The Mets and Everything Else

I just can’t focus on baseball anymore. I don’t know what it is. Well, yeah, actually I do. The Mets are playing in the worst stadium in the world out in Puerto Rico against the Marlins and everybody on the team seemed as if they were sleeping.

It’s not just that the Mets lost. It was how they lost. Reyes actually mishandled a ground ball on that awful artificial turf, J. R. Dickey’s knuckler wasn’t knuckling in the high heat and humidity, and, wonder of wonders, Jason Bay actually hit a homer. That was when I was sure I was in the bizarro world.

Anyway, it didn’t feel like a major league game, it didn’t look like a major league game, and it smelled like something very distasteful, except to dogs, who of course will eat anything and usually leave whatever’s left on my lawn.

Two more of these and I’ll begin throwing up.

Truth be told, I’m getting a little concerned. When Santana doesn’t pitch like Santana, there’s every reason to worry. When Angel Pagan isn’t playing, I fret a little more. And the fellow playing second base concerns me a little (Tejada).

But then I remember we’re still not into the break, and, all things considered, if you had told me the Mets would be in contention at the break back in May, I would’ve been thrilled. Those were really the dog days of Gary Matthews and Mike Jacobs, John Maine and Ollie Perez, Reyes batting third, and Omar and Manuel worrying big-time.

Everything they’ve done since those meager times has worked. Ike Davis, Takahashi (who pitches tonight), Jonathan Niese, Reyes back leading off, and all is Wright with the world, heh-heh.

So why worry? Enjoy and try to forget about the soccer for a while.

Watching Japan and Paraguay take it into overtime, or extra time to be exact, I’m thinking it might be more exciting to get on my roof and remove the disgusting wet leaves from behind the chimney. After watching just about every game, or pieces of every game, I’ve come to one conclusion…soccer’s fun to watch if either team has any real strikers.

Otherwise, it’s watching grass grow. As excited as I was to see the U.S. team do so well, they were lucky to score , pouncing on rebounds more often than not. They had teamwork, no doubt, they played hard, but the closest thing they had to a striker, Altidore, just never seemed to get anything done. He could run, he could jump, he could spin, he could do everything but look like a striker.

If he were a wide receiver in football, he’d be Braylon Edwards, a guy who can do all those great athletic things, but catching the ball is not usually one of them.

And soccer needs to take advantage of technology. Either use instant replay on goal chances or get refs who can see, or who don’t cheat. They’re worse than the MLB umps behind the plate if that’s even remotely possible. The officiating in FIFA’s premiere event has been horrendous, costing the U.S. at least two goals and practically eliminating England from the tournament.

Watching the Dodgers play the Yankees the other night, Jonathan Broxton, the great Dodgers closer, got no strike calls on the corners while Mariano Rivera struck a Dodger out on a ball at least a foot outside. It’s disgusting really. The only reason there isn’t more of an outcry is that the baseball season is so long. And they say the calls tend to even out. I say….not always.

At least Wimbledon’s been exciting. I’ve been half watching those matches and it’s nice to have a changing of the guard, which seems to be happening to a large extent, especially on the women’s side. Venus Williams just lost to an unknown with great legs named Pironkova and Clijsters just lost too. And I’m watching now a great match between a Kanepi and Kvitova.

Of course, Serena’s still in there so I’ll be sure to NOT watch the final. Watching her match against Sharapova, it was kind of amusing to see her waste one of her hateful , baleful stares at the umpire for what she perceived as a bad line call, only then to realize that she could challenge if she so desired, which she of course did not. If only she were half as classy as her sister Venus…..

Japan and Paraguay are in a shootout as this is written. I wonder if the umps can screw this up. Paraguay scores on their first attempt. (This is pretty cool). Endo now scores for Japan. Paraguay goes up 2-1…just barely. Japan ties it. So far the shots have been great. Paraguay scores once again as the goalie guesses wrong. Now Japan misses, hitting the bar. Things look bleak for Japan. Paraguay hits again. Japan has to put this next one in and does, right down the middle as he fakes the goalie out. Now Paraguay calmly puts their last shot into the net. Cool finish for sure.

