All That and Chile Miners Too!

It’s getting more difficult to focus. Definitely. There are a lot of things happening worthy of some commentary, that’s for sure, Brett Favre’s, um, sticky situation, the Mets hiring a GM, the Yankees looking a little vulnerable (though the Twins folded nicely, bent, folded and mutilated even). My favorite team (and God only knows why), the Mets, are starting over, hiring a GM who’ll run the show. The football Giants have been looking good lately and the baseball Giants are, like the Yankees, looking vulnerable, for totally different reasons. My adopted team this year, the Texas Rangers (they’re easy to like if you forget about George Bush and who’s more eminently forgettable), finally put away the Rays in a ridiculous series that featured great performances by the “away” team in the home park. Even the Knicks and Nets are beginning to become print-worthy.

I’m so tempted to just come out and say that Brett Favre is a pig, evil incarnate, one hell of a quarterback, if you don’t count all those turnovers. And then, what a surprise, a 41 year old guy has tendinitis! Bummer. The Vikings would be a pretty good team otherwise. But I can’t really come down on him until it’s clear whether he really took a picture of his privates and sent it out as a text message to his latest, um, amour? Anyway, I never liked Favre so anything I said would be just piling on.

As for the Mets, one burning question keeps coming to me. And that is, “Where did it all go wrong, Omar?” We were looking so good for a while back in ’06 and then we folded in ’07 and ’08, and then we really fixed all the problems in ’09 only to have the most ridiculously horrible streak of bad luck and injuries ever to befall a major league club. Things were never the same after that. The Wilpons closed the checkbook after Jason Bay and Oliver Perez. 2010 was a little interesting early before the team just folded up its tent right before the mid-season and right through the mid-term break.

To my mind, Omar is just unlucky. They say you make your own breaks, and there’s some truth to that, but really, he’s got that Mr Mxtplyk (from Superman) hanging over his head. I mean, could anyone have figured Ollie Perez would so utterly fail? Well, maybe. But still, he was Pavano-bad and worse, if just because he kept showing up, like a bad apple, a really rotten one, to the core, as they say. And then there was Jason Bay. If Bay hadn’t run into that wall, he would have been boo-ed out of the stadium when the Mets returned to CitiField. He was that bad.

It was right around then, I figure, that the Wilpons decided not to send good money after bad and let Minaya play out the season with what he already had, which was, sadly, not nearly enough. It’ll be a different GM and manager who reap the benefits of R.A. Dickey and Ike Davis, Josh Thole and that nifty second baseman. And that’s a shame, because there was a lot to like about the Mets before their tailspin. An acquisition then would have made a big difference. But it is what it is, or was what it was, I guess.

Jerry Manuel will be missed for sure. That he couldn’t make a third or fourth place team finish first is no reflection on him. He was funny, wise, ironic, and totally in the game mentally, almost too much at times. But you can’t hold that against him. He won as many games as he lost. And managers do win and lose games for sure, just as much as bad umpires if not more, although that’s hard to imagine. To me, 2010 was the year of the bad umpires, even more than it was the year of pitching.

Omar will be missed too, by me at least. Omar was a very personable guy, and if not for his road-rage-like tirade against a New York reporter, you could say the guy never made a mistake in that respect. Omar’s clubs played exciting ball almost all the time. Too often, that excitement kind of petered out in the really big games. That will ultimately be his legacy but not to this guy. As I said, the man was just unlucky. I’ll look forward to the new administration. I can’t imagine that they’ll be more likeable though than what we had.

The Twins stink in the post-season. ‘Nuff said. That the Yankees beat them means nothing. The Twins never had a post-season game they couldn’t lose. Without getting into cases, the Twins never faced a Yankee they could look in the eye. Every Yankee pitcher and every player in pin-stripes became a superhero. It was disgusting to watch.

But let’s review. There is Sabathia looking a little worn, a Pettite who pitched one good game, a young guy in Hughes who may get rattled in a big one, and a psycho-Burnette who’ll maybe be bad and maybe be good. If pitching wins post-season games, if that’s true, then the Yankees are in big trouble. They might finish off the Rangers, who were a little too happy after their win over the Rays to suit me, but even that’s pretty questionable. The Rangers match up pretty well with the Yankees position for position. They have pitching too, and not just Cliff Lee. C.J. Wilson, Tommy Hunter, Colby Lewis, they’re not too shabby. If you match 1-2-3-4 vs 1-2-3-4, closer vs. closer, setup guy vs. setup guy, the Rangers should be more than competitive.

