{"id":887,"date":"2008-03-30T01:39:14","date_gmt":"2008-03-30T01:39:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beta.mbtn.net\/?p=887"},"modified":"2017-04-03T05:46:50","modified_gmt":"2017-04-03T11:46:50","slug":"opening-day-08","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/?p=887","title":{"rendered":"Opening Day &#8217;08"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" src=\"http:\/\/mbtn.net\/images\/joesmith.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"244\" height=\"170\" \/>The Mets submitted their opening day roster Sunday and where some people (like me) expected to see\u00a0<strong>Tatis, Stokes and Hernandez<\/strong>\u00a0they instead saw\u00a0<strong>Clark, Smith and Pelfrey.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s OK with me, particularly after fans digested a triple order of unpleasant news Friday in the snatching of effective-but-subuseful\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/mbtn.net\/player\/gotay-ruben\">Ruben Gotay<\/a>, another seeming cutworthy effort from infuriating suspect\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/mbtn.net\/player\/pelfrey-mike\">Mike Pelfrey<\/a>\u00a0and a news item detailing Fernando Tatis&#8217; being issued team luggage while\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/mbtn.net\/player\/clark-brady\">Brady Clark<\/a>\u00a0twisted in the wind. Clark by the way not only got luggage but a new shirt to pack in it: He&#8217;ll be wearing\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/mbtn.net\/number\/44\">No. 44<\/a>\u00a0when the season begins Monday in Miami. Although Clark had worn 15 in his first go-round with the Mets years back, he&#8217;d been wearing 93 this spring: The highest in camp among those with a prayer of making it.<\/p>\n<p>Smith, whose ineffective spring and option situation made him an interesting choice over the similarly ineffective but less controllable fireballer Brian Stokes, is a surprise roster qualifier for the second straight year. Stokes was designated for assignment: No word where he alights next.<\/p>\n<p>Those moves complete an all-time Met roster that today grows by six fiirst-time arrivals (<a href=\"http:\/\/mbtn.net\/player\/pagen-angel\">Angel Pagan\u00a0<\/a>16,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/mbtn.net\/player\/church-ryan\">Ryan Church<\/a>\u00a019,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/mbtn.net\/player\/schneider-brian\">Brian Schneider<\/a>\u00a023,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/mbtn.net\/player\/casanova-raul\">Raul Casanova\u00a0<\/a>30,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/mbtn.net\/player\/wise-matt\">Matt Wise<\/a>\u00a038 and\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/mbtn.net\/player\/santana-johan\">Johan Santana<\/a>\u00a057), as well as the debut of Clark (44) and\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/mbtn.net\/player\/anderson-marlon\">Marlon Anderson<\/a>\u00a0(9) in new numbers.<a href=\"http:\/\/mbtn.net\/player\/johnson-howard\">Howard Johnson<\/a>\u00a0returns to No. 20 for the coaching staff, along with new arrivals\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/mbtn.net\/player\/racaniello-dave\">Dave Racaniello<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/mbtn.net\/player\/lopez-juan\">Juan Lopez<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/mbtn.net\/player\/alomar-sandy-jr\">Sandy Alomar Jr.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Glad you&#8217;re back too!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Mets submitted their opening day roster Sunday and where some people (like me) expected to see\u00a0Tatis, Stokes and Hernandez\u00a0they instead saw\u00a0Clark, Smith and Pelfrey. That&#8217;s OK with me, particularly after fans digested a triple order of unpleasant news Friday in the snatching of effective-but-subuseful\u00a0Ruben Gotay, another seeming cutworthy effort from infuriating suspect\u00a0Mike Pelfrey\u00a0and a &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/?p=887\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Opening Day &#8217;08&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[703],"class_list":["post-887","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opening-day","tag-opening-day"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=887"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/887\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2720,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/887\/revisions\/2720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}