On the LeBron front, the Nets just dumped Xi, thank God, and increased their number under the cap so they can grab two premium free agents. If you think they have any chance of landing LeBron, you’re really an optimist, and really nuts.

I still think King James will wind up in Chicago. And good riddance. I can’t imagine what brand of team basketball would ever be played with a James on the team. I know one thing. Whoever gets him better have a center. If not, they won’t be getting past LA.

But soccer, tennis, basketball and football are only background music, especially prior to the Fourth Of July. I’ll just feel better when the Amazin’s are back in the good ol’ USA and back in a real live major-league stadium, if not the friendly confines of CitiField.

And a nice pick-me-up for the dog days of August would be a big, live-armed pitcher.

Can't Be Distracted from Good Mets Baseball

Just like old times watching Aaron Heilman on the mound for Arizona trying to save it for the DBacks. He walks Jeter, walks Swisher….let’s see, there must be a Yankee he’s willing to pitch to. If he decides to pitch to Teixeira, it could get ugly.

Teixeira goes to 0 and 2. Now a foul ball. He gets Teixeira on a hard ground ball to first but the runners move up. Arod then sac flies Jeter…tie score…blown save… Heilman strikes again. He walks Cano intentionally. Let’s see if he can push the Yanks out of reach totally for an Arizona comeback.

Oh baby! He gets Cervelli to 0 and 2. He might just get out of this with just the blown save. And he does it! He strikes out Cervelli on a hard outside fastball. I’m glad the DBacks have him though. I had enough Heilman for several lifetimes as a Met.

Meanwhile, actually several hours ago, the Mets won again. And R.A. Dickey won again! It looked easy for him too. But Manuel didn’t let him finish it out. He figured K-Rod needed the work, they pointed out from the booth, a booth that actually contained Jerry Seinfeld for a while today. Perfect….Keith, Jerry and Gary Cohen. Nirvana.

But it’s been hard for me to concentrate on baseball at all, what with all the soccer action. (Granderson just hit one out for the Yanks to put them ahead). Watching the Americans squander opportunity after opportunity was driving me to distraction. When Donovan finally kicked in an easy one off a rebound, it was long overdue but no less welcome.

What a finish! It’s great to hear some nice things about this American team after two relatively lackluster performances against England and then Slovenia. But the win yesterday not only got them into the second round, it got them first place in Group C, which gives them Ghana and not Germany. That will probably wind up being big.

I can’t say though that I think Ghana will be any easier than any of the other tough games the Americans have played. On both offense and defense, they seem rather ordinary. They either get lots of lost scoring chances or let in an easy one, or give the crooked officials (I now, that’s way harsh but really) a chance to take the scores away.

But they wound up winning Group C. Pretty amazing, considering England was in the same Group C. Not that I found the Orange particularly good. So maybe the USA is for real, whatever that might wind up meaning. To me, the South Americans look pretty good in this tournament but I suppose we’ll be finding out in good time who’re the real soccer powers in 2010.

Another distraction from baseball for me has been Wimbledon. There’s nothing quite like warm weather and good tennis and white togs on everybody. But today’s action was ridiculous, one match going into a quite ridiculous number of sets in the longest match of all time. And it actually wound up being boring. That’s way too long….go with the tie breaker

Then there’s the drama surrounding LeBron James as to where he’ll be packing his sneakers next year, and almost as much intrigue as to how the NBA Draft will play out, for our local Nets especially. I’m thinking LeBron will wind up with Chicago when all is said and done. He’s from Cleveland, and Chicago’s not that far from home, compared to New York. And things worked out pretty well for Michael Jordan in Chicago.

What a way to make them forget Jordan! Play in the same town, win a few Championships and it’ll be Michael Who? I think Miami will be too hot, New York or New Jersey will be too iffy, and LA will be too slick. It’ll be Chicago.