We’ll see if the Yanks are the best team money can buy. The Phils and Rangers spent some too.

The Giants and Jets…..what can you say? Both teams are playing great football. The Giants do have an offensive line, even without Sean O’Hara. The Jets do have a secondary, even without Darrelle Revis.

All of that and Chilean miners too, life is good.

A Second Baseman for Beltran?

Okay, so the Mets are still stinkin’ up the joint. Santana should’ve pitched a perfect game if he wanted to really win, so he’s got no one to blame but himself. Yeah, it was Pittsburgh and anyone would think somebody on that sorry Mets roster could hit a Pirates pitcher, even a promising one like Zach Duke.

But these are the Mets, featuring Carlos Beltran, who couldn’t be bothered to try to steal second when down a run in that late inning, I forget which, it’s not important. What is important is that he just stayed there. Yeah, I know, you go for the win on the road, yada yada, Jerry goes with the book all the time, and it says you don’t go for the tie on the road.

Screw that! Screw Beltran and screw Manuel and his book. This is supposed to be a team that feels it’s still in the race. This is a team that needs to scratch for runs. But if it’s best player is going to lollygag there on first base when the team desperately needs to score, why should anybody else do anything?

This is one sorry situation. Dump Beltran. I’m tired of this. Somebody’ll take him off our hands. And he’ll play great for them, no doubt, but he won’t play hard for these guys, Minaya and Manuel. And since those two are the management right now, and possibly into the future, let’s start thinking about what kind of player we want in his place.

What do we need? Let’s see….

A relief pitcher would be nice but that’s not the biggest problem right now. Geez, we could use a second baseman, especially if Castillo is going to go away. I’m willing to give Ike Davis another year at first base. I know he’s not absolutely killing the ball but he’s a player and it’s just his first year in the majors. That guy could become a star.

There’s Reyes at short, he’s a keeper as much as he drives everybody crazy. Then there’s sorry-butt Wright who tries to play third most of the time. In the outfield there is Bay, or will be, in left field once he gets his head right, and Pagan could play center and Francoeur, who’s beginning to try to have better at-bats at least, in right field. He’ll do for now.

Thole looks like a keeper at catcher and Blanco can back him up, that’s not optimal but Thole has done some things that show promise, a lot like Mr. Davis on first.

The starting pitching has been amazing, all things considered….Santana, Dickey, Niese, Pelfrey and take your pick, either Takahashi or Misch.

But we need a second baseman. Ruben Tejada is not the answer. Let’s take a look at what’s available. And who might need a centerfielder like Beltran when he’s playing hard, the way he used to when he was a happy camper.

First, let’s eliminate some. Cano, sure, he would ever play for the Mets, then there’s Prado in Atlanta, a hell of a player, and Phillips in Cinci. I don’t think the White Sox would part with Alexei Ramirez either. Polanco in Philly is getting older so might be available but that would be like bringing in another Castillo, only better. I can’t really see the Brewers getting rid of McGehee either, too much power, the same is probably true for Dan Uggla.

There could be some other untouchables too, like Pedroia for example, but consider that we’d be offering up Carlos Beltran.

I know everybody seemed to want Orlando Hudson. Whether Mr. Hudson agrees is my question, and that’s assuming the Twins would part with him. Their centerfielder is Denard Span though, and he’s pretty good, but doesn’t have much power. Beltran would be an upgrade but probably an upgrade not really required. The Twins have Morneau and Mauer already, and Kubel so…….forget Hudson.

Kelly Johnson in Arizona is a very nice player, good hitter, but the DBacks have Chris Young in center. But, looking over in their left field, there is only Gerardo Parra. There’s a possible deal in the making. The DBacks could use an experienced player like Beltran to round out the youth in Young and Justin Upton in right.

