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Jason Bay collides with his former team! John Lackey gets his first look at the club that spurned him this offseason! Jerry Manual says, "That's gangsta!"

Mike Pelfrey gets the start today at Tradition Field, followed by Pedro Feliciano, Tobi Stoner, Ryota Igarashi, Bobby Livingston, Elmer Dessens, and Travis Blackley.

If you're at the game, send a photo of the view from your seat to amazinavenue@gmail.com and maybe we'll put it on the site.

Today's game can be seen on SNY and MLB.tv.

Further test results to determine the extent of Jose Reyes’s hyperthyroidism confirm that his levels are still too high for physical activity, according to a release by the Mets.

Doctors have told him to rest and make changes to his diet. These steps, along with medication, should allow his thyroid levels to return to a normal level. At that time, Reyes will be able to resume baseball activities. When this might happen is uncertain.

With any luck, they’ll be able to stabilize Reyes before the start of the regular season. However, even if he does return to normal soon, he’ll still have to get back into shape to be able to play every day.

It’s another setback for someone who just wants to play baseball again. It’s got to be really frustrating, especially when it’s completely out of your control. You have to feel bad for the guy. Get well soon, Jose.

I’m getting a kick out of these..they are fun without being jerky.

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“The Mets’ first goal is to win games at the MLB level, and if the staff decides that Mejia is decidedly better than the final guys competing for bullpen spots like Kiko Calero and Clint Everts, then Mejia should break camp with the team,” Hyde tells SNY’s Ted Berg.

Mike Pelfrey will pitch for Mets Andy McCullough/The Star-Ledger http://connect.nj.com/user/amccullo/index.html

Jon Heyman of SI.com believes the Red Sox and RHP Josh Beckett are making progress in talks about a contract extension.

According to Heyman, ‘The deal may take a few weeks to finalize, but baseball people believe it will get done.”

…from what i can gather, though he could probably get more on the open market at the end of this season, beckett might end up accepting a deal similar to John Lackey’s, so long as he has a ton of guarentees…

…i keep hearing the Mets would make a big move to get beckett, should he hit the open market next off season… but, if what heyman is saying is true, they may never get the chance…

The 29–year-old Beckett is 49–23 with a 3.71 ERA in his last 90 starts, during which he has thrown six complete games, and struck out 565 batters in 587 innings.

He won a World Series with the Marlins in 2003, and with the Red Sox in 2007.

Here are two more images of 2010 promotional items.  How about that scarf!  It is lacking in one of the Mets traditional colors (black).  How dare they issue something that is blue and orange?!

It looks cool.  I’m not nuts about the casino logo but that’s the price you pay, and I wish it were longer – but it’s overall cool.  Looks like you could play Where’s Wally with it.

As for the ski cap?  Not so awesome.

Mets Scarf Mets-Nationals April 10

SKI CAP: Mets-Braves April 23rd

Thanks to Walter for sending over.   Shannon@metspolice.com

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Barton Silverman / NY TimesThe two men overseeing the Mets' direction do not have control over their own long-term future with the team. This is not going to be the eleventy-billionth article about why Omar Minaya and Jerry Manuel are... Matthew Artus http://connect.nj.com/user/martus/index.html

When it comes to undeniable signs that winter is over, some people care about that groundhog, other people look for crocuses poking their heads out of dirt, and yet other people care about Easter eggs. Not this girl. Nooooo.

This beautiful, beautiful sight—which greeted me this morning on the Manhattan-bound side of the Vernon-Jackson 7 stop—is my idea of a definitive sign that winter is over and spring is right around the corner:

I will leave it to the native Spanish speakers to correct me on this, but I do believe the message is, essentially, “You gotta believe.”

I will need to see all of the creative before I can do a thorough assessment of its effectiveness (or lack thereof) but this example bodes well for the rest of the campaign.

...he’s still just 19 years old… he’s a big kid, though… i watched him closely in Spring Training… it looked to me like he just needs to get more comfortable with his body, and with what he’s capable of… i talked with people in the organization about him, and they’re still very bullish on pena, who needs to keep maturing, working and developing his game… i still think they see him as a potential star, but he has a lot of work to do…

metsgrrl.com posted a photo:

Meet the Mets

The Braves beat the Mets in 10 innings yesterday as Jesus Sucre hit a walkoff home run/single. What you should know: Chris Carter continues to make a strong push for Mike Jacobs' spot with another home run; Carter is now named the "Animal"; the Braves' celebration continues to show the double standard applied to the Mets' antics.

It looks like the Jose Reyes deal has died down, but Joe Posnanski raises a bunch of good points about what we've learned.

