For Want of an Outfielder...

As bad as the Mets looked against the Cards, there are a few reasons to look forward to the rest of the season. This feeling was reaffirmed after a close look at the differences between our locals and the best team in baseball right now, the Tampa Bay Rays.

Say "Rays" and most baseball people in the know will think "pitching", as Mike Lowell of the Red Sox did the other day when asked if he thought the Rays will be around for the entire season. The Rays' ace, Scott Kazmir, is now 7-3 with a 2.28 ERA . Their number 2 is hard-luck James Shields, just 6-5 but with a 3.70 ERA and one hell of a right cross. Three, four and five are named Garza, Jackson and Sonnanstine and have combined for a 19-13 record with an ERA around 4.00. Just those 5 guys have fanned 342 batters.

Say "Mets" and most people will think "mistakes", but their response earlier in the season, at the very start, would have been "pitching". And Johan Santana has been great halfway through with a 3.01 ERA but just a 7-7 record. Number 2 starter Oliver Perez, despite his ups and downs, is 6-5 but with a relatively high 4.98 ERA. Starters 3, 4 and 5 are currently listed as Martinez, Maine and Pelfrey. Their combined record is 15-14 and, if Pedro's currently anomalous 7.12 ERA isn't included, Maine and Pelfrey are just a bit above a 4.00 ERA. And those five have struck out 328 batters.

The Mets compare favorably to the Rays on the relief front as well. Billy Wagner has an ERA under 2.00 while saving 18. Troy Percival has one more save but sports an ERA of 3.54. The Mets main setup guy, if they can be said to have one, is Duaner Sanchez. His ERA is just 3.89 thus far. The Rays main setup guy has been J.P Howell, who sports a more respectable 3.00 ERA. The Rays other relievers, Wheeler, Glover, Hammel, Miller and Balfour don't outshine the Mets group, statistically at least.

Despite Aaron Heilman's problems, for example, his ERA is just 4.68. I would have expected a much higher number. But Mr Heilman has apparently thrown a lot of good innings too. I must admit to not recollecting those quite as well. In any event, the Mets have a nice mix of relievers, with lefties Feliciano and Schoenweiss and some quality in Joe Smith. All in all, the Mets relief staff outshines that of the Rays.

So the Mets staff compares pretty favorably as a whole with that of the Rays, on an overall basis, at the very least. So why are the Rays sporting the best record in baseball while the Mets wallow in the muck and mire of the NL East?

It's the outfield. The Mets have only two real live major-league outfielders. I'm referring to Carlos Beltran and Ryan Church of course. Most teams have three, never mind the Rays. Endy Chavez is a defensive specialist. He's batting .248 but has just 6 rbi's. That's ridiculous. Marlon Anderson is batting .196 with almost no production of any kind. There's hope for Fernando Tatis who, after all, can boast of a .283 BA but his production has tailed off lately. And then of course there's Moises Alou, the Carl Pavano of outfielders.

The Rays not only have three genuine outfielders, they're pretty good ones, among the best in the American League. Carl Crawford, BJ Upton and the tandem of Gross and Hinske, sometimes supplemented by Jhonny Gomes have scored 177 runs and driven in 166. Although Metsies Beltran and Church have combined for 93 runs scored and 89 ribbies, Chavez, Anderson, Alou and Tatis have combined for just 35 runs scored and 32 runs batted in.

The Mets picked up Trot Nixon, nice move but he's on the DL already. The Mets still need another outfielder desperately, one who can produce runs, not just a warm body opposing pitchers can target as a second pitcher in the lineup. The situation wouldn't be so critical, maybe, if the Mets were stronger at second and behind the plate. But they're not. The Mets lineup can definitely be worked, quite easily.

The Mets infielders compare favorably to the Rays from a production standpoint, Longoria vs Wright, and certainly Reyes vs the Rays shortstop Bartlett. At second base, Castillo's stats are about even with those of Iwamura and at first base, Delgado surprisingly has better numbers than does Tampa's Carlos Pena.

The Mets infield defense has been pretty bad though. Third baseman Wright's FPCT is just .942. Longoria's is .975. Shortstop Reyes is at .966, Bartlett at .972. At second, Castillo has a FPCT of .980 while his counterpart on the Rays, Iwamura, sports an incredible .997. Delgado's FPCT isn't really that bad at .988 but Pena's is ten points higher.

<>So, it comes down to picking up an outfielder, a real live outfielder who can produce and who is not named Alou. Or Caspar the friendly ghost. Not a defensive guy who’ll cringe with runners on base, or a retread from another decade. I’m talking about a man (or woman) who could legitimately expect to vie for a starting position on a major league club.

And the infield defense needs to pick it up, beginning with Wright. There is reason to believe that they will. Wright’s current .942 is 12 points lower than his numbers for the last two years. Reyes’s .966 is 16 points lower than his .982 from last year.

<>As for Delgado and Castillo, Manager Jerry Manuel has already outlined a plan to substitute Tatis for Delgado as a defensive replacement late in close games. That change should alleviate the lack of range shown by both men on the right side.

