Mets – Peggle Comparisons

During the past few years of high school, the KHH bloggers have often found themselves mired in complete boredom. Sometimes we had nothing to do during free periods. Other times we needed something to do during joke classes. On (many) occasions, we were bored during serious classes. Faced with each of these situations, the KHH bloggers often played Peggle.

Peggle is a very addicting game. It involves firing a magical ball at different colored pegs. It’s sometimes fun and always challenging.

Today, I will compare all your 2011 Mets players to Peggle characters. Without further ado, let’s begin!

Mets Pitchers
RP – Pedro Beato: Pyramid Ball

 

KAT TUT - Pyramid Ball

RP – Tim Byrdak: Gopher Ball

 

JIMMY LIGHTNING - Gopher Ball (Multiball)

SP – Chris Capuano: Lobster Ball

 

CLAUDE - Lobster Ball (Flippers)

SP – R.A. Dickey: Flower Ball

 

TULA - Flower Ball (Flower Power)

SP – Dillon Gee: Magic Hat

 

WARREN - Magic Hat (Lucky Spin)

RP – Jason Isringhausen: Zen Master Hayon

 

MASTER HU - Zen Master Hayon Ball (Zen Ball)

SP – Jon Niese: Unicorn Ball

BJORN - Unicorn Ball (Super Guide)

RP – Michael O’Connor: Gopher Ball

JIMMY LIGHTNING - Gopher Ball (Multiball)

RP – Bobby Parnell: Dragon BallZ

LORD CINDERBOTTOM - Dragon BallZ (Fireball)

SP – Mike Pelfrey: Lobster Ball

CLAUDE - Lobster Ball (Flippers)

RP – Francisco Rodriguez: Spooky

RENFIELD - Spooky Ball

RP – Dale Thayer: Flower Ball

TULA - Flower Ball (Flower Power)

Mets Batters
C – Ronny Paulino: Space Blast

SPLORK - Space Blast

C – Josh Thole: Unicorn Ball

BJORN - Unicorn Ball (Super Guide)

1B – Nick Evans: Pyramid Ball

KAT TUT - Pyramid Ball

1B – Daniel Murphy: Zen Master Hayon

MASTER HU - Zen Master Hayon Ball (Zen Ball)

SS – Jose Reyes: Magic Hat

WARREN - Magic Hat (Lucky Spin)

2B – Ruben Tejada: Flower Ball

TULA - Flower Ball (Flower Power)

IF – Justin Turner: Dragon BallZ

LORD CINDERBOTTOM - Dragon BallZ (Fireball)

LF – Jason Bay: Gopher Ball

JIMMY LIGHTNING - Gopher Ball (Multiball)

RF – Carlos Beltran: Spooky

RENFIELD - Spooky Ball

OF – Scott Hairston: Unicorn Ball

BJORN - Unicorn Ball (Super Guide)

OF – Willie Harris: Space Blast

SPLORK - Space Blast

CF – Angel Pagan: Magic Hat

WARREN - Magic Hat (Lucky Spin)

OF – Jason Pridie: Lobster Ball

CLAUDE - Lobster Ball (Flippers)

And the Ultra Extreme Fever award for best Peggle player belongs to…

Daniel Murphy!  Congratulations!!

Mets-Pirates Game 1 Recap

Memorial Day Baseball!

The Mets won their second game in a row tonight with a 7-3 victory over the Pittsburgh Pirates. They outplayed the Pirates in all aspects of the game and had a fairly easy win, though there were some nervous moments. The scoring started in the game with a long 2-run homer to left by Chris Snyder, the Pirates’ catcher, of all people. However, the Mets came back with 2 runs in the bottom of the inning. It was one of the most disgusting innings of baseball I have seen all season, but more on that later. The Mets added a run in the 5th, but Pittsburgh countered with a run in the top of the 7th to tie the score. In the bottom of the 7th, Josh Thole had a clutch double, bringing in two runs and giving the Mets the lead for good. It was one of Josh’s first clutch moments of the year. He has been terrible in crunch time until tonight. The Mets hitting tonight was impressive. 5 players had multi-hit games, and the only players who did not record hits were Dillon Gee and Willie Harris, though Willie made up for it with his defense (more on that later). For the first time this year, I was actually a little bit impressed with the Mets. They actually played well and closed out a game for once. Even though they should have scored a few more runs with all the hits they got, they scored enough to win. Also to note is that of the Mets 15 hits, 13 of them were singles and the other two were doubles. Interestingly enough, they did this without Jose Reyes and Jason Bay in the lineup.