Patrick Flood makes an excellent point about Jenrry Mejia's inevitable call-up: it's purely so that Manuel and Minaya can keep their jobs.

Do you remember Jeff Duncan? That brings back some really bad memories.

The A's promptly released Jay Marshall.

Around MLB

Jerry Thornton created a little firestorm with this column which would not have even been published by my high school newspaper. Ted Berg does what Ted Berg does.

Another guy named Jerry, Jerry Brewer says that Jack Zduriencik's strength is in knowing people. 

More controversy: Torii Hunter calls Black Latinos "impostors."

Mike Schmidt on Letterman a long time ago.

John Sickels offers his advice on what to do with Stephen Strasburg and Aroldis Chapman.

Do home runs win games?

Oh man, do you think the Twins would want newly minted reliever Jenrry Mejia for Joe Mauer? They'd be idiotic if they did.

...in the most recent edition, Eric Simon explains why Chris Carter, Ike Davis, Anderson Hernandez and Mike Jacobs all increased their chances of late to make the Opening Day roster...

Yesterday, in a loss to the Braves at Disney World, Mets 1B Chris Carter hit a home run in his first at bat, following two ninth-inning home runs the game before.

Carter had two hits yesterday, and is batting .625 in eight at bats with eight RBI.

…like i said yesterday, i still believe that final bench spot is a competition between Mike Jacobs and Frank Catalanotto, with carter destine to be in Triple-A… i still get the feeling the Mets could look to trade Gary Matthews Jr., if he performs well and if Angel Pagan doesn’t get hurt… and so, who knows, maybe there will eventually be an opening for another bench spot… i do like that Jerry Manuel calls him ‘the Animal,’ though…

…jacobs is a one dimensional player, and the idea of needing a ‘power bat for the bench’ is a myth and rarely necessary, as if there is some sort of plug-n-play quota for situations and types of hitters… instead, i’d rather have a hitter with a short swing, who can draw a walk and who is versatile, hitting both lefties and righties, and playing a few positions, on the bench… carter and catalanotto fit this description, jacobs does not…

For more on Carter, including info on his other nicknames, read Marty Noble on MLB.com.

One of the things I liked about Fake New Yankee Stadium last year were the pretty colored flags on top of the stadium.   If only the Mets could do something like that…

…oh wait, we had that at Shea for all the years I was there and there were 30+ of those years.

It’s a minor point, and I’m not anti-American flag, but why can’t we have both?

Speaking of flags…this is interesting from the archives, in this article from 1961 how about this quote from someone named Tom Meany who is listed as a “baseball author”:

…put up flagstaffs for 24 pennants.  That’s how many the Dodgers and Giants won….we claim them all.

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The Mets will play the Red Sox today at 1 pm in Tradition Field.

The game will air live on SNY.

Here is today’s batting order:

1. CF Angel Pagan
2. 2B Luis Castillo
3. 3B David Wright
4. 1B Mike Jacobs
5. LF Jason Bay
6. DH Frank Catalanotto
7. RF Jeff Francoeur
8. SD Alex Cora
9. C Chris Coste

Here is the Red Sox batting order:

1. SS Marco Scutaro
2. 2B Dustin Pedroia
3. C Victor Martinez
4. DH David Ortiz
5. RF JD Drew
6. CF Mike Cameron
7. LF Jeremy Hermida
3B Jed Lowrie
1B Lars Anderson

John Lackey will start for the Red Sox.

Mike Pelfrey will start for the Mets, followed in relief by Pedro Feliciano, Tobi Stoner, Travis Blackley, Ryota Igarashi, Elmer Dessens and Bobby Livingston.

…this most recent one with Jose Reyes, and his thyroid, i don’t know, it just seems like everyone jumped the gun… what concerns me is, a) given Carlos Beltran’s initial reaction to his knee situation, and reyes’s reaction to this, and how these things play out in the media, will this make the team unappealing to other players going forward, and b) when will reyes be back in uniform and playing in games for the Mets… frankly, at this point, that’s all i care about… where is jose… and when will he be back… the buzz from the team suggests it will not be long… Opening day is not treatened… great… then, get him back on the field soon…

It would be nice if every now and then the Mets and their players could get their stories straight. Actually, in this case, the Mets are really not at fault, it just would behoove them to be on the same page as their injured players.

I don’t know if you saw the SI article about floating realignment:

One example of floating realignment, according to one insider, would work this way: Cleveland, which is rebuilding with a reduced payroll, could opt to leave the AL Central to play in the AL East. The Indians would benefit from an unbalanced schedule that would give them a total of 18 lucrative home dates against the Yankees and Red Sox instead of their current eight. A small or mid-market contender, such as Tampa Bay or Baltimore, could move to the AL Central to get a better crack at postseason play instead of continually fighting against the mega-payrolls of New York and Boston.

