NY's NL This Week

By jrhippe

Shawn Green, welcome to New York.

The Mets added the 33-year-old right fielder on Tuesday to fill in the void left from an earlier trade that sent Xavier Nady to Pittsburgh. The trade with Diamondbacks involved minor league pitcher Evan MacLane going to the desert.

So far, Green has fit in very well, batting sixth behind David Wright.

In his debut game with New York, wearing number 20, he drove in a run and earned a walk in a Mets win on Thursday to help them sweep St. Louis. Then against Philadelphia on Saturday he had two hits including a double, two RBI and scored a run. Today Green had another double driving in another run.

Not only is his offence an asset, but his defensive experience is what will matter most down the final stretch of the regular season and then into October. It's a significant improvement of rookie Lastings Millege's defence -- who has since been assigned back to Triple-A Norfolk.

The Mets received the news early in the week that pitcher Tom Glavine would not miss significant time with a suspected blood clot in his pitching shoulder. No surgery will be required, so he will only miss about 10 days or two starts. He is expected to be good to pitch on Friday in Houston.

For what sounded like a huge blow to their postseason chances turned into much ado about nothing in about 48 hours.

And with the addition of Green, the nine wins in ten games, it's been a good week.

BASE HITS
- Both Carlos reached milestones in homeruns this week. On Tuesday against St. Louis, Delgado hit his 400th HR of his career and on Saturday versus the Phillies, Beltran smacked his 200th. That's impressive.

- Game of the year candidate: Cardinals at Mets on August 22nd. In a slugfest showdown of MVP candidates Carlos Beltran and Albert Pujols, who drove home all seven STL runs, was actually upstaged by Beltran on the last swing of the game. A two run walkoff shot to right in the bottom of the ninth won the game for the Mets. Just an Amazin' evening in Queens. Check out all of NYM's walkoff hits this season, including Beltran's most recent, with this video.

- Shawn Green and Carlos Delgado are good friends. I remember when they came up through the Blue Jays' system together in the 1990s and there was talk back then of them being what Wright/Reyes is with the Mets now, but of course at the time the Jays could only afford to hold on to Delgado's salary. John Delcos notes that Delgado was in Green's wedding party a couple years ago and their lockers are together again. Good stuff.

- For the first time this season the Mets were ranked first in ESPN.com's baseball power rankings, based on their 6-0 week and just one spot ahead of the Yankees. So with both of New York's team at the top of the list, there was of course talk of a potential Subway Series again this year. But as long as Alex Rodriguez in on the Yankees, I can't see them making the World Series.

ON DECK
- Road trip! Six games in fact where the Mets are off to the Mile High City for a three game set against the Rockies. These two just hooked up last week with New York taking all three games.

- The Mets celebrated their 1986 team last week and lots of footage of their NLCS series against Houston was shown. Well they won't be playing these games in the Astrodome, but it will be a challenge against the defending NL champion. A great pitching match-up for Friday with Glavine going against Andy Pettitte.

NY's NL This Week is a regular feature here at YankeesSuck.com, appearing on Mondays.

Questions, comments, conundrums, concerns? email: jrhippe@canada.com

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