And as for the Nets, unless Rod Thorn is the best actor in the world, he doesn’t sound sold on any of the players that will be there for his turn at number three. So there’ll be a trade in the Nets future. It’s anybody’s guess who they may be eying. I keep reading about power forwards they might want, and how the top available guys just aren’t optimal.

Maybe new Nets owner Prokhorov will bring in a big Russian, someone along the lines of the gigantic Russian in Rocky III. At least it would be more interesting.

Despite all the background noise though, it would be hard to be totally distracted from the Mets. They’ve been playing great baseball for quite some time now, and, as the core of this team has come on, Reyes and Wright especially, so have the Mets.

Reyes was big again last night, leading off the game with a big triple and then getting stranded but Reyes wasn’t done yet. With two outs in the third, he singled, stole second and scored the game’s first run when Wright delivered a big double. In the 5th, he hit a long homer to right, longer than you’d have thought possible.

Detroit finally managed to get him out in the 7th but by then the game was over. Dickey was rolling and the Tigers were toothless. So it wound up 5-0 at the end of things and the Mets were never threatened. They had achieved another CitiField win, a commonplace event in this remarkable 2010 season.

So Wright and Reyes have been finally fulfilling expectations. Jason Bay, even with his four hits the previous night, still seems too happy to walk in every at-bat, a trait that really isn’t that easy to understand from a guy who’s supposed to drive in runs.

But all’s well for the Mets. Except for the latest muckraking concerning Johan Santana, just about everything’s looking good. I’m hoping Pagan isn’t too seriously hurt after his removal from the game yesterday. Angel Pagan has been amazing.

So good in fact that Mets fans are now hoping Beltran just stays right where he is.

On the Mets and Home Plate Umpires

No hitting at all. Except for Ike, I guess. I’m watching the Mets play the Padres again in the first game of two they’re playing today and it doesn’t look good, once again. These Padres pitchers are really solid, I know, and the Pods do lead their division, but still. They can’t hit either. Snooze.

It’s raining here in beautiful Short Hills but not so much in Flushing Meadows apparently. Ike is at the plate as this is written, facing Gregorson, just one of those nice relievers the Pods send out day after day to befuddle the opposition. And Ike goes down swinging.

But it is what it is. The Mets are fun to watch. They get contributions from a lot of different guys. But they’ll lose their share of games, especially when Wright and Reyes and Jason Bay don’t do too much, which, today at least, is pretty much the story.

Luke Gregorson just struck out the side, Ike, Wright and Frenchie, but at least Wright struck out on a pitch that was about a foot outside. And some people think instant replay shouldn’t be allowed for balls and strikes. Not only shouldn’t there be instant replay but there shouldn’t be any need for an ump calling balls and strikes at all!

Just use the box, the one we see on our TV screens all the time. When the pitch is in the box, it’s a strike. How hard is that? Get rid of those obnoxious umpires who just want to go home anyway. There’s absolutely no need for them. Have a couple of fellows work the bases, including home, and that would be that.

They say pitching is dominating the hitters today. And it’s true. Just have those umps keep calling strikes for balls way out of the zone; just have those lazy umps call strikes on every check swing. If you want the game to come to some semblance of balance again, just get rid of that umpire calling balls and strikes.

I mean, I know it’s traditional and all, but what good are they? There would still be plenty of umpiring jobs available, in every league that couldn’t afford the technology, which basically means every league other than MLB.

There are lots of complaints too about the length of the games. I know there is some time wasted on players arguing with the umpire on called strikes, followed by the irate manager getting thrown out for questioning the ump’s eyesight (and heritage sometimes no doubt). No umpire, no argument. How can you argue with a box?

So let’s recap. Hitting would get better all over the league, games would be shorter, and everybody’d be a lot happier, except for the pitchers, of course, but they’d get over it as every pitcher would suffer equally, and ERA’s would go up one for everybody.

