Easter weekend trip memories

After watching the Mets get blown out by the Phillies for the second night in a row, I can’t help it… my mind is starting to wander.

Not far enough, perhaps, because the thought that’s coming to mind is that I saw a couple of these guys play in person during an Easter weekend trip to see the Norfolk Tides play the Scranton Wilkes-Barre Red Barons.

Mets OF Lastings Milledge went 1-for-8 (a double) with a run scored and several shaky plays in the field (though no charged errors) in the two games I saw.

Phillies IF Danny Sandoval went 2-for-6 (a single and a double) with an RBI before leaving the second game with a tweaked hamstring.

Also on the Norfolk Tides roster was LHP Pedro Feliciano (who pitched tonight, but not in either of the games I saw in Pennsylvania.)

Several other players I saw then have played for their respective major league affiliates this season.

Mets RHP Bartolome Fortunato pitched two scoreless innings with three strikeouts to earn the win on Good Friday, while RHP Heath Bell struggled through two innings (allowing one run on three hits) to earn the save. (I didn’t get any decent pictures of either pitcher… in April, it was too dark by the time the game started to have any chance at it.)

On Saturday, RHP John Maine had the misfortune of taking the loss, despite allowing only one run on four hits over six innings.

LHP Royce Ring threw one unimpressive inning in relief, allowing one run on two hits.

Also on the roster were future Met RHPs Jose Lima and Jeremi Gonzalez.

Meanwhile, I got to see several players who would wear Phillies red this season:

C/1B Chris Coste went 0-for-6 with a run scored.

OF Chris Roberson went 1-for-8 (a double) with a run scored.

C Carlos Ruiz went 2-for-5 (a single and a double) with a run scored.

The moral? Don’t take any one (or two) game(s) all that seriously. The only players I’ve mentioned that really impressed me were Maine (a success, so far) and Fortunato (out for the season with an injury, and not all that impressive at the major league level this year.)

Milledge looked lost in the field (I was left wondering if it was the first time he’d ever played on artificial turf) and somewhat overmatched at the plate, but so far, he’s getting by in the majors and he’s got a bright future ahead of him.

(inserted primarily so I could play with Windows Live Writer’s map tool)

tags: baseball, Norfolk+Tides, Scranton+Wilkes-Barre+Red+Barons, New+York+Mets, Philadelphia+Phillies, Scranton, Moosic, John+Maine, Lastings+Milledge, Easter, vacation