Results tagged “alleiter”

Gothamist has seen Al Leiter play on many occasions. The worst performance that we might have witnessed though was when he joined Bruce Springsteen on stage at a performance at Shea Stadium. It was fitting then that before his final appearance on the pitcher's mound he warmed up to a song by The Boss. At Legends Field in Tampa yesterday, Leiter called it a career after 22 seasons in the Majors. Leiter started his career with the Yankees before playing parts of seven seasons with the Blue Jays and two seasons with the Marlins. After a championship season with Florida in 1997, including a no-hitter for the team, Leiter returned to New York for a stint with the Mets. While with the Mets, Leiter had 10-plus wins for each of his seven seasons, with his best year in 1997 as he was 17-6, had a 2.47 ERA and 174 strikeouts. Last season was less than memorable as he started it with the Marlins before being traded back to the Yankees.

In a stunner, the United States actually lost a game in pool play during the World Baseball Classic. Yesterday, they lost to their friendly neighbors to the north, 8-6. If you're thinking to yourselves, "Canada? Who the hell do they have?" Gothamist can say that we're right there with you. The "big" names on Team Canada include: Erik Bedard, Paul Quantrill, Chris Reitsma, Corey Koskie, Jason Bay, and Matt Stairs. Canada all but conceded the game when they shuffled their starting rotation, so the win is even bigger a shock. But with the WBC essentially an extremely competitive Spring Training, anything can happen.

Major League Baseball announced the 60-man US World Baseball Classic roster yesterday with several players on the Mets and Yankees named as possible team members. The US list includes Johnny Damon, Derek Jeter, Al Leiter, and Alex Rodriguez. The Mets have Paul Lo Duca, Billy Wagner and David Wright on the US players listed. While the 60-person list is a list of players that can play in the tournament, the eventual roster must be trimmed to 30 players the day before tournament play.

Baseball has a wacky transaction system. Yesterday the Yankees offered Bernie Williams arbitration, but only because they knew he would decline it. Why the apparent waste of time? Because without the offer, the Yankees would have lost negotiating rights to Bernie and if Bernie had accepted he would have been in line for a salary near ten million dollars for 2006. So, the Yankees and Bernie have until January 8th to make a deal. Even if they do, Bernie won’t be back as a starter and a certain, hairy, centerfielder may take his place.

It was a season of lows and highs from an 11-19 start to 95 wins and a playoff spot the Yankees gave their fans a story with many twists and turns in 2005. There was the emergence of Robinson Cano and Chien-Ming Wang and the painful decline of Bernie Williams. In the end, the Yankees couldn’t keep the momentum they had built in September going and fell to the Angels in five games.

The Yankees used timely hitting and solid pitching to beat the Angels 3-2 Sunday night knotting their series at two games apiece. The decisive Game Five will be played tonight at 8pm.

As far as their lineup goes, Joe Torre moved Jason Giambi into the fifth spot just in time. He added two more home runs in Monday's win, just a day after he hit two against Kansas City in New York. Few lineups have a more fearsome middle than the Yankees', and that includes the Boston Red Sox. The rivals are nearly mirror images of each other, setting the stage for a September race that will be decided by which milks more out of their pitching staff while letting its blistering offense do the work.

He walked off the Yankee Stadium mound on April 23rd with an injured shoulder and a 9.15ERA. At the time, most Yankees’ fans weren’t sorry to see him go. Fast-forward four months later and fans are glad Jaret Wright is back. Monday night he shut down the Blue Jays for seven innings leading the Yankees to a 7-0 victory.

The Yankees may be taking this idea of developing their farm system a little too seriously. Forced to start Tim Redding and Darrell May in the past week, the Yankees turned to prospect, Al Leiter, to pitch Sunday night. Since leaving the Yankees sixteen years ago, Leiter had won 148 games and three World Series. Sunday night he stymied the Red Sox leading the Yankees to a 5-3 victory while striking out a season-high eight.

Did you get shut out of the "secret" Beck show? Don't be sad, we did too, but there is plenty more to do this weekend. The weather will be nice, and at least your taxes are done, right. Right?

Last season, Leiter was 10-8 with a 3.21 ERA, 10th best in the National League. Leiter was a class act with roots in the community and Gothamist will miss him, despite his lack of rhythm or skills in playing the tambourine (we saw him on stage at a Springstein concert).

The offer, if accepted, would be the first splash for GM Omar Minaya (we're not counting the Kris Benson signing), who has dabbled in trading for Sammy Sosa and trading Mike Piazza. Is this the right move for the Mets? Martinez, who would surely hear more "Who's your daddy?" chants or shirts, has signs that his abilities may be on the decline - he lost 5 mph off his fast ball last season. If he signs with the Mets, Martinez will become the rotation's ace, joining Kris Benson, Tom Glavine, Victor Zambrano and Steve Trachsel. Al Leiter, a mainstay of the Mets is unlikely to return in 2005 and may sign with the Yankees.

Anna Benson, pictured above and featured in this month's FHM Magazine is thought to like New York, as it affords her more opportunities to act and model. Always frank about the couple's sex life, Anna told FHM that she and Kris have yet to have sex at Shea Stadium. She also says that he hasn't worn her panties like Tim Robbins did in Bull Durham.

And in a move to please the crowds in Atlanta, the Mets dropped another game to the Braves. The 6-3 loss gave Bobby Cox his 2000th career win. He is the 9th manager to reach that mark and joins Tony LaRussa as the only other active manager on the list. The Mets lost two of the three games in the series and return home to face the Expos.

