Sweeping Their Way Out Of Tampa Applesauce: Rauch And Bay Do Well, Dickey For Cy Young

The Mets have looked much better in the last few days than they did over the weekend. After being swept out of the tee-ball park that houses a major league team in the Bronx, the Mets found themselves on the verge of completing their own sweep at the expense of the Rays. Johan Santana would struggled through his 5 innings of work, but the Mets offense exploded for 8 runs in the opening 4 frames of this one. Luckily for Johan, Jon Rauch was able to successfully work out of a bases loaded jam to keep this one lopsided. The Rays would make it interesting late, but the bullpen did just enough to allow the Metsies to complete the sweep. Here's your recap and box. The win, combined with the Washington off day, sees the Mets climb to just 4.5 games out of first and in sole possession of second place.

For those of you that frequent Citi Field regularly, NYC made another announcement yesterday concerning the Willets Point area. We've known that the Wilpons would be involved with the redevelopment project for some time; yesterday it became official.

We also got a little more on the Mets proposed addition of a "quiet section" yesterday. This proposal drew mocking responses from several in the New York media, but it turns out that the idea is intended to help autistic fans enjoy the experience more.

R.A. Dickey was awesome on Wednesday. After his potential no hitter, he received a few messages from fellow knucklers. His awesome outing also prompted FanGraphs to look at his Cy Young candidacy, and I doubt anyone here would be shocked by the outcome.

MLB.com is having a Q&A with Jon Niese. If you have questions you'd want answered, here's how to submit them.

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Things were quiet around the division yesterday, with only the Mets and Phillies in action. Unfortunately the Phillies managed another win yesterday. Luckily they are still dead last in the division. The unexpectedly rapid decline of the Phillies has prompted talk of a fire sale in the Philadelphia media. Hopefully Ruin Tomorrow is a little to Omar-esque to see the writing on the wall and pull the trigger.

Ben Sheets has been auditioning for teams recently in an attempt to return to baseball. He used to be so fun to watch.

Finally for today, the Padres are narrowing down the field of potential new owners. It will be interesting to see what the sale of the Dodgers did to their value.