The White Sox have an interesting situation with infielders. In addition to Alexei Ramirez, who actually plays short most of the time, they have both Gordon Beckham and a youngster named Brent Lillibridge who has some good numbers in limited at-bats. As streaky as Beckham had been, they might consider a move for a Beltran. Their outfielders are Alex Rios, Carlos Ruiz and Juan Pierre. Juan Pierre especially could probably be replaced. I’d love to get Beckham. But Lillibridge too is an intriguing possibility.

The Rockies have Clint Barmes manning the keystone sack and have a nice guy at third base in Ian Stewart, who can also play second base. Stewart is backed up by Melvin Mora, an experienced hitter. I’d be interested in either Barmes or Stewart. The Rockies need help in the outfield. Seth Smith plays left and Ryan Spilborghs plays right field for them. Neither inspires any fear in opponents.

Stewart’s batting .267 but has belted 17 homers, with a goodly number of runs and rbi’s. Barmes isn’t the hitter Stewart is but plays hard all the time and adds to a lineup, at the very least. Luis Castillo can back him up but he won’t be around forever….or will he?

How about Rickie Weeks from Milwaukee? That would be a coup. The Brewers outfield could definitely use a Carlos Beltran. Although they are solid in left with Ryan Braun, their centerfielder is Lorenzo Cain. Their right fielder is Cory Hart. Maybe Beltran would be just what the Brewers need. Rickie Weeks is batting .274 with runs and rbi’s in the 80’s and 70’s respectively. That would be a pretty even trade, Weeks for Beltran, especially if the Mets picked up some of his salary.

I never thought I'd be happy to see Beltran leaving.

Keeping Manuel Will Be in the Cards (and D-Backs)

Okay, so the Mets stink. It’s not as if they’re not trying. (That makes me feel so much better). It’s just that they have trouble with breaking balls. Okay, sometimes they don’t get around on the hard heater either. But really, sliders, hard curves, splitters, those nasty hideous changeups, they’re enough to drive a team to distraction. And that’s what happened in San Francisco, Cincinnati, Arizona and Los Angeles.

My last column just killed Jason Bay. Shortly thereafter, Bay had the best game of his Mets career. Go figure. But then he reverted to form, more or less. He just doesn’t have any effect on most games. But he ran into the wall for his team in that incredible spectacle that Santana pitched late last week. And Beltran did nothing. Oh, and Wright did nothing.

Reyes made another stupid play in a game the team was supposed to be intent on winning. There are events in a game that just change the momentum. Some days teams deserve to win. Some days they don’t. Reyes sets the tone. Or doesn’t.

So who’s playing well? Obviously, Santana is. Dickey, Niese, Pelfrey….(notice any theme here?), yes! They’re all pitchers! Not only did the Mets lose all those games, they managed to waste all those good pitching performances. Pitchers are fragile and inconsistent, unless their name is Santana, and the good efforts can’t continue for too long.

The Mets have nothing going for them other than pitching and a couple of interesting rookies.

Jerry Manuel, the manager of course, is befuddled. Wouldn’t you be? He’s beleaguered. Omar’s in his corner but nobody’s in Omar’s corner. Omar’s got to deliver this year with the hand that he dealt for himself. That much seems clear. Howard Johnson, the batting coach, is under fire too, or at least could be expected to feel some heat.

It’s a bad team situation too, exactly the situation most Mets fans really feared, that Carlos Beltran’s return would influence team chemistry, which had seemed good and settled with Bay, Francoeur and Pagan. As inconsistent as they were, the fielding was great and they all seemed to contribute to that team feeling.

Then of course, Luis Castillo came back from his injury (which seemed to linger, he still doesn’t walk right). Alex Cora and one of those interesting rookies, Ruben Tejada, had been manning second base pretty adequately before his return.

So it wasn’t just Francoeur who was dislodged from the lineup. It was three of the “guys”.

To compound an already horrible situation, Oliver Perez, perhaps Minaya’s most storied and prominent failure in his Mets career, returned to the club as a reliever and gave up last night’s game-winning home run to James Loney. Ollie’s pitch was up and hittable.

Managing this whole situation required a lot of finesse. Manuel could have played Francoeur a little more or Beltran and Castillo a little less. He could have left Perez on the bench. And there were once again those game situations that could have been managed differently. He obviously zigged when he should have zagged throughout the entire road trip.

