Tuesday, April 20, 1999
Mets happy to be moving on to Reds
Enquirer news services
NEW YORK — The New York Mets will be in Cincinnati tonight, seeing new places and new faces after spending the first two weeks of the season dancing with the Florida Marlins and Montreal Expos.
“I'm glad we're through with these two teams,” manager Bobby Valentine said Sunday after his club wrapped its first homestand with an 8-5 mark. “They're as sick of seeing us as we are of seeing them.”
The Mets played more than those 13 regular-season games against the other two. They saw the Expos in eight exhibitions in Florida, and faced the Marlins in four more.
“It's been a while playing those two teams,” Mets first baseman John Olerud said. “We really got to know the Marlins and the Expos pretty well. I think we're all pretty happy it's over.”
Last year, the Mets were 11-13 against Florida and Montreal, including the two losses to the Expos that started the season-ending slide out of the playoffs.
“They both gave us trouble last year,” Olerud said, “so it was good to play well against them.”
The Mets, whose salary scale dwarfs the $35 million combined payroll of those two clubs, wanted to get off to a quick start to justify the spending spree that brought back Mike Piazza and Al Leiter and brought in Robin Ventura, Bobby Bonilla and Rickey Henderson.
The Mets' start looks better when you consider injuries that have taken Piazza, Henderson and Rick Reed out of the lineup.
“You don't know how many times I heard it this winter,” Valentine said. “"You guys have to get off to a good start.'”
But it's hard to tell how good their start is against two of the NL's small-money teams.
“They're big-league teams, just like we are,” Mets center fielder Brian McRae said.
“You don't get two wins for beating the Braves and Dodgers and just one for Florida and Montreal. It all counts the same.
“When we play well, we're a good team,” he said. “We're a good team, no matter who we're playing.”
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