Subway Series Greets New Yankee Stadium

Welcome to the first Subway Series at the House That Ruth Cursed. The Mets get their first shot at the newly built Yankee Stadium, but, sadly, it’s without Carlos Delgado.

The left field situation with the place has been very favorable to lefty pull hitters like Delgado. Given the stadium, I can’t see any reason Mets lefties shouldn’t start in all three games, Church and Murphy especially. I think Schneider should get at least two of the starts, and you probably want to give Fernando Martinez a shot at his first major league home run.

On the flip side, you want to be careful how you pitch to batters here. Certain batters are getting home runs on check swings, so caution is tantamount. I have more faith in the Mets’ pitchers than the Yankees’, so hopefully all will go well—even if Fernando (that’s Fernando number three if you were counting) Nieve will be pitching in the series.

Imagine how Babe Ruth’s ghost feels watching the Yankees knock down his house, and then building a place where he could probably hit a home run while sitting down. There is only one major league stadium still standing where Ruth played a major league game, so it’s no surprise the Red Sox have been successful lately. I’ve been wondering if the Mets will have more wins at Fenway Park this year than the Yankees. It seems likely.

The Yankees have been better lately, Red Sox series aside. Are they a better team? I don’t think so. Their pitching is suspect. Pettitte has had poor second halves as he wears down, Burnett is doing is Pavano imitation, Wang has still not returned to what he was before the injury, and Joba has been merely average. They’ve reinforced their bullpen with starting prospects, but it still reminds me a bit of the 2008 Mets bullpen, and we all know how that turned out. Hopefully they can play a solid series and get out of there with at least two out of three.