Big Series at Shea

The Mets did it again last night, they impressed the heck outta me. Everybody's doin' sumthin' - Reyes, Beltran, Wright, Delgado, but also guys like Duaner Sanchez, Ramon Castro and still another Reyes named Argenis. They came back and then held on to beat the Reds 7-5 and everybody played a part. What a nice way to come to Shea....against the team sharing the top spot with them in the NL East!

Even though Mike Pelfrey, after about a month of superior pitching, finally came back to earth, the Mets just did what needed being done to keep themselves in the game and then put some pressure on their opponents. Duaner Sanchez was my favorite last night, although Jose Reyes and Carlos Delgado made good cases for MVP’s of the game.

Big Series at Shea ! When was the last time we felt that? I mean, actually feeling GOOD about it? Johan Santana is just 8-7 this year, but you have to feel pretty confident with his matchup against the Phils newly-acquired Joe Blanton.

Then it’s John Maine against Brett Myers, and neither of them are lighting it up statistically, but I’d rather have Maine. On Thursday, it’ll be brain against brawn as the surprising old Jamie Moyer matches pitches with the brilliant but erratic Oliver Perez.

So, the Mets starting pitching will be good, the relievers have been pretty steady, all things considered, and, for once, the lineup seems pretty formidable too. For power, we have Wright, Delgado and Beltran. And a bunch of pains in the neck, led by the biggest pain of them all, Jose Reyes.

Reyes has now scored 71 runs, is batting .300 and even has 10 homers and 43 rbi’s. If triples mean anything to you, he is the all-time Met master of the triple. He’s stolen 33 bases. Yeah, Jose can be a HUGE thorn in any opponent’s side, and did I mention he’s a pretty flashy shortstop too?

Yes, the Phils have a big job ahead of them. Not that they don’t have some formidable weapons themselves, guys like Utley and Howard and Rollins, Werth and Jenkins. But are they jelling like the Mets are right now? That would be a decided NO.

I almost hate to say it. The managerial change energized these Mets. Big-time. Even though they would seem to be missing a couple of pieces. Like a couple of outfielders. But the fill-ins have been pretty amazing.

Damian Easley at second base has been steady Eddie, Fernando Tatis provides another pretty serious power threat when he’s swinging the bat well, and Marlon Anderson seems to finally be coming back to the land of the living. This new Reyes is another guy they plug in at second, in the field and in the lineup too, and he just keeps delivering.

Jerry Manuel has been a lifesaver, seemingly providing EXACTLY what these guys needed to perform as a team. You can feel the confidence boost as a palpable thing. Same guys, different level. When the game is on the line, they get tough.

One surprising statistic from Sunday’s game is the 32 men the Mets left on base. The Reds left 5 men on, yet the Mets were able to pull it out. This is a game the Mets could surely have lost in the old days. The old Mets wouldn’t have been able to overcome that much adversity.

Of course, you have to play the games. It’s great to count chickens but you have to keep performing. But you get the feeling that this team will keep it up. They’re having fun. They’re winning. Even when they aren’t at their best.

Against the Reds, it was like a game of who’ll blink first. And yesterday, after a couple of big strikeouts and Met plays in the field, it was the Reds who would bat their eyes. It was an error in the field that propelled the Mets to the victory, Edwin Encarnacion’s bad throw to second short-circuiting a potential double-play while scoring a run for the Mets.

Baseball is a funny game, a game of fine nuances that most people miss, if it weren’t for some fine analysis by guys like Keith Hernandez. There’re quite a few decisions being made on every pitch. It’s the combination of all the variables that produce the result. In the case of the Mets, those results have been very good, so they’re combining those variables really well.

It’s not just Jerry Manuel either. It’s that new pitching coach Warthen, who seems to be helping Oliver Perez especially, and it’s Omar Minaya, who’s juggling these guys in and out, Argenis Reyes and Nick Evans especially as of late.

What are some things to worry about? (I wouldn’t be a Mets fan if I didn’t worry about SOMETHING).

I worry that Santana will serve up some home run balls to those Phillies bangers, not just Howard and Utley, but Rollins and Jenkins and Werth too. And then there’s Met-killer Pat Burrell.

I worry about the Mets coming home to Shea, despite the fact that they’re 28-18 at home. I’m hoping the fans can keep their cool through any rough spots. This team doesn’t need to have any reservations about themselves. This is a team that rolls when it’s feeling it, and a bunch of booing never helps anybody “feel it”.

I worry about the Marlins too. They’re 7-3 in their last ten games and they’ve got some fearsome hitters, all young and feisty. And they just beat the Phils 2 outta 3. They have their own pains in the neck, no one bigger than a guy who has scored even more runs than Reyes, a guy named Hanley Ramirez.

And I worry that, should the Mets NOT win the NL East, they’ll have a little trouble making the playoffs. Both the Cards and Brewers in the NL Central have better records than the Mets. They may not catch the Cubs but they’ll be serious contenders for the wildcard.