On Sunday, Al Leiter faced Cubs ace Kerry Wood with Leiter getting some help from the offense early. The Mets picked up three runs in the first inning off Wood, who was less than steady. Leiter pitched six strong innings of two hit ball, giving up two runs in the fourth inning, which could have been worse. With bases loaded, Leiter got a called third strike against Moises Alou that ended the inning, allowing the Mets to go on and win, 3-2 (box score).

Last night, the Mets faced Livan Hernandez and managed only six hits. One of those hits was Mike Piazza's 20th home run of the season and was the Mets only run as they went on to lose 6-1 (box score). Al Leiter picked up his fourth loss in a row and his 8th of the season.

In almost two years with the Mets, Howe is 129-177, which when compared to the record of their crosstown rivals (193-115), looks mighty paltry. Obviously, the two teams aren't close in talent, but with a payroll at just under $100 million, one would hope they Mets would be a better team. There is no way that the blame falls completely on Howe, who had a team with potential this season, but was decimated with injuries throughout the season. Then again, winning teams can deal with diversity, the Mets have not.

Leiter pitched six innings allowing three runs on six hits, but picked up a no decision. Heath Bell, pithing in only his second Major League game gave up three runs after the Mets took the lead in the bottom of the sixth inning.

Monday's game featured a virtual explosion in offense from the Mets, as they scored 4 runs, but still went on to lose 9-4. Tuesday, they were stymied by the pitching of David Wells, scratching out one run in the 9th inning of a 3-1 loss. Last night, they were shut out 4-0 (box score) by Brian Lawrence, who had a complete game. Newsday reports that the Mets only had one runner in scoring position after the 3rd inning. Now that's anemic.

At least the Mets can say they were swept by the best team in baseball over the weekend. In yesterday's 6-2 loss (box score), there was little that went the right way of the Metropolitans. Kazuo Matsui experienced back spasms that might send him to the DL, David Wright played poorly in the field, and Vance Wilson left the game after being hit in the head with a bat. But wait, there's more. The Mets are now a whopping 11 games out of first and they can say they are in a race for last place in the NL East. After all, they are only 8 games in front of the last place Expos.

The Mets offense had a banner day yesterday. Mike Cameron hit two home runs and Eric Valent hit for the cycle in the 10-1 victory for the Mets (box score). With the victory, the Mets "earned" a split with the last place Montreal Expos.

"I thought the ball was in the alley," Mets Manager Art Howe said.

Continue reading "Cameron Saves the Day"

After 87 games, the Mets are at 44-43, barely over .500, but in a position few expected. They are in fourth place (that was expected), but are only 2 games out of first place in the NL East. Sure, their division isn't playing that well, but with the Phillies, Braves, Marlins and Mets all in the hunt for the pennant, it looks like the rest of the season will be exciting.

With a chance to go into the break on a positive note, the Mets fell to the Marlins yesterday, 5-2 (box score). In the 93° Florida heat, Al Leiter only pitched three innings but threw 88 pitches in the outing. The number was a result of several long battles with hitters. The Times reports that Leiter went through "two 12-pitch at-bats, two nine-pitch at-bats and one eight-pitch at-bat" all in a six batter stretch.

In last night's game against the Phillies, Hidalgo batted in the clean-up slot for the Mets for the first time. Before the game, Cliff Floyd went to Art Howe to ask for a change in the line-up. The line-up card was already posted, but Floyd reasoned with Howe who agreed to switch Hidalgo and Floyd in the batting order. Floyd was only hitting .207 against lefthanders and Randy Wolf was the lefty pitcher slated to start for Philadelphia. Hidalgo went 2-5 with 2 RBI and a run scored. His home run streak ended, but his nine game hitting streak is still alive. During those nine games .471 with 7 home runs and 11 runs batted in.

Al Leiter started the game and had another great outing. Since returning from the disabled list on June 1st, Leiter is 3-0 with a 1.70 ERA. His ERA of 2.12 is 2/3 of an inning short of qualifying him for the Major League lead. Instead, the best ERA in the majors belongs to teammate Tom Glavine, who picked up the tough-luck loss yesterday.

Saturday's victory came on a virtual offensive explosion by the Mets. In the fourth inning, the Mets had 6 runs, a season high, and had thoughts of a possible series victory in The Bronx. Mets Catcher, Jason Phillips said, "It's Yankee Stadium, it's the Yankees, and we were 0-6 against them last year. This is the first time I ever beat them. I can finally say I did it. Now let's go do it again." Unfortunately for the Mets, the Yankees turned the tables on Sunday.

Derek Jeter sums up the Series succinctly, "Yes, it's great for the city. No, it's not like it was during (the World Series) in 2000. No, it's not that much different than any other game. Does that cover it?" As much as Gothamist loves the games, we're also kind of tired of them. It's not much of a rivalry if one team is getting smoked every year, if the teams aren't fighting against each other for anything, if the players view the games as ordinary, or if the players are all chummy. While both fans on both sides may hate each other, these games have little meaning in the AL and NL East.

Al Leiter pitched 5 2/3 shutout innings in yesterday's game to improve to 2-2. Despite his record, Leiter has been pitching exceptionally well. In nine starts, his ERA is a miniscule 1.98, but with little run support, his record does not reflect his pitching. Lucky for Leiter, the Mets' bats came thorough yesterday. Mike Piazza's two-run double and and Karim Garcia's RBI single in the first inning gave the Mets all the runs they would need. Piazza also hit his third home run in two days in the fifth inning to add to the run tally.

- Jason Phillips suffered a brain cramp when he began trotting to first as if he'd drawn a walk - in reality, it was only 3-2 in the count.