Carlos Beltran, who went 2-4

Now on to the pitching. Dillon Gee was pretty excellent tonight, giving up 3 runs (2 on a home run in the second inning), 5 hits, no walks, and 8 strikeouts. The strikeout/walk ratio there was key to his great performance, and 5 base runners in 7 innings is good as well. The Mets bullpen finished off the game with Izzy and K-Rod pitching scoreless innings. For the Pirates, Charlie Morton was good enough. He pitched 6 innings and gave up 3 runs (only 1 earned) and did not walk a batter, though he gave up 11 hits. The problem for the Pirates was the bullpen. It gave up 4 runs to the Mets in 3 innings and Daniel McCutchen got the loss.

K-Rod

It is time for the Shea Experience and the jokes from the game. I will start at the beginning.

• As we arrived at Shea, we noticed the Chevrolet shirt give-away located outside the stadium. We had arrived early to see batting practice because we were bored out of our minds at home. We filled out a form and got a free Mets shirt. I love ripping people off like that. I wonder how many people will actually buy a Chevrolet after visiting that booth and not just doing it for the shirt. Raphi decided to put his shirt in his Mets Tote Bag from Saturday. It was still covered in peanuts and it covered the shirt in peanut grossness. More on peanuts later. Raphi, I still have your shirt, by the way.
• Because we were so early, we decided to go to the Mets box office and ask about tickets for the Ecuador-Greece soccer match at Citi Field on June 7th. We ended up buying tickets and we will be in attendance. We are looking forward to it. Also, we will be sitting in section 401!!! If you do not know about this, I think that this will be all you need to learn about it.
• When we arrived to batting practice, the Pirates were practicing. The mets practiced before we arrived so we did not get the chance to observe them. The Pirates were extremely boring, so after watching a while in the first row, we went up to sit in the shade. The Pirates hit very few home runs during batting practice. No wonder they are so bad. See pictures below:

Pirates Batting Practice

Pirates Batting Practice

• Raphi got Shea Fries for dinner. As he went to the ketchup stand to put ketchup on his fries, he pushed on the ketchup knob too hard and squirted ketchup all over the Mets employee standing by the stand. Luckily, she did not get mad but she definitely could of. Raphi was embarrassed and I thought it was very funny.
• Today was Memorial Day. To open the game, planes flew over the stadium after the national anthem and they were extremely loud and annoying. See video below. Also, Memorial Day baseball is kind of a joke. People make too big a deal about it. People came here to see baseball (if you consider Mets-Pirates baseball) not honor soldiers. Just play ball!

• We tried to Gadzuric our peanuts in Raphi’s Tote Bag again tonight, but we were less successful because of the people in front of us. Still, here are the peanut pictures:

Peanuts in our Tote Bag with Peanut Bag and All Star Ballots

Peanuts in our Tote Bag with Peanut Bag and All Star Ballots

Peanuts in our Tote Bag with Peanut Bag and All Star Ballots

• Just a note from the game, the cleanup (4th place) hitters tonight were second baseman Neil Walker for the Pirates and Daniel Murphy for the Mets. All I can say about that is ew. No wonder these teams are so bad.
• We noticed while looking at the scoreboard tonight that Pittsburgh shortstop Ronny Cedeno may have braces. I checked on the internet for it and found nothing, but I have my suspicions. We’re on to you, Ronny.
• The bottom of the second inning tonight might be the worst inning of baseball I had ever seen. The badness started with runners on second and third and Jason Pridie at the plate. Pridie strikes out on a normal pitch, but the ball goes past the catcher. I have no idea why he didn’t catch it. Pridie was safe at first and a run scored. But that was not all. The next batter, Ruben Tejada swung and hit the ball about 5 feet. A run scored from third and Ruben was safe at first. Then, with Dillon Gee at the plate, there was a wild pitch and the runners went to second and third. Gee then missed a bunt and ended up striking out. It was truly a terrible inning.
• Do you know those annoying guys who walk down the aisles at sporting events trying to sell memorabilia? Well tonight, we witnessed a very honest vendor. He was selling foam fingers and baseball pennants on sticks. While he was walking by, he was saying, and I quote, “Get your overpriced items here!”. What a great and honest guy. People still ended up buying from him.
• In between innings the Mets have something called “Mets Phrase Game” which is a little like hangman. Tonight, the clue they gave was something like “a holiday celebrated in America for our soldiers”. Hmmm… I wonder what that can be on Memorial Day. The guy playing the game obviously won.
• The singers singing “God Bless America” in the 7th inning stretch were awful to say the least. See pictures below:

Memorial Day Baseball!