If the technology allowed computerizing the calls on the basepaths, I’d favor that too. That missed call at first base that erased Gallaraga’s perfect game really rankled. I don’t particularly care that the ump cried about it later on, to be perfectly honest. He had to show some contrition. It was right out there for everyone to see. It wasn’t even questionable. It was a horrible call, and one that he stuck vehemently to, before he saw the replay. And everyone saw the replay.

If I’m being harsh on umpires, I’m sorry, but no group deserves it as much as do the major league umpires. They’re arrogant, lazy, usually out of shape and very often too concerned about their impact upon the game, which is significant, I must say, unfortunately. I wouldn’t mind so much if they weren’t so horrible as a group. But they can’t seem to see what everyone else does.

Especially for balls and strikes, MLB should just use the box. It works on line calls in tennis wonderfully. I don’t see why it wouldn’t work for baseball. Anyone who has seen their favorite hitter strike out on a pitch they couldn’t have possibly reached with a fishing pole would have to agree.

Think about it. How ridiculous is it to have everyone just be happy if the umpire is consistent with his strike zone? That means, it’s fine as long as a ball 6 inches outside is called a strike all the time. The same goes for those balls at the ankles or at the shoulder. Why should we continue to put up with it? Just get rid of the whole bunch of them.

The Mets just lost. Cohen tells me the last 22 Mets in a row were retired. Geez, that’s pretty bad hitting. Johan Santana was the victim again. You have to feel for a pitcher who never gets run support. I don’t know what mysterious factor is involved, maybe just the fates or baseball gods, whatever, but some pitchers just have no luck at all.

Baseball would still be exciting without that fat guy behind the plate. There’d be a little less melodrama, of course, but I’m sure the Lou Piniellas of the world would still get thrown out from time to time. There’d be more home runs, higher batting averages, more runs scored and very likely affect negatively only those pitchers who exist solely on locating their pitches, which, to me, is just a euphemism for pitchers who consistently get strike calls on non-strikes, thus driving the batters to distraction.

Pitchers with legitimate stuff would rise to the top of the rankings. The Jamie Moyer 47-year-olds would be phased out. When a pitcher lost his fastball, he’d be in trouble more often than not. Baseball would become a young man’s game again, which is as it should be, except in the American League, of course, which would still carry its forty or so designated hitters.

If a pitch is in the box, you get a white light. If it’s outside the box, you get a red light. There’d be no need for challenges. What’re we waiting for?

Fredi Finishes the Fish!

What a deal! It helps if your opponent’s manager is a grandstanding fool and Florida’s Fredi Gonzalez filled that role admirably yesterday. He conceded the winning run to our Metsies in the bottom of the 8th by not playing his infield in with the winning run on third base. Florida then got the double play but the winning run came trotting in. Thanks very much, Fredi!

Now I know his thinking was that he had the heart of his batting order coming up in the 9th and the Mets Ike Davis was likely to hit the ball hard, but c’mon Fredi, that heart of your batting order would be facing one of the top closers in the National League in the person of K-Rod.

And that 8th inning masterpiece of thinking was actually the second totally inane move Fredi made on the day. Fredi took out his best pitcher, Ricky Nolasco, in the 6th inning and replaced him with virtual nobody Tim Wood, who promptly gave up the hit the Mets needed to score two of those runners.

Nolasco was understandably beside himself. He had given up nothing but cheap singles and a bunt. If anybody on that field was capable of getting the Fish out of that inning, it was that guy standing on the mound, Ricky Nolasco.

But Fredi hadn’t seen enough of Wood in the 6th. So he sent Wood out in the 7th as well. Fredi still hadn’t seen enough of Wood after he walked Davis and gave Barajas a double. So Jeff Francoeur was only too happy to bang one over the fence for a 3-run homer.

Although Wood was only charged with the 3 runs he allowed in the 7th, to me he was responsible for the damage done in the 6th too. Of course it wasn’t all his fault. Fredi bears the responsibility for all of them.

This is the same Fredi Gonzalez who made such a big deal out of Hanley Ramirez’s failure to run hard after a Texas Leaguer popup he missed and then accidentally kicked, this after hurting himself in the previous inning. I know I watched the whole sequence of events and, given the circumstances, Hanley Ramirez deserved a break there. Only a grandstanding manager would have elected to take him out of the game.

