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Bryan Hoch - Scout.com
March 21, 2006 at 8:22am ET
Mets Notebook for March 21: Xavier Nady's name goes a lot deeper than just right field ... Chad Bradford and his ground-ball talents ... Orosco to Carter, re-created ...
Back to the future: Get there early for the April 3 opener at Shea Stadium against the Nationals, and not just to see if Alfonso Soriano agrees to go to left field. The Mets have arranged to have Jesse Orosco throw the ceremonial first pitch to Gary Carter, essentially re-creating the final out of the 1986 World Series.
Asked if the pair will re-create the famous glove toss that followed that pitch, Orosco is quoted by MLB.com's Marty Noble as saying, "We'll have to keep you in suspense." We'd bet that means yes.
It's been said elsewhere, but the obvious wise-crack is that perhaps the Mets should make Orosco's engagement a bit longer than one pitch. They're still trying to figure out if they have that elusive left-handed one-out guy.
A family affair: Xavier Nady is the first Mets player to have his first name, and just the third Major Leaguer (Xavier Hernandez and Xavier Rescigno are the others), but it's hardly a unique name in the Nady household.
The line of Xavier Nadys stretches back six generations and back to France, Ben Shpigel reports in an off-day feature for The New York Times (the Mets enjoyed their lone day of the spring without game action on Monday).
Nady is the second Xavier to play for a New York baseball team, by the way. Hernandez, a right-handed reliever, appeared in 31 games for the 1994 Yankees. Rescigno pitched in 129 games for the Pirates from 1943-45.
From both sides: In the Newark (N.J.) Star-Ledger, Colin Stephenson goes back and forth across the state from Port St. Lucie to Tampa, taking a look at the side-arming additions to the Mets' and Yankees' bullpens.
While the Yankees picked up Mike Myers in large part to neutralize a dangerous left-handed batter like, oh, say, David Ortiz, the Mets are counting on Chad Bradford to provide diversity and deception to their relief corps.
In the article, Mets pitching coach Rick Peterson -- who raved about Bradford during their time together with Oakland -- again brings up Bradford's 4-to-1 ground-ball to fly-ball ratio.
Other plans: If they don't go north with the Mets, left-hander Darren Oliver has indicated he will retire and fellow southpaw Pedro Feliciano could join Bobby Valentine's Chiba Lotte club in Japan, Adam Rubin notes in the New York Daily News.
Coming up: The Mets are back in action Tuesday against the Orioles in Fort Lauderdale, with Victor Zambrano on the mound at 1:05 p.m. ET. It'll be Zambrano's first game action this spring for the Mets, after pitching 2-2/3 innings for Venezuela in the World Baseball Classic.