Mets Cling To First Place With Lucky 13 Games Left

    The Mets have lost two in a row and three out of four, and have watched their lead in the NL East shrink to just a half game over the Phillies.  New York's 13 remaining games include three with the Nationals, three with the Braves, four with the Cubs and three with the Marlins.  You can't put an exact number on how many games the Mets will need to win the rest of the way in order to make the playoffs--one more than the Phillies will suffice.  Mike Pelfrey, Johan Santana and Oliver Perez, the Mets' three most dependable starters, will likely combine for eight starts down the stretch, with Pedro Martinez, Jon Niese and anyone's guess filling out the remaining five.  New York will need strong, deep outings from their big three, and lots of offense in the other five games in order to avoid leaving their playoff hopes in the hands of the bullpen.  Of course, a little help from Philadelphia's opponents couldn't hurt, but the Mets need to be able to take care of their own business.  If they can't win enough games on their own to hold their divisional lead, then they don't deserve to play baseball in October anyway.

    It's been more than a month since Daniel Murphy was promoted from double-A Binghamton to the majors, and he's still hitting like a seasoned veteran.  Through 37 major league games Murphy is hitting .360 with a .448 on-base percentage and a .528 slugging percentage.  But the most impressive facet of his game is his patient approach at the plate.  In 105 plate appearances, Murphy has worked 25 full counts, and has seen six or more pitches 33 times.  We can't get too carried away with Murphy's batting average or his statistics, because it's unlikely that Murphy will hit .360 for his career, or for a season, or even for another week.  But his ability to work the pitcher so well in nearly a third of his plate appearances is phenomenal, and that skill is what could allow him to have a solid career at the major league level.  Whether or not Murphy is in the Mets' plans for next year as an outfielder remains to be seen, but he should fit into their lineup in some way.  He is a natural third baseman, but also played some second base in the minors, because he knew he's blocked at third at the major league level.  The more the boos rain down on Luis Castillo, the more Murphy at second base should be looked at as a possibility in 2009.

Around The League

    One day after being no-hit by Carlos Zambrano, the Astros managed just one hit against Ted Lilly and a trio of Cubs relievers.  Although the location of these two games is no excuse for Houston's anemic offense, it is still not fair that these supposed Astros home games were played in Milwaukee, which is absolutely not a neutral site when the opponent is the Cubs.  Miller Park was packed full of Cubs fans for both games, since Milwaukee is only about 90 miles north of Chicago.  On top of the location debacle, Major League Baseball handled this entire hurricane situation poorly with respect to the interests of the Houston Astros organization.  Apparently, the league initially requested that the Cubs and Astros play a game on Thursday, an idea that was immediately vetoed by the Astros' personnel, whose main concern at that time was the health and safety of their families.

    Would it have been so terrible to play the rained out games at the end of the season, if necessary, instead of forcing the beleaguered Astros back into action prematurely?  Of course it would have, because that delay would have postponed the previously arranged telecasts of the first two games of the playoffs, and therefore would have cost the league money to reschedule.  Why should the league allow the Houston Astros to concern themselves with the safety of their loved ones during a natural catastrophe when there's money at stake?  I guess that would just be too humane.

    This entire situation reeks of financial interest, all the way down to the relocation of the "neutral site" games.  Milwaukee is the closest baseball city to either Chicago or Houston; even Arlington, Texas is about three times as far from Houston as Milwaukee is from Chicago.  So how exactly is that a neutral site?  It looks more like the league was trying to make the site as un-neutral as possible in order to increase ticket sales.  In fact, fans (predominantly Cubs fans, of course) who purchased tickets to these two games were charged premium prices!  Since when is money more valuable than fairness and basic humanity?  Welcome to the American pastime.

    In the first inning of tonight's game against the White Sox, Derek Jeter passed Lou Gherig for most hits all time at Yankee Stadium, with 1,270.  Sure, it's not exactly the same Yankee Stadium Lou Gherig played in, but this is a momentous record at any rate.  We all know how consistent Derek Jeter has been throughout his career, and how he is one of the best clutch hitters of his generation.  But sometimes it's easy to forget just how unbelievable a hitter Lou Gherig was.  Sure, everyone knows about his Iron Man streak, and everyone knows that he was a great hitter--but just how great was he?  Gherig was a career .340 hitter with 493 home runs and 1,995 RBI, but even those numbers do not do his greatness justice because his career was famously shortened by illness at age 36.  Gherig drove in at least 112 runs every season from 1926 through 1938, and had possibly the best 13-year stretch of run production in major league history, averaging 36 home runs and 147 RBI in that span.  He won the Triple Crown in 1934 with a .363 batting average, 49 homers and 165 RBI, and won the AL MVP in 1927 and 1936.  He hit more than 40 home runs five times, drove in more than 150 runs seven times (including a career-high 184 in 1931), and was selected on each of the first seven American League All-Star teams.  Naturally, Lou Gherig was elected to the Hall of Fame on his first ballot in 1939.

*Statistical information and gamelogs derived from www.baseball-reference.com.