Ordinarily, I would never excuse a player who didn’t hustle. But Ramirez had just finished hurting himself, then not only couldn’t catch up with the Texas Leaguer but kicked it as well. You could have made the argument that the whole muffed play was as a result of Ramirez hurting his foot in the inning before.

The brilliant Gonzalez then made Ramirez apologize to the team, thus furthering his embarrassment and deepening his bitterness over the whole affair. Mr. Ramirez doesn’t seem to play hard anymore and I don’t blame him. He’s close to free agency and it’s about 99-1 in my mind that he’ll re-sign with the Marlins. And, for those of you who may not be aware, Hanley Ramirez is one of the five best players in the game today.

Fredi seems to quite enjoy embarrassing his best players. What a management ploy! It’s a good thing Fredi is insulated by the relatively quiet media in the Florida market. If Jerry Manuel or even Girardi had done what Fredi did yesterday, there’d be all kinds of hell to pay.

Gonzalez is a grandstanding manager, much as Joe West was a grandstanding umpire before his official chastisement from the league. If I were a Marlins fan, I’d be screaming for his firing. Instead, he gets kudos for pulling a player who didn’t hustle, no matter the killer circumstances.

Now, maybe the Mets would have won in extra innings anyway, especially the way they’re playing. But Fredi Gonzalez gave them the game. It almost takes all the fun out of the win. Any other manager in the game would have won that game for the Marlins, first by leaving his best pitcher in the game, and second, by playing his infield in.

I congratulate the fine Mets broadcast team, Ron Darling and Gary Cohen, for pointing out the absurdity of both errors. They continue to call them the way they see them.

In my last column, I had pointed out that the “core” Mets were not performing well and provided some revealing statistics to accentuate my point. I was of course referring to Jason Bay, David Wright and Jose Reyes. After Sunday afternoon though, you have to wonder whether this Mets team really has anything you could call a core.

And that could be a good thing. I’d much prefer an even, strong performance from the whole team, which is closer to what we are actually seeing from this Mets team. It’s very often other combinations of players doing it for the Mets these days, either Barajas and Francoeur, or Pagan and Ike Davis, or even Castillo or Cora.

It helps them too, not having a fool for a manager. Although I’ve slammed Manuel for seeing things “far off” while not accepting the obvious, I surely appreciated his presence Sunday afternoon. His call for a “hit and run” with Bay at the plate and Pagan on first base was a master stroke.

Bay sometimes totally mis-manages his at-bats, but when forced to swing at a ball, there’s no better risk to at least make contact with the ball than Jason Bay. Bay did make contact, of course, and stroked a six-hopper through the left side of the infield, moving Pagan, who was running with the pitch, all the way over to third base.

Pagan scored the winning run, of course, on Davis’s double play after Fredi’s decision to play his infielders deep and let the winning run score without a challenge, with just one inning to play and facing arguably the best reliever in the game today.

K-Rod finished the Marlins, of course, but Fredi had actually lost it for them a little earlier.

It's the Core, Stupid!

A day of rest, that’s just what the Mets needed, and that goes for their fans too. I know I surely needed one. That last loss to the Padres was excruciating. One strike away from the win they were, and just little David Eckstine at the plate. Oh well.

I won’t be picking on anybody today, not even Ollie Perez. I’ll try to stay away from Gary Matthews too. The fact is that they’re just a .500 team, one among many it seems in a league that’s showing a lot of parity this year. Once you accept that simple truism, the team is a really interesting one to watch, even when Keith (Hernandez, the 3rd guy in the booth) takes still another day off.

I mean….what other team has every player on it being almost psychotically streaky . Name me one everyday player who shows any consistency. Bay? Certainly not. Reyes? Oh please. Wright? I don’t think so. When Barajas, the catcher, leads the team in rbi’s, that’s pathetic, I’m sorry, even if the total number is pretty high.