It seems relatively simple. The Mets need to make a trade for an outfielder. Maybe they could use one of those good relievers as bait. Come on, Omar, make a few calls

Hope Springs Eternal

Maybe the Giants really started something that Super Bowl Sunday in February. Those incredible men in blue and their nasty defensive linemen, and most heartening of all, a host of new guys to lay low the "greatest team of all time" Patriots, guys making their bones, if you will.

I'll never forget Steve Smith, a big name at USC but new to the NFL, finding still another hole in a Pats zone and dancing down the sideline to make sure his team got that critical first down. That was immediately preceding that beautiful Eli floater to a wide-open Plaxico versus another ill-fated Belichick blitz.

But Smith certainly wasn't the only new face to shake the halls of the great this past football year. There was a seventh round draft choice named Ahmad Bradshaw who dragged a huge Pats defensive lineman for a few more yards that day, and a big kid from East Orange who did his best to see if Tom Brady's navel could touch his spine. And what about that huge tight end out of Western Oregon, of all places, getting open and deftly turning upfield for a 45-yard gain.

Yes, there were six rookies who made that Giants team , all of whom made their presence felt in the playoffs, and even that wasn’t the end of it. Those G-Men also made some key pickups outside of the draft, most notably a fullback named Hedgecock and a kick-returner named Hixon, whose efforts couldn’t be missed in that run of runs.

And we had a new and totally unlikely Super Bowl Champion.

Of course, none of that had been expected. And if it had been expected, it couldn’t have been so incredible of course, all of which brings me around to some new heroes on the baseball diamonds of the Major Leagues, and the hard courts of the NBA, still other new faces or names you never heard to shake the countenances of the powerful.

Looking at today’s standings in the American League this morning, I see Baltimore and Tampa Bay leading the American League East, the Rays having just swept the World Series Champion Red Sox. Their winning streak couldn’t have been accomplished without Evan Longoria, fresh out of the minors. He hits for average and power, plays a nifty third base, and can steal a base if there’s a need. But he joins a team that already had developed B.J. Upton and the hard-throwing right-hander James Shields.

In the AL Central, the “Pale Hose”, those Chicago White Sox are surprising the Indians and in the West, those Billy Bean Oakland A’s are tied for first with the Angels. The White Sox are doing it with re-treads who seem to have re-discovered their games, names like Crede and Pierzynski. The A’s are doing it with guys like pitcher Dana Eveland, a 25-year old southpaw, and still another over-achieving re-tread named Emil Brown. Emil presently leads the A’s with 25 rbi’s, a figure that is second only to still another new face, Josh Hamilton of the Texas Rangers.

On the senior circuit, the National League, the Florida Marlins lead the East, 1 ½ games over the Mets and Phillies. Hanley Ramirez is once again tearing it up with 8 home runs, 22 runs scored and 18 rbi’s from the LEADOFF position. He also sports 8 stolen bases, and despite having shown this fearsome production for over two years now, he is still not exactly a household name. The Fish also can boast of Josh Willingham, a former Met batting .341 and two pitchers doing very well, Mark Hendrickson with 4 wins already and Scott Olsen, who leads the team in ERA at 2.06.

In the NL Central, there are the Cubbies, finally, in first place with a 16-9 record. And, although old names such as Derrek Lee and Carlos Zambrano are leading the team in batting and pitching, they wouldn’t be there without Kerry Wood and Carlos Marmol finishing games for them.

While Wood had been a household name as a starter before his injury, his closer role is new and one he seems quite comfortable filling. Marmol sets him up and, in only his second year, mystifies batters with his combination of heat and breaking balls, not unlike the more ballyhooed Joba Chamberlain of the Yankees.

In the West, the Diamondbacks of Arizona lead the way, and, although some “woulda thunk it”, what with pitchers like Brandon Webb, Dan Haren and Randy Johnson, who really expected a fella named Micah Owings to start out 4-0 with 28 strikeout’s and only 9 walks. And only the baseball-savvy could’ve foreseen still another Upton named Justin to sport a .323 BA along with five dingers.

In NBA basketball, how good was it to watch a kid like Josh Smith tear up the mighty Celtics twice in a row? Smith was a human wrecking ball, with 28 points and 7 blocks in their latest game. The 6’9” 235 pound Smith seems unstoppable in closing out his fourth year in the league. In Saturday night’s Hawks win, he was even more dominating, hitting 11-17 from the field while grabbing 9 rebounds, dishing off 6 assists and pilfering the ball twice.

Meanwhile, seasoned but unheralded veteran Joe Johnson, originally drafted by the Celtics back in 2001, grabbed the spotlight last night. Joe hit for 35 points, going 14-24. The Celtics seem to be reeling after their two relatively easy wins in Beantown and will undoubtedly welcome a return to their home court after suffering two rather decisive beatings in Atlanta.

In every sport, the beat goes on. We watch the great either hang on or tumble, but it’s always intriguing, and most of us root for that new blood to have their day. And yet, if the veterans still hold sway, we recognize and appreciate their dominance, be it either in teamwork or defense, pitching or long home runs. It’s the good fight that’s appreciated.

<>As I gaze out my window, I see the snow has stopped falling. Ah yes, hope springs eternal.<>