Was Jerry right to pull Santana after 8?

Last night the Mets ended up losing their shutout streak after 35 innings when Ryota Igarashi allowed a walk-off homerun in the 9th inning. The New York Mets dropped the first game of the series with the Brewers, 2-0. Since then many have questioned Jerry Manuel's decision to pull Johan Santana after 8 scoreless innings and 105 pitches.

Jerry has made some stupid moves before, like throwing Nieve out there every other day. I think that makes us over critical of future moves, even if they were quite reasonable. This move belongs in that category.

Judging by the naked eye, Santana did not have his best stuff last night. Nevertheless, he shut down the Brewers for eight straight innings. That is a testimony to the kind of pitcher that Santana is, but he may very well have been "done" at the time. The season is a marathon and May is the first leg. Santana had thrown 100+ pitches. I can't fault Jerry for saving his horse to finish the race.

Mets fans faulted Jerry for making short term decisions (Nieve), now they fault him for making long term moves (Santana). We can't have it both ways.

Mets shutout sweep the Phillies

On May 27th, the Mets finished a sweep of the Phillies, a most historic kind of sweep, in fact: a shutout sweep!

The veteran knuckleballer R.A. Dickey, surprise Japanese import Hisanori Takahashi and developing ace Mike Pelfrey pitched 6, 6 and 7 shutout innings respectively. The bullpen (Nieve, Feliciano, Rodriguez and others) also kept the lowly Phils off the board.

Offensively, the Mets dominated the basepaths. Angel Pagan and Luis Castillo contributed 3 and 2 stolen bases respectively. Jose Reyes provided his first homerun of the year, and several other timely hits.

The Mets now go on the road for a 3 game series with the Brewers. First up is an ace vs. ace matchup in Johan Santana vs. Yovani Gallardo. Odd as it sounds, Nieve and R.A. Dickey, two men who weren't starting for the Mets in the beginning of the season should have the pitching advantage in their games against two struggling Milwaukee lefties.

Jonathan Niese should return to the Mets soon, meaning the matchup against the Brewers will be Nieve's only starting outing for awhile. That should provide some comfort to a worn out New York Mets bullpen that can ill afford to lose yet another piece after Hisanori Takahashi was promoted to starter.

New York Gets Super (Bowl)

In vote 1, no site got the necessary NFL club votes to win the Super Bowl hosting rights for 2014. In vote 2, South Florida (Miami) was eliminated. Eventually it came down to a majority vote between Tampa and New York.

In the end, the Big Apple came out on top and the New York Jets and New York Giants will play host in 2014. Hopefully, they'll both be playing in it as well!

It was a surprising move for the NFL, who has hosted its premiere event almost exclusively in Miami, Tampa Bay, Atlanta, Dallas, and other warm weather sites.

Now, the big city has paved the way for legitimate football towns like Chicago to eventually stake their claim to future Super Bowls. Word to the wise: real football is played in the elements. Thankfully, the NFL owners voted to recognize that fact today.

Opinion: Wherefore art thou, Fernando?

Today (May 19th), Fernando Tatis started at 3rd base for the New York Mets, perhaps giving David Wright a much needed rest. In his time with the club, Tatis has been far from a star.

Still, Tatis is a valuable baseball player: he can play a tremendous amount of positions (LF, RF, 1B, 3B) and even catcher or 2nd base in the case of an emergency. He's not particularly remarkable defensively at any of these positions, rather, the remarkable thing is that he can play most of them quite adequately.

The point of this post, however, is not his defense but his bat.

For much of the early season, New York Mets fans were subjected to the craptastic pinch hitting of Gary Matthews, Jr. and Frank Catalanotto. Why not Tatis? For awhile, I wasn't even sure that he was on the team anymore... but yes, Fernando is most definitely there.

Consistently gving Cat and GMJ the nod for pinch hits over Tatis is one of the things that stumps me most about Manuel's management of this ball club this year. True, Manuel has always been big on lefty/righty matchups, but I'll take Tatis vs. a righty over either of those two guys any day.

Thankfully, Cat has been sent down and Carter has been called up, so if you want to go with Carter vs. righties I'm fine with that. But if GMJ continues to get the call vs. lefties over Tatis, I'll be at a total loss.

What do you think?

Top 10 New York Jets moments of 2009

10. The Trade up. The New York Jets trade up to select USC Quarterback Mark Sanchez, thus ushering in a new offensive era for the team. In the process, they gave up relative chump change to the Cleveland Browns. The deal was another steal for Mike "the trader" Tannenbaum and gave the New York Jets the franchise quarterback they've been waiting for.

9. The Hiring. Right out of the gates you knew that the New York Jets had a character when the boisterous Rex Ryan refused to "kiss Bill Belichick's rings". Between Ryan and Sanchez, the franchise signaled that they were rebuilding the offense and creating a defensive force to be reckoned with.

8. First win of the regime. T-Rex and Sanchez trounce the Houston Texans by the score of 24-7 on Sep. 13, 2009. The New York Jets defense allowed zero points, the Texans only scored on an interception. The win signaled the arrival of the new regime.

7. Brad Smith returns kickoff for touchdown against Indianopolis Colts, giving Gang Green the lead and keeping their playoff hopes alive just long enough until Peyton Manning hit the bench. They went on to win the game against Indy's Curtis Painter and well, you know the rest.

6. Brad Smith gets credit here again, this time for his 32 yard touchdown run against Cincy on Jan 3, 2010. The run put the boys in green up by a score of 17-0, and all but locked up a playoff berth.

5. Thomas Jones runs for 109 yards against the Buffalo Bills on December 3, 2009, leading the New York Jets to victory and keeping them in playoff contention, despite the loss of QB Mark Sanchez to injury.

4. The victory lap. New York Jets players and coaches run around the Meadowlands saluting and interacting with fans following the Jan 3 win against the Bengals that earned them a playoff spot. An off the field moment that showed us just how different Ryan's team is, comapred to Mangini's.

3. In week 2, the New York Jets defeat New England at home for the first time in years. They were led by a tremendous defensive effort that kept the Patriots out of the endzone all day.

2. Mark Sanchez connects with Dustin Keller for a 45 yard touchdown in the 2nd quarter, giving the New York Jets the momentum they needed to beat the Bengals on the road in a wild card playoff match up.

1. New York Jets defense stymies the aerial assault of Phillip Rivers and the San Deigo Chargers in a round 2 playoff match up. Darelle Revis and Jim Leonhard pitch in with interceptions that will ultimately take them all the way to Indianapolis for a rematch in the conference championships - a rematch which will ultimately be the team's demise... but only for now. The Colts will be seeing more of the New York Jets in years to come.