Yeah, I guess Castillo and Ike Davis have been consistent, but even as good as they’ve been, their total potential impact just isn’t that great (although Ike has won a few games for them, come to think of it).

Right now, for example, Reyes is hot. Francoeur is hot too but those two are five spots apart in the batting order. Even Reyes doesn’t steal home that often. He may have stolen 2nd and 3rd and induced a balk to get home once or twice, but it’s a 162-game season. They just, as a team, don’t score that many runs(17th), especially when Santana’s on the mound.

A typical batting sequence might have Reyes getting on, Castillo moving him over, Bay striking out and Wright popping up. They just don’t put things together that often. And they don’t get big hits. But when the pitching is good, as very often it has been, the whole team plays a lot better, not at the plate certainly but in every other aspect.

Their core players are just not getting it done, or, I should say, haven’t got it done so far this year.

Bay, for example, is hitting a respectable .295 right now and leads the team in runs scored but his OPS is just .829 while his average career OPS is .892. He’s the type of hitter that hits a lot of long balls that get caught. When they’re not caught, it’ll be a double. He just hasn’t been able to get that ball over the wall this year. I hate to say he’s got “warning track power” but that’s been his story this year.

David Wright is hitting .267. He’s got a marginally better OPS than Bay, and 9 home runs, which is probably better than many fans expected, but he just hasn’t produced as often as you’d expect. If he were better in big spots, the low batting average wouldn’t make as much of a difference, but alas, he’s been the guy who strikes out, the guy who pops up, the guy who makes that final out.

Reyes’s numbers are very revealing. He’s batting a paltry .248. And, even with 30 runs scored, that’s just not enough from a player such as Reyes has been. It surprised me to discover that Reyes’s career average OPS is .764, pretty impressive for a shortstop, but his current OPS is a ridiculously poor .638. That’s 150 points off his average.

That’s the real story of the Mets season thus far. That’s not what you’ll read in the news stories though. You’ll hear about Perez refusing to get sent down and Francoeur fixing his swing, even though he’s always fixing his swing. You’ll see stories about Pelfrey, who has been a great revelation this year, or Takahashi, who has generally been good wherever they’ve put him in the rotation. You’ll see stories about the need for another starter, arguably the biggest Mets story of the year.

But it’s all baloney. The Mets are currently 12th in ERA in both leagues, just two spots down from the Yankees, who can boast of possessing Sabathia and Burnett and Pettitte and Hughes. And that nice ERA number has been achieved despite the woes of John Maine and Oliver Perez, both who have been predictably horrible.

The pitching staff deserves kudos for their resiliency, at the very least. A big reason for that is the fact that the Japanese duo of Takahashi and Igarashi have been great, although Igarashi obviously returned to active duty too soon after his injury. Recently R.A. Dickey, the knuckleballer from the minors, has been great. Niese, before he got hurt, had been a pleasant surprise.

The Mets now have a rotation of Santana, Pelfrey, Niese, Takahashi and Dickey. That’s not too shabby. On the relief side there are K-Rod and Feliciano, and Igarashi, who should return to form soon. Then take your pick of Nieve or Mejia or even Dessens. Valdez has been a disappointment, but, in the grand scheme , it’s been a small thing.

Another huge distraction has been Carlos Beltran’s continued absence from the lineup. But Angel Pagan has done a great job in centerfield. He’s also been pretty damned good at the plate, presently sporting a .784 OPS. I consider him a mini-5-tool-guy. The guy does everything pretty darned well.

So I don’t pay too much attention to the stories. The real problem has been the core, or what’s left of it, after the loss of Beltran and Delgado. I’ll ignore the melodrama surrounding the return of Niese and who’ll get dropped from the roster as a result. It just isn’t that significant. Gee, maybe they’ll drop Matthews, who’s deserved a much worse fate than he has thus far experienced.

Reyes has to keep his recent hot streak going. Bay has to start hitting the ball with authority. Wright has to hit the ball more often.

It’s the core, stupid!