Mets Stuff
The big news in Metsland on Tuesday was the announcement of rescaled season ticket pricing for the 2012 season. 80 percent of season tickets will see a price reduction of five or more percent. The team also announced that they will introduce Dynamic Pricing for 2012 single game tickets, meaning the team will have the right to raise or lower prices in-season depending on demand, pitching matchups, quality of the team and other factors. If you want to read more about the season ticket information, check out our transcript of last night's chat with Mets' Executive VP of Business Operations Dave Howard. Over at his blog, Howard Megdal looks at the season ticket renewal deadline, which was moved up to November 7th this season.
In minor league news, the Arizona Fall League started today. Here's the list of Mets prospects who are taking part. For the box score of the first game, check out Adam Rubin's site.
If you have some disposable income and want to relive (or live) Game 6 of the 1986 World Series, you can try to buy the famous "Bill Buckner Ball", which is being put up for auction by its owner Seth Swirsky.
Did you realize Tuesday night's Yankees starter A.J. Burnett has a Mets connection? That's right: he was a Mets 8th round draft pick out of high school and then was dealt to the Marlins in the Al Leiter trade.
Around the Playoffs
The Tampa Bay Rays were the first team to be ousted from the 2011 playoffs, as they lost to the Rangers 4-3. Ian Kinsler led the game off against Jeremy Hellickson with a home run and Adrian Beltre followed with three solo home runs of his own.
Ben Francisco broke a scoreless tie in the seventh inning with a three run pinch hit home run and the Phillies held on the rest of the way to defeat the Cardinals 3-1 in St. Louis. With the victory, the Phillies are up 2 games to 1 in the series and will send Roy Oswalt to the mound against Edwin Jackson tonight at 6 PM.
In a surprising twist, A.J. Burnett was not awful (okay, he got pretty lucky with some nice Curtis Granderson defense and a bunch of at 'em balls) and the Yankees offense blew the game open with six runs in the eighth, as the Yankees defeated the Tigers 10-1 to force a game 5 on Thursday night. In awesome semi Mets related news, Omir Santos came into the game as a defensive replacement for the Tigers' Alex Avila. Why is this important? Well, it gives me the opportunity to link to Amazin' Avenue's favorite Omir Santos T-Shirt.
Finally, the Diamondbacks' Paul Goldschmidt hit a game breaking grand slam off of Shaun Marcum in the fifth inning as the Diamondbacks beat the Brewers 8-1, extending the series to game four tonight at 9:30. Joe Saunders will throw for Arizona, while Randy Wolf starts for the Brewers.