02-25-2002, 06:51 PM
Peter Gammons...
"The Mets are fun. There are the Mike Piazza imitations of Walt Hriniak, pretty good since Piazza has never met Hriniak (he learned the routine from Robin Ventura). There is Leiter, everywhere. But what's good about the veterans on this team is they care so much about winning, as evidenced by Leiter taking Shawn Estes under his arm on the first day of camp to try and instill the confidence to make Estes a 16-18 game winner.
This should be a good team. Roger Cedeno can get on base, and Piazza, Vaughn, Edgardo Alfonzo and Jeromy Burnitz are more thunder than they've had in a long time, much less last season when they were dead last in the majors in runs scored. In his first full day of camp, Vaughn was still at the park, working, at 5:30 p.m. Jay Payton spent the winter working on a program to strengthen his hamstrings, and also worked with Mike Lum on his swing.
The questions with the Mets revolve around their pitching staff. But the early indicators are good -- Estes' adoption by Leiter, Pedro Astacio throwing well, Jeff D'Amico throwing with the same arm angle he had in 2000, when he was 12-7, 2.66. "It's very early and a lot of things do happen," says manager Bobby Valentine. "But there's nothing wrong with getting off to a good start."
"The Mets are fun. There are the Mike Piazza imitations of Walt Hriniak, pretty good since Piazza has never met Hriniak (he learned the routine from Robin Ventura). There is Leiter, everywhere. But what's good about the veterans on this team is they care so much about winning, as evidenced by Leiter taking Shawn Estes under his arm on the first day of camp to try and instill the confidence to make Estes a 16-18 game winner.
This should be a good team. Roger Cedeno can get on base, and Piazza, Vaughn, Edgardo Alfonzo and Jeromy Burnitz are more thunder than they've had in a long time, much less last season when they were dead last in the majors in runs scored. In his first full day of camp, Vaughn was still at the park, working, at 5:30 p.m. Jay Payton spent the winter working on a program to strengthen his hamstrings, and also worked with Mike Lum on his swing.
The questions with the Mets revolve around their pitching staff. But the early indicators are good -- Estes' adoption by Leiter, Pedro Astacio throwing well, Jeff D'Amico throwing with the same arm angle he had in 2000, when he was 12-7, 2.66. "It's very early and a lot of things do happen," says manager Bobby Valentine. "But there's nothing wrong with getting off to a good start."
![[Image: 723475742_8cb2b0be6c.jpg]](http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1019/723475742_8cb2b0be6c.jpg)