Obviously that’s a terrible idea.

Here are my choices for re-alignment, in order:

1.  Leave it alone

2.  Go back to two leagues.  No playoffs, no wild cards, no DH, the Cubs play day games and the Giants move back to Manhattan.   Obviously everyone but me hates this idea.

3.   Re-align to goose the rivalries and maximize the fun.  Years ago my fantasy football league got so big that I proposed such a scheme.  I enjoyed playing Pat more than playing Scott who I didn’t really know.  Instead of picking the schedule out of a hat, we made divisions based upon who hung out together – you played YOUR buddies, not your buddy’s friends.  Now we apply that to baseball.

“Patrick Division” (for those of you of a certain age you know what it means and yes I know Boston wasn’t in it.)

• Mets
• Yankees
• Red Sox
• Phillies
• Toronto

Toronto unfortunately has to go somewhere, and it’s not fair to keep the O’s and strand the Nats.   Mets fans can come to hate Boston and Yankees fans can learn to hate Philly.  Nice easy road-trips for 4 of the fanbases, and like I said Toronto has to go somewhere.

Incredibly Obvious Pacific Division

• Los Angeles of Los Angeles
• Los Angeles of Anaheim
• San Diego
• San Francisco
• Oakland

Is there anything to argue about here?  No.  It’s perfect.

The southwest division:

• Texas
• Houston
• Colorado
• Phoenix
• Seattle: sorry but who told you to be so far north?

This one is a little messy for the Mariners but the two Texas teams together makes sense, as do Colorado and Arizona geographically.  In 25 years the San Anotonio Mariners will love it.

The central division:

• White Sox
• Cubs
• Brewers
• Cardinals
• Royals

Not bad, right?  The Chicago fans hate each other, everyone hates a team associated with Bud Selig, the Cubs still get to hate on the Cardinals, and the Royals get dragged into some Missouri rivalry I may be making up.

The coal division

• Indians
• Reds
• Pirates
• Twins
• Tigers

The Twins are already with Detroit and Cleveland now so you can’t nitpick that.   The Reds and Indians both play in Ohio.  I can throw a frisbee from Pittsburgh to Cleveland and there’s no jumbo market in this division. Go ahead someone and win it.

Southeast division

• Braves
• Miami
• Tampa
• Baltimore
• Washington

I don’t care about any of these teams and they sort of all play down there somewhere.

That’s it.  I’m done.  You know how many tweaks I had to make?  None.  It’s just obvious if you lay it out. Believe me, I killed lots and lots of time in college classes re-aligning sports leagues.  This plan is a winner.

Schedule:

Play 18 games against your 4 division rivals = 72 games

9 games against two other divisions.  Each years these rotate, like the NFL.  = 90 games.

Total = 162 games.   All of Barry Bonds records still stand.

I will leave it to someone else to name the leagues/conferences/divisions/whatever.

Unfortunately all teams will have the DH.  That battle has been lost from here to Japan.

On twitter yesterday (@metspolice) some fans thought the Mets’ division was too tough.  What do you think of the plan?  Again my first choice is leave it alone.

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Mets RHP Kelvim Escobar is still working to rehab his shoulder.

…the word in St. Lucie is he will not start throwing again towards the end of next week…

However, in the New York Times, David Waldstein explains why Escobar could also end up retiring.

Speaking of the bullpen…

According to Adam Rubin in the Daily News, Jerry Manuel will start using Jenrry Mejia in small stints, to gauge whether he should be added to the major-league bullpen; instead of stetching him out in advance of being a starting pitcher in Double-A this season.

“For me, when you are that dominant, you hope as you progress that you continue to see that consistency,” Manuel said yesterday.  “What he has to do is prove he can throw consistent strikes.  If he can do that, you’ve got somebody fighting for him.”

Rubin believes, if the Mets keep Mejia for Opening Day, Bobby Parnell or Sean Green could end up either in Triple-A or traded to another team.

…this is what i am afraid of… the Mets have so many pitchers in camp competing for the bullpen, from parnell to green to mejia to Ryota Igarashi and Kiko Calero to Hisanori Takahashi and Fernando Nieve, and Nelson Figueroa, who hasn’t allowed a run this spring, and maybe escobar, maybe Eric Niesen, maybe Elmer Dessens, not to mention they might still sign a guy like Joe Beimel… i mean, where are all of these people going to fit in, and how many will they end up losing through waivers, should they sign someone else to a major-league deal and also keep a rookie with options, like mejia…