New York Mets:

The New York Mets have come out of the gates surprisingly slow. Before the beginning of this season, everyone thought this would be the team to beat as the Mets were highly favored in the National League pennant race. The seemingly unbeatable pitching duo of Pedro Martinez and Johan Santana, who combine for a total of 11 All-Star selections and 5 Cy Young Awards, apparently wasn't as great as everyone thought. The New York Mets obviously have some talent on defense; the team just needs to build chemistry and cohesiveness. Offensively, Carlos Delgado and Carlos Beltran lead the way. Delgado has 440 career home runs, putting him in a group of elite hitters on his own along with 2-time Silver Slugger Award winning All-Star Carlos Beltran carrying the team the rest of the way. The story this season has been the batting of young rising star David Wright, who currently leads the team in batting with an impressive 12 home runs and 56 RBIs, especially for being this early in the season. The New York Mets look to take this star-studded roster all the way into the playoffs. It's going to take a great turnaround to do so, and ticket sales will be slow until the Mets can show New York fans they have what it takes to go all the way.

The New York Mets have always been to the New York Yankees what the New Jersey Nets have been to the New York Knicks, the second thought. For some reason the entire city only has enough love for one team. Everyone loves the Yankees, but only a small niche says the Mets are their favorite squadron. Granted they haven’t been quite as successful as the Yankees, or any team in the country, but the Mets still deserve to have an entire city feverishly love them. The Mets too have enjoyed success since breaking into Major League Baseball in the 1962 season. The team has six postseason appearances, four National League pennants and two World Series victories. 2000 was the last time the Mets were in playoffs and is coincidentally the last time they made it to the World Series. That year they finished off San Francisco and St. Louis to earn a shot at their cross town rivals. If there is one moment that will be remembered from this series, it would be the “Broken Bat incident.” In Game 2 of the series Roger Clemens threw an inside fastball to the Mets’ slugger Mike Piazza and his bat broke and the bat head flew in Clemens direction. As Piazza ran out the foul ball, Clemens threw the bat in Piazza’s direction almost striking him. Piazza started to walk out to the mound but Clemens ignored him. The benches cleared but no punches were thrown. Last year was disappointing for the Mets. They finished the season with a 66-95 record in fifth place in the NL East 34.5 games out of first place.

The Mets had one of the largest payrolls in all of baseball last year and didn’t even take a sniff at a .500 record last year, so management was a little more prudent with their spending this past off-season. They signed Japanese imported shortstop Kazuo Matsui to a three year contract. The Mets also picked up veteran first baseman Todd Zeile and traded for Cleveland infielder Ricky Gutierrez.

The Mets have a lot of bats that produced a lot less than they were hoping for last season. The team batted .247 which ranked them 14th in the NL out of 16 teams. It also didn’t help that their biggest bat catcher Mike Piazza was on the disabled list for all but 68 games. Other big bats in the line up include left fielder Cliff Floyd, center fielder Mike Cameron and first baseman Mo Vaughn.

The pitching staff is rich with experience. The two cornerstones of the starting pitching rotation, Tom Glavine and Al Leiter, are both 38 years old. The rest of the rotation consists of Steve Traschel, Jae Weong Seo, and Tyler Yates.

The Mets play all their home games at Shea Stadium. This 57,405 seat stadium was host to the first half of the historic double header between the Yankees and Mets on July 8, 2000. The second half was played that night at Yankee Stadium.

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