Minaya likes Manuel though. He’ll decide whether it’ll do himself any good to get another manager who’ll do better with this group. He’ll be thinking for this year only. There is still a slim chance that his team can come back. They are 7 ½ games out of first in the division and just 6 games from securing a wildcard. He may feel a shakeup is absolutely required for his moribund bunch. There are still 63 games left to play. They are returning home, a place they managed to win 30 out of 46 times throughout this year.

I wouldn’t change managers at this time. Doing that would just be one more shakeup of a team that’s been shaken enough, if not stirred. I would at least wait to see how the team plays in the friendly confines of CitiField, even if the opponents are the always tough Cards and then the D-Backs, who just finished pummeling Minaya’s team in Arizona.

But, as tough as those teams are, the Mets seem to have the advantage at Citi. It’s almost impossible to hit a homer there and that benefits the Mets. It’s a huge place that favors speed and that’s something the Mets have in abundance. Results don’t lie and 30-16 speaks volumes. They can throw a lot of arms at you, Santana and Pelfrey and Niese and Dickey….even Takahashi throws opponents a curve once in a while. Heh-heh.

Unfortunately, the Cards will open up with Wainwright on Tuesday and the pretty remarkable Jaime Garcia on Wednesday. They’ll be facing Niese and Takahashi. Wainwright has given up a few runs to the Mets in previous games but not Garcia, who gave them just one hit over 7 innings. The advantage for the first two games would seem to be with the Cards.

But Johan Santana starts on Thursday and he could be pitching to bring the Mets back to .500 if they lose the first two games. That he faces one Blake Hawksworth can only bode well for our Mets. Friday’s probable starters are Ian Kennedy against Pelfrey, and that game may turn out to be the pivotal game of the Mets future. Can Pelfrey and the Mets overcome Ian Kennedy at home, given Kennedy’s last dominant performance against the Metsies in Arizona, given that they lost that exact same pitching matchup 13-2?

If the Mets can split with the Cards and just take 2 of 3 from the D-Backs, they’ll have the confidence to face the Braves and Phils. If not, I think they’ll be done. If they can’t perform at home, how could they possibly go on the road again to have success against the division-leading Braves and then the Phillies?

Keep Manuel for now.

It'll Be Interesting

Good pitching, no hitting, how many teams have you said that about over all the years of your life? Almost none of them win when it counts. The Mets did everything they could in San Francisco to be that team. That they won the 4th game with the Giants was a gift from the worst umpire in the game.

It sure made for good entertainment. I was mesmerized. Once again the Mets pitched great. Johan Santana made it interesting though, getting into trouble and then pitching his way out. He went a full 8 for our Mets and gave up just 1 run. But the Mets only got 3 and the closer gave one away again.

The closer was, and is, K-Rod of course. But then he got the win for the boys in their ugly gray road uniforms. K-Rod is nothing if not lucky. After the Giants banged him around to tie the game in the ninth, here came the winning run around third, there we saw him cross the plate before the tag, but Mr. Cuzzi didn’t see it that way. He said the runner was out. So the game stayed tied.

Then, wonder of wonders, Jason Bay gets another hit and Ike Davis does what he always does, which is drive home the run. So they take the lead, K-Rod gets in a little trouble again in the tenth but then strikes out the last and worst hitter on the Giants (which is hard to be), and the Mets got off the hook.

The Mets can’t hit good pitching, and that’s what the Giants had. And the team they’re playing on the field isn’t the strongest. Not that it ever really was. Having no Jose Reyes doesn’t help. But the bottom of the lineup doesn’t scare anybody, Francoeur, Blanco and Tejada yesterday, and somebody called Justin Turner batted second. (And managed to score a run).

So if Bay and Wright don’t produce, then there’s Ike Davis and Pagan. Trouble is, of all those guys, Bay has done the least. I’m rooting for him, God knows we need to, and he did get three hits yesterday, but they were Jason Bay type hits, singles and stuff. It’s good that he can run fast. He gets respect from opposing pitchers but that’s all. A lot of times, Bay has looked happy to walk.

