Rx for the Pedro blues

Feeling better today? A 13-0 win will do that for you.

Is it too soon to say that the Mets are definitely improved in right-field both offensively and defensively? Wayne Hagin made a good comment after Church's throw to nail Ramirez in the 1st about how he has always felt that a good defensive play can lift a team even more than a big hit. Sure worked out that way last night after all the doom & gloom thanks to the Pedro news. Later Church hit the first HR of the year for the Mets. He's hitting lefties - a good omen.

Howie returned to a theme he mentioned frequently last year when he talked about how fragile Perez can be. Rose commented that Perez gave up "20 unearned runs in 2007 and that's not all bad luck … watch his body language … disparity between unearned and earned runs tells you something about his deportment". Good stuff.

There was an interesting exchange between Rose & Hagin on the home run records in the 90's. I was wondering what was going through Hagin's mind when Rose broached the subject after all the difficulty Hagin had after he made a steroids comment about Todd Helton. Nobody mentioned Helton, but Hagin complimented Rose's honesty and added his own comment on the current single season home-run record being the result of added juice.

Obviously, Hagin's still settling in. I'm assuming that he'll get to the point where he stops describing the Mets players as if the listeners don't know more than the basics about them. Every Met fan knows that David Wright likes to hit the ball to right field. Even during Mets Extra Hagin sounds like he's describing the 'other team' when he talks about the Mets.

Funniest moment of the night was when Wayne described Paul Hoover as a 'Jeff Cirrilo type or Nomar' due to all the time he takes outside the box after each pitch. Howie replied "he reminds me of Jimmy Qualls" a typical Howie remark. Had me laughing as Hoover was the guy who's infield single broke-up John Maine's no hitter last September. (I suspect that other than Wayne, every other listener knows exactly who Jimmy Qualls is.)