MLB

Barry Zito has been known as a slow starter throughout his career. Since he came over to San Francisco, fans have come to the conclusion that he's not worth watching until July.

But in 2010, a new mindset and new approach has quickly led him to the front of the pack of National League pitchers. With Brian Wilson's first blown save of the year falling after a brilliant start by fellow fast starter Tim Lincecum, Zito is now first on the team with 4 wins in five starts.

It looks like we have an answer to the question I asked yesterday , at least a temporary one. According to Brian Costa of the Newark Star-Ledger , the Mets will send Daniel Murphy to Triple-A Buffalo once he is healthy enough to return.

Here’s more from Costa:

Dr. James Andrews is a simple man. He lives in Birmingham, Alabama, and you wouldn't expect him to be worldly renowned.

But he is very famous. Andrews, an orthopedic surgeon, is known as one of the best surgeons for knee, shoulder, and elbow injuries.

Buster Olney of ESPN spoke with the agent for Seattle Mariners pitcher Cliff Lee last night about the southpaw’s future plans, and apparently signing a contract extension with the M’s is not in it.

“We’re five months away from free agency,” said Braunecker, “so I think that’s the most likely scenario at this point.”

“We’ve not really had any significant discussions with Seattle. I wouldn’t anticipate a deal [with the Mariners].”

So far the Mets have not been bitten by the injury bug nearly as badly as they were last season, but they are dealing with their share of injuries.

Just about everything went right for the Mets last night as their offense carried them for nine runs and starter Jon Niese was brilliant during a seven inning performance that kept the Mets atop first place.

The Mets jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the second inning when David Wright hit a two-run home run and two batters later Jeff Francoeur hit a solo shot. Rod Barajas hit his first homer of the season to put the Mets up 4-1 in the fifth. The Mets then broke it open with a four-run seventh where they seemingly got contributions from everybody.

According to Jon Heyman of Sports Illustrated, Mets center fielder Carlos Beltran hopes to start running in a week. If this is true, that would mean the Mets are anywhere from five to seven weeks away from their center fielder returning.

Although this certainly could be wishful thinking, since the news is coming from Heyman we know that the source is likely Beltran’s agent Scott Boras. So this should be pretty close to first hand information. Boras has a shady reputation, but there is no real reason to lie or mislead in this instance.

Last night my dad called me and asked me if I wanted to go to the Yankee game with him on Sunday. I told him I had plans for Sunday and asked him why we didn’t just go Saturday (today) instead. I was promptly told, no and reminded that Javier Vazquez is pitching today which meant that he didn’t want to go. “With so many good pitchers on the staff I’d rather wait and go see somebody better,” my dad said.

Despite a sparkling record good for second place in the tough AL East, a number of Yankee hitters are off to poor starts.

Mark Teixeria, Curtis Granderson, Nick Johnson and Alex Rodriguez are all struggling mightily.

So which of the four are likely to turn it around? Advanced statistics can help us with that one. All of this data is available at fangraphs.com or baseball-reference.com

Alex Rodriguez

The line: .250/.337/.440 2 HR's.

Prognosis : Good, but remember, he's getting up there in years.