Awful 7th Inning Stretch Singers

• Despite going 0-5 from the plate, Willie Harris had a few great defensive plays. See his best play from ESPN’s Web Gems below. It was number 2 tonight.

• Both teams tonight wore Memorial Day hats. The Pirates’ hats were especially bad, as they were red. They were really disgusting. The Mets’ hats were better but not great. See pictures of this as well as other pictures of the game below.

Justin Turner

Carmelo the Ball Boy

Murph in Action, Dillon "Alonzo" Gee on the Mound

Lyle Overbay

Garrett Jones

Pirates Outfield

Murphy and Tejada

Pirates Garrett Jones

K-Rod and Willie Harris

Andrew McCutchen on First

Andrew McCutchen on First

Lyle Overbay

• Before the Pirates batted in the 9th inning, we stealthily sneaked our way from close to the right field foul pole to behind the Mets dugout. We did this so that we can get a better view and also see the Mets players exit after the game was over. When the players left, they were happy that they won. When this happens, once in a while a player throws something of his into the crowd. Tonight, Angel Pagan was happy because he had just made a great catch in the 9th inning that didn’t save the game, but it did preserve the win. I was in the second row of people behind the dugout so I did not think that I would have a chance at catching Angel’s hat as he was throwing it. I was wrong. I leaped into the air (yes, it was this dramatic) and got my fingers on it. I tugged it away from 5 other hands and brought it low where I ripped it away from one last person. It was mine. I took it away with authority just like Dan Gadzuric would. It was basically the same thing as GadZoom dunking over Kwame Brown, the other people in the stands being Kwame Brown. Yes, I am declaring myself Dan Gadzuric. This is among the coolest things that I have gotten at sporting events, along with Jason Kidd’s armband with a #5 on it and Cliff Robinson’s shoes. It was kind of sweaty and gross, but I washed it when I got home. It was a great moment for me and KHH fans everywhere. See pictures below:

Angel Pagan's Hat

Angel Pagan, #16

Our next KHH event will be either Wednesday, Thursday, or both when the Mets host the Pirates again. The Mets do not return home again after that until the day before I go to camp, so we will be off from Mets action for a while. However, we will be returning to the Citi on June 7th to see Ecuador and Greece in a soccer game and we might also see some Red Bulls action one of the next two weekends. Until next time, so long.

Mets-Nets Comparisons: Outfield

Fernando Martinez and Terrence Williams.

Both of these players are young and talented, but they have yet to harness their talent and turn it into production. Midway through the season, T-Will got into a fight with Coach Avery and was traded. I can imagine a similar thing possibly happening with F-Mart, especially because he doesn’t really seem to have a place in the Mets’ lineup.

Fernando Martinez and Terrence Williams

Carlos Beltran and Devin Harris.

Beltran and Devin are both pretty talented players, but they haven’t been able to turn that talent into wins. Devin was traded in part of the D-Will trade and a Beltran trade also may be imminent. They are both aging (Beltran more than Devin) but still have a few good years left in them. In Beltran’s younger days, he was quick like Devin and got quite a few stolen bases, just as Devin is averaging 1.2 steals a game in his career. I’m sure that Carlos wants to be traded to a contender ASAP.

Carlos Beltran and Devin Harris

Jason Bay and Travis Outlaw.

This was a very easy choice for me. These were two terrible signings. I guess the Bay deal made a little more sense, only because he was good in his days as a Pirate (if that’s even possible) and contributed a few good years to the Red Sox as well. However, giving Outlaw $35 million just because he was the 6th man for Portland? That’s ridiculous. Since both players were signed, they have not performed up to expectations and fans of both teams are mad at them for sucking. We shall see if Bay will be able to turn his season around.

Jason Bay and Travis Outlaw

Scott Hairston and Joe Smith.