But the Giants have good pitching, really good pitching, especially if you can’t get to their middle relief, which the Mets did yesterday only. The rest of the time, it was Zito and Lincecum and Cain, making their very decent number 4 starter, Anibal Sanchez, look puny.

The Mets won’t run into that kind of pitching very often but every team has got some good ones. This west coast swing isn’t easy either, I’m sure, with Arizona and LA on the agenda after having opened the swing in that city by the bay.

But they’ll be facing tougher lineups than they saw in San Francisco. The Dodgers especially can be dangerous, but the Cards, with Pujols and Holliday, come back to CitiField for three after that. So I fully expect the pitching performances to go South a bit. But then they would have to. The Mets pitching has been terrific. Niese and Dickey have balanced out, and then some, Maine and Perez.

They have to start hitting though and the pitching has to stay good. They’ll probably try Perez again, crazy Ollie can always come back, and maybe pitch better than has Takahashi for the last month. The Mets would appear to need a fifth starter, if Takahashi can’t pick it up.

I don’t really expect the Mets to pick anybody up either, not anybody you’ve heard of. I’m sure we’ll see Perez again. I think Minaya is probably on the hook to win with what he has. At the very least, he’s working with a short rope. So I don’t really expect a big story in that direction, ie pitching.

The Mets have come up short though in their last 3 series against the cream of the league, Cinci (surprisingly), Atlanta and San Francisco. If the pitching is there, the hitting isn’t. If they manage to hit, the pitching falls down.

I think they’re just not good enough. At full strength, they’re a heck of a lot fun to watch though, and they could go on a run. If Reyes comes back strong, and Castillo can solidify that lineup a little bit, the defense is tough, the pitching is very pesky and that manager isn’t as bad as everybody seems to think.

Manuel was questioned for taking Santana out in the ninth. Not me, there was no reason to push him when he had already thrown 117 or so. Manuel knows the race is a long one. It was K-Rod who messed up and K-Rod who would be lucky enough to save the day….if not the game itself.

Manuel is juggling a lot of pins. Many times, things work out. Like using Bobby Parnell. Bobby Parnell’s been good since his return, much better than anybody could have expected. He’s the eighth inning guy lately (and one time the ninth) and not perpetual Pedro. But the relief staff is not deep right now, a fact that hasn’t even hurt them lately, not with good starting pitching and Bobby Parnell.

Manuel always is thinking long run. He won’t put himself or his team out of it. But he can only play with what he’s got on that bench. And although you love to see the Tejadas and Carters and Turners, especially when they play well, as Turner did yesterday, they’re not exactly Jason Kubel, y’know.

But there’s a reason we’re seeing all these new people, people we’ve never heard of. They’re obviously restricting any big expenditures. There have already been some bad ones.

But the Mets will keep things interesting. Jerry will juggle these guys and Omar will find something cheap to plug the gaps. They have to.

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.

A Fine Night for Baseball and Takahashi

The Mets took two out of three from the Yankees, took the first game of the series from the Phillies and all I hear on radio and TV is that Manuel will be fired but has been given a reprieve. I hear ridiculous proposals too. What about picking up Roy Oswalt? Even more ridiculous….what about Carlos Lee? What about Cliff Lee?

The Mets are at .500. The dropping of the pouter Maine and the maniacal Ollie Perez seems to have given our Metsies a new lease on life. Now if they could just keep Darryl Strawberry out of the clubhouse, I could see the Mets going on a nice long run.

I’ve only asked one time for Manuel’s removal. That was when he benched his regulars a couple of weeks ago in a game against these same Phillies with first place on the line. Facing the Phillies with the horrendous Gary Matthews replacing Francoeur and Mr. Uppercut #1 Fernando Tatis replacing Ike Davis was just a little bit too stupid for me to take lying down.

Manuel had his reasons, of course, but they were ridiculous tactical moves that ignored what could have been and should have been a real war for first place. Manuel is prone to errors such as these because his mind is always going and he is a deep thinker. Sometimes he loses the obvious; losing the forest for the trees.

But, I still think, all things considered, Manuel is the perfect manager for this Mets team. He stays too long with non-performing veterans, he has almost no faith in rookies, and to be frank, he doesn’t seem to believe in his team. I know he didn’t believe in his relief staff at the start of the season and that has been one of the team’s strong points.