Throwing It In....

How important is it really? With Willie, without Willie, it's just a game. This fact was driven home to me this morning as I read about a service held for the Bayonne, NJ war dead, including the brother of a friend of mine from high school. It's easy to forget sometimes, even on Memorial Day.

Things would probably be a lot better at Shea, though, if the Mets would just play the game like a game. Yesterday, I watched helplessly as Reyes booted a hard bouncer and Beltran made an ill-conceived dive at a soft liner to centerfield. Result – a few more unearned runs for the Marlins.

If things were allowed to settle down somewhat, if the Mets had made a managerial change last night, the pressure would have been relieved and maybe Reyes makes that stop; maybe Beltran takes that liner on a hop, thus minimizing the damage.

However, the big news last night was that Willie Randolph would keep his job as manager. Although I think it's probably a mistake, if just for the distraction it's causing this team, I've made a conscious decision not to live and die with the Mets anymore, at least not for the foreseeable future. If the Wilpons don't care what their fans think, why should I care about them, or their team?

Keeping Willie at this point really makes no sense though. The Florida Marlins are leading the NL East with a 30-20 record, which puts them on a pace to go 97-65 for the season. The Mets, currently at 23-26, would have to go 74-39 for the rest of the season in order to tie the Marlins That means they'll have to win 2 out of 3 games for the rest of the season in order to take the division. Very unlikely.

Their wildcard chances aren't that much better. The Cubs and Cards are now at 30-21 and 30-22 respectively. The Diamondbacks are also 30-21. So it still comes down to winning two out of every three for the rest of the season. For a team that can't even achieve a .500 record past the season's quarter point, I'm afraid that's almost impossible.

It wouldn't necessarily have been inconceivable if they had changed the team chemistry somewhat. But they missed their chance now. The Wilpons, secure in their new stadium deal and having Willie under contract for another year, decided just to let the season go. Why send good money after bad?

The Wilpons must've missed all the bad fielding, the horrible base-running, the players playing tight as bowstrings. Or they've already decided the real fault has been in the player selection, and that Omar will eventually be replaced anyway. And, although they might be correct in that assessment, I think it was premature. A managerial change would have given this team a chance.

After all, a not too different team came very close in 2006 to winning it all. It had the same ingredients really, Wright, Reyes, Beltran, Delgado. Of course, LoDuca was the catcher and Valentin was the second baseman, and Shawn Green manned one of the outfield positions, and the pitching was different. Willie was the manager, of course, and well, I guess it really doesn’t take that much tweaking to screw things up.

The tweaks haven’t worked. That’s for sure. Castillo has been bad to disastrous. Delgado’s a couple of years older, but then so are Reyes and Wright, which, in their cases, should have been a very good thing.

The lineup was a little different but not much. Beltran used to bat third with Delgado at cleanup and Wright batting fifth. Wright’s ascendancy and Delgado’s slide dictated a change, but that shouldn’t have made all that much difference either.

Interestingly enough, though, Tom Glavine was 15-7 in 2006. Steve Trachsel was 15-8. Those were the two big guns and they’re not here anymore. El Duque was 9-7, Pedro Martinez was 9-8 and John Maine was just 6-5. Oliver Perez had just come over from the Pirates and finished 1-3. Although Brian Bannister never got much of a chance, he’s a nice pitcher now for Kansas City. And then there was Victor Zambrano, who was traded for potential ace Scott Kazmir.

It’s obvious that this team could have really used Pedro and El Duque this year, from the start. Maine hasn’t lived up to his potential. And, gee whiz, imagine if we had Bannister and Kazmir. Then it would have been Santana, Kazmir, Bannister, Maine and Perez, even without mentioning Pedro or El Duque.

It should also be noted that Moises Alou had nothing to do with 2006. And, in retrospect, he has had almost nothing to do with 2008 either. There were some other perhaps minor ingredients to that 2006 team that the 2008 version may be missing, players such as Cliff Floyd and Julio Franco. And Kaz Matsui won a pennant with the Rockies after the Mets let him go.

So, except for Johan Santana, a lot of the moves have been pretty bad, to say the least. Probably the biggest difference to team chemistry has been the Valentin injury and the hobbled Castillo as a replacement. Valentin, playing in just about 2/3 of a year, with 387 at bats, had 62 rbi’s and 56 runs scored. Castillo thus far has just 13 rbi’s and 22 runs scored, and he has been a liability in the field.

They say a team has to be strong up the middle, and the Mets have Castillo at the keystone and Reyes playing erratically. They say pitching and defense wins pennants and World Series and the Mets have only three starters pitching creditably, Santana, Maine and Perez. The bullpen has been very bad at times, with Heilman the biggest disappointment. The pitching is ranked 14^th overall, the defense is ranked just 18^th overall.

Championship performance? Certainly not. Championship talent? Probably not. We may never know. And the players still don’t know if they have a manager for the season.