Both these players are random journeymen, with Smith playing for a shocking 12 teams and Hairston playing for 4. Joe Smith was traded almost immediately after the start of the season and the Nets could not regret making that move. Hairston currently has 1 home run (which we saw) and 5 RBI’s and doesn’t appear to be going anywhere this year. Smith averaged 0.5 points (yikes!) for the Nets and Lakers last season. The Mets probably regret signing Hairston and will try to make him a throw-in in some trade involving Beltran or Reyes.

Joe Smith and Scott Hairston

Angel Pagan and Sundiata Gaines.

These two players have the potential of being solid bench players, but injuries have really slowed them down. Pagan has only played more than 100 games in a season once in his six-year career and Gaines only played 10 games for the Nets before a season-ending injury. Hopefully, Gaines will be the backup to Jordan Farmar (the backup point guard) next year and also play some 2 guard and hopefully he will not take advantage of the Nets giving him a two-year contract and become lazy. Mets fans hope that Pagan will return at some point this year and not just sit on his ass after colliding with another Met in the outfield. Both these players might just turn into bums because of their injuries.

Sundiata Gaines and Angel Pagan

Jason Pridie and Damion James.

This was also a pretty easy comparison. Both these players are rookies and have massive beards (especially Pridie). And they both also sort of suck (Pridie does, we’re still not sure about Damion). Damion missed most of the year with various injuries and only played 25 games. It seemed like whenever he finally came back from an injury, he just got injured again. The injury bug has not hit Pridie yet, but I’m sure it will. My guess is that he will try to stretch a single into a double and pull a hamstring within the next two weeks. Hopefully Damion will have a better sophmore season and avoid all the injuries. Maybe he will even replace Travis in the starting lineup!

Damion James and Jason Pridie

Willie Harris and Quinton Ross.

These players are both journeymen and they both suck. Quinton had his famous “defensive specialist” role removed half way through the season when he was cut from the roster, thank god. Willie is currently batting .203 and that is sure to drop some more. The reason I chose this comparison was because of the way the teams acquired these players. Neither team actually wanted to get the players. The only reason the Nets got Ross was because they wanted to get rid of Yi (thank god, I could not stand one more minute of him). The only reason the Mets got Harris was because he was a “Mets Killer” while on the Braves and Nationals. Whenever the Mets were facing him up 1 in the ninth inning, he would hit a home run and the Mets would lose. Because of this, the Mets thought that they would have to get him to assure that he would not sign with the Phillies and torture them even more. They should have just let him go to the American League and forgot about him instead of signing him. And the Nets should have cut Q long before they eventually did.

Quinton Ross and Willie Harris

Yankees-Mets Recap

As Raphi put it, this was our first baseball surprise of the year and it was not predictable at all. The Mets won 2-1 in the Bronx to improve to a somewhat respectable 3-5 when we have attended their games and more importantly for them, 22-22 on the year. That is surprising enough. The Yankees fell to 1-1 in front of the KHH bloggers and 23-20 overall. After we saw R.A. Dickey lose at home to the Rockies, Astros, and Giants, he was able to win on the road at Yankee Stadium. Do you get what I mean by unpredictable? Freddy Garcia pitched well, but still got hit with the loss. There were plenty more surprises from this game but I will start from the beginning.

The first surprise of the night was that Raphi was less than 20 minutes late. This gave us enough time to go buy pizza before arriving at the Stadium. I had 2 slices and Raphi had 0, probably a very wise choice. As we were walking to the Stadium, we passed someone selling bags of peanuts on the street. There was one that was salted for $3 and one that was unsalted for $2. The cheaper one was also the much bigger one, so we thought, why not? and bought the unsalted peanuts and took them into the stadium with us. I don’t like to start eating them until at least the end of the first inning, especially because I had just eaten 2 slices of pizza, but we started eating them at 7:25, just as the 2nd inning was beginning. Before long, we had realized what we had just gotten ourselves into. This bag was ginormous, much bigger than any other peanut bag that we had had prior (and some of those were too big to handle). By the time we were a third of the way done, I was already completely sick of them and wanted to throw the rest away, but I could not disrespect the peanuts like that. We had to finish them. During the 7th inning stretch, I looked down at the peanuts and thought that I was finally almost done. The problem was that I felt that way until the top of the 9th inning when we finally finished them. We had been eating them nonstop and we only finished them at 9:45. We had been constantly eating them the whole game and it took us almost two and a half hours to finish them. Raphi deserves a lot of credit for finishing the peanuts, but I deserve to be in the Hall of Fame of peanut eaters for my performance tonight. Here are some pictures to give you an idea of how many peanuts we ate:

Full Bag of Peanuts

Empty Bag of Peanuts

Ripped Peanuts

What a Catastrophe

So Gross

Even though we ate all those peanuts, there was still more food that we ate. As I mentioned before, I ate 2 slices of pizza before the game. Raphi also bought a hot dog midway through the game to get the peanut taste out of his mouth. He should enter a Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating contest. He can compete against Mark Sanchez (it was against the Raiders, by the way).