But that thinking may be changing. Bringing up Ike Davis, Chris Carter, Jenry Mejia, and then the knuckleballer Dickey, and at the same time finally putting the kibosh on Maine and Perez, seems to be portending an old dog looking forward to learning some new tricks.

We don’t see too much of Matthews and Tatis anymore. We do see Carter and Davis. We also will be seeing some more of Hisanori Takahashi and A. J. Dickey, who are now officially listed on the depth chart as the number 3 and number 4 starters. Takahashi goes tonight again, followed by Pelfrey ans Santana. After that, some resourcefulness will be needed as Niese isn’t scheduled to return until June 1st.

Now watching the Mets put another whoopin’ on the Phils, I’m struck with how good the Mets look when they get the pitching and are in the game. Takahashi was nothing short of masterful and Reyes just kept chuggin’. Rod Barajas, meanwhile, just keeps tearing it up. When there’re men on base, Barajas just gets tougher. He’s not locked in unless he sees some of his same uniform out there on the basepaths.

You can’t compare the Mets telecasts with any other. They are just too good. While this may seem like “homey” thinking, the MLB Network, that uses the local broadcast team on its live feeds and replays most of the time, has allowed me to see how it’s done in other cities. These other broadcast teams range from poor to passable. There’s just no chemistry that you get with Gary Cohen, Keith Hernandez and Ron Darling.

Mejia’s out there now in the top of the 7th and the Mets leading 4-0. There are 2 outs and a man on third. Raul Ibanez is at the plate, and why can’t I find myself worrying? It would be logical to worry. But then Ibanez hits a weak grounder that that youngster Jenry just pounces and makes the play at first himself. Ibanez looked old and feeble in comparison.

But you do wonder how long this can last. How will Niese perform after his layoff? How will the relief corps be affected by the removal of Takahashi and Valdez from their ranks? How will Valdez fare as a starter?

The anxiety goes on the back burner though when the Mets win. All those concerns take a seat on the bench. Almost every Mets player now is contributing. It’s very often different guys each and every night. Even Francoeur is chipping in which is very important for this team as Frenchie seems to be one of those positive forces everywhere, except when he’s slumping.

The other Japanese pitcher, Igarashi, is now pitching the Phillies eighth. I’m still not worried. This guy, who I’d been watching since spring training, was really very impressive in spots and was just pretty good the rest of the time. In fact, for most of the beginning of the season, Takahashi was “the other Japanese import.”

Utley’s up. I should be worried. Curiously, I’m not. Maybe the Phillies just aren’t that scary anymore. Utley gets a high hard one and swings through it. Then he pops up. Ho-hum, it’s just another Phillies out. Now Ryan Howard, he’s been looking silly all night long. I still have no worries, even with a man on first, even though Howard just took a vicious cut at what looked like a slider in. Sure enough, he swings and misses at a beautiful low and outside pitch. I’m not sure what the pitch was but it was headed down, a lot like the Phillies.

You know the Phils are killing time when they insert Nelson Figueroa, another journeyman former-Met who left the team under less than optimal circumstances. He gets Francoeur, but Frenchie hit it hard. Darling, Keith and Cohen discuss the disparity between the box score and a player’s actual performance and effect on the team. Perfect timing , as usual.

It’s over in Yankee-land. Pettite gave them eight innings. He and his cutter were magnificent and the Yanks went on to win. Nick Swisher belted a homer in the 9th to win it. Mariano got three weak groundouts to close it out.

Mets Forget Good At-Bats and Win!

Jerry Manuel recently said something to the effect that his principal instruction to his hitters is to have a good at-bat. Such is the world of the thinker. He figures, “take a lot of pitches, get that starter out of the game.”

NEWS FLASH – Gary Matthews just got a BASE HIT!!!!

This, by the way, is my second attempt at writing something intelligent about the Mets. Something worthwhile. My 500 words of yesterday were filled with hateful invective; my principal target was Jason Bay, but David Wright, Jose Reyes and Jerry Manuel also figured largely in my mind and on the paper too, not that anybody uses paper anymore.

