randolph would have let him do it. The game *was* a blowout, so that might have bought him a little more rope, but... wait, why am I still talking about this? Don't look now, but the Mets lead the league in runs scored (76), batting average (.296) and on-base percentage (.371) and are third in slugging percentage (.430). They also lead the league with 16 stolen bases.
On the hill, the Mets lead the league in ERA (2.50), batting average against (.208), and are at or near the top in most other "opponents batting" categories. There is some cause for concern, though. The Mets pitching staff is dead last in the National League in strikeout-to-walk ratio at 1.18, with the league average at 1.92. They also lead the league in opponents pitches per plate appearance, and their DIPS% (ratio of ERA to expected ERA) is 210. In a nutshell, this means that given their hit, walk, strikeout, and homerun rates, their team ERA is less than half of what might reasonably be expected.
That's okay, their fielding has been phenomenal (scroll down to "The Mets are fielding like crazy"). The staff's biggest problem right now is the number of walks they have allowed. As much as I would like to blame it on the cold weather, there's probably something else at work here. As the weather heats up a bit we will have to keep an eye on the walks, because if they don't start going down, the Mets' propensity thus far for limiting the number of hits with runners on base will regress naturally and a lot of those extra baserunners will start turning into runs.
Mr. Met:
- Hitting: Carlos Beltran, 15.7% WPA
- Pitching: John Maine, 15.3% WPA
- Hitting: Shawn Green, -3.7% WPA
- Pitching: none