Also from Mark Sanchez (we need some football in this blog):

Once the game started and I had already eaten many of the peanuts, my mouth longed for something other than the peanuty badness. I decided to go search for a drink. The first drink I saw that didn’t have a huge line and wasn’t water was a lemonade stand. I didn’t really want this, but I had no other options. And it looked bad too. It looked like they just put a lemon in a cup of water. But I was very wrong. It was delicious; maybe the best lemonade I had ever drank. It was so good that Raphi also got one later. Here’s a picture of our almost finished lemonades:

Delicious Lemonades

We have calculated that we must have eaten about 3,500 calories combined tonight. That is 1,750 each, almost the amount that you are supposed to have for a day in 4 hours. When I got home I looked at my stomach in the mirror and it looked bigger than it was before, I’m not lying. And I feel like I have to throw up. Enough about food; on to the game.

The Mets lineup was pretty gross tonight. The 5-9 hitters were Fernando Martinez (also the DH, what a joke), Justin Turner, Josh Thole, Jason Pridie, and Ruben Tejada. How that team beats the Yankees, I have no idea. Justin Turner had a bunt single in his first at-bat and had 3 hits in the game. He also broke a Mets record for the most consecutive games with an RBI for a rookie with 6. Wow, Justin Turner now holds a Mets record. Another surprise was that the only run the Yankees scored the whole game came on a Mark Teixeira first row home run in the third inning. Their offense was pretty disgusting to say the least. Yet another surprise: the Mets bullpen was shockingly good. If you remember my article from a few days ago, Mike O’Connor pitched a great 7th inning and Izzy and K-Rod shut the door for the Yankees. However, Joba and David Robertson pitched well out of the Yankees’ pen.

After attending this game, I feel the need to rant at Mets fans. First, I want to take you back to a few days ago on Wednesday. There must have been less than 1,000 people at Shea to watch the Mets take on the Nationals, and the fans that were there were very unspirited. There was not much cheering. Heck, I was able to distract Gorzy to make a terrible pick off throw. Now fast forward to today. There were probably at least 10,000 Mets fans at Yankee Stadium. And most of them didn’t honestly care about the Mets. They just want the Yankees to lose. They want to prove to all the Yankees fans that their team is bad because they lost to the lowly Mets. They don’t even think that their own team is good. They only want to annoy Yankees fans. They know that their team has no chance at the playoffs, so they might as well try to ruin the Yankees’ chance. That is all. Now it’s time for a few more pictures:

Random Fernando Martinez Stat

Yankees

The Field

Our Seats

K-Rod

In other baseball news, after the Nationals were blanked 2 nights in a row against the Mets, they scored 17 tonight against the Orioles. Typical. Blue Jays pitcher Jo-Jo Reyes pitched 7 innings and had a 2-0 lead, but the bullpen could not hang on and the Blue Jays still lost. Of note is that Jo-Jo Reyes has not gotten a win in 26 straight starts. That’s 26. Reyes is 5-18 for his career in 45 starts and his last win came on June 13, 2008 against you guessed it, the Mets (just kidding, the Angels, but I wish it was the Mets). Did you think that Jason Giambi’s power streak was just good for one game? Well it wasn’t. The Giambino went yard again tonight in Milwaukee. Keep it going big fella!

Classic Mets Injury

According to the NY Post, Mets outfielder Angel Pagan was put on the 15 Day DL after colliding with 2B Justin Turner while catching a routine fly ball during the second game of the Mets – Astros series. Jonah and I were there to witness the catastrophe first hand. The injury is to his left oblique muscle. There is no timetable on Pagan’s return. Gone for the season? I expect so.

Pagan claims that the injury came on a swing one inning after the collision, but I am doubtful.

A Jason Pridie was recalled from Triple-A Buffalo to replace Pagan. Typical.