Back to having good at-bats though, that really shouldn’t be the prime directive. The prime directive should be to go up there and get a hit. It should be assumed that major league hitters would be able to figure out the rest, i.e. don’t swing at anything you can’t hit; get four of those and you’ll walk. But that’s secondary. You should be up there to get a hit.

It’s pretty hard for most people to hit a baseball at all. You’re considered a very good hitter if your batting average is .300, meaning that you not only hit the ball, but you hit it to a spot that no opponent could reach. Walks are not included in that figure, but on-base average does, further reflecting the batter’s efficiency. A further indication of productivity is slugging percentage, a figure that measures total bases divided by at-bats.

As every player watches his numbers, they all do the best they can at the plate, given their own proclivities and limitations. Some batters are free swingers and are very good at hitting that way. Most batters wait for a pitch they can hit and drive it. But it’s a pretty simple process to understand. Swing if the ball is over the plate.

Not in Mets-Land. In the Mets world of over-think, the prime directive is to have a good at-bat. That implies taking pitches, making that opposing pitcher throw as many pitches as possible. What this means is that a batter will now take a first strike for sure and further try to “work” the at-bat as it progresses, meaning to take further pitches out of the strike zone if at all possible before either getting a hit or not.

Some hitters are adept at batting that way. They have become so sophisticated as hitters that their natural inclination is to have a good at-bat. These batters can foul off pitch after pitch in the strike zone, waiting for not only a strike, but a strike that they can drive, and, if they drive it far enough, it’ll result in a home run, a wonderful event that not only helps the team but also does wonders for your numbers, thus eventually increasing your salary.

Most hitters can’t do that. Their bat control, their eye at the plate, their judgment, all those things aren’t refined enough to enable a good at-bat all the time. Many hitters will take a first strike if just to get a feel for the speed of the pitch. Some batters just feel better getting their three opportunities to hit the ball. Taking a strike restricts opportunities to two.

Given no further instruction, each batter would be able to maximize his potential at the plate, but, especially when opposed by a really good pitcher, at-bats could be either short or even very short, and if repeated inning after inning, this good pitcher could stay in the game for nine innings, or until that magic 100-pitch number rears its ugly head.

But most games would proceed naturally, meaning sometimes the team would get hits, and, stringing them together, get lots of runs too, as each hitter is given his three chances to hit the ball. A team like the Mets could succeed very well in that manner, happily swinging the bat and maximizing their potential.

You see, the Mets don’t really have any of those really accomplished hitters that can work counts, that can foul off all but the very best pitches ( Bobby Abreu comes to mind, Nick Johnson also comes to mind but in a much lesser way). The Mets have some good hitters too. It’s just that they’re not Bobby Abreu types. They are three-strikes guys.

Jason Bay, David Wright, Jose Reyes, maybe Ike Davis, they’re better off if they’re given their opportunities, every one of them. Shackle them with the “good at-bat” directive though, and you get a bad hitter, one who takes good pitches for strikes, swings at bad pitches, and, worst of all, takes a pitch that is only questionably a strike.

The Mets have been in that worst possible of worlds. Their core guys have looked bad at the plate, embarrassingly bad at times, resulting in many losses that could have and should have been wins, as the Mets pitching has been surprisingly good.

As I have watched tonight’s game though, it’s quite apparent that either the prime directive has changed, or the players are ignoring the prime directive en masse. They’re currently losing to the Nats 6-3 but the tying run is at the plate. Mets batters are swinging at anything that moves. They’re being aggressive. Bay, Wright, Davis….they’re all hitting the ball.

They might lose this game too, but it sure has been exciting to watch, and I’d bet anything it’s been more fun for the players as well. They won’t lose tonight because they were looking for a walk. They’ll be the aggressive hitters they’ve been all their lives.

Last year, Jerry Manuel’s thrust was hitting to the opposite field, which killed David Wright’s numbers, especially his power numbers. Last year was a lost year anyway though, with all the injuries. This year, the thrust has been good at-bats; it’s been killing this team, and I can only hope they’ll just forget about it. You can’t change hitters overnight.

(The Mets win, 8-6, scoring at will and aggressive as hell ).