I couldn’t be happier. The Mets are playing good baseball. They came back from oblivion to achieve a better than .500 record in the space of about 10 days. And they’re doing it with pitching, not just good relief pitching either. The starters have come on like gangbusters. Santana, Pelfrey and Niese have ben magnificent. Perez and Maine have held their own.
But it hasn’t been just pitching. It’s been the fortuitous return of Ike Davis from Buffalo. It’s been Jose Reyes flashing his speed from the third spot in the order. It’s been Jason Bay starting to hit. It’s been good baserunning, good fielding, and opportunistic hitting, even taking into account a low figure for aveage with runners in scoring position.
It must be pointed out that Mets fans had not been feeling optimistic. There was nothing to feel that good about just about 10 days ago. The angst begins with the starter of the day. With Santana, they worry he’ll relapse, with Pelfrey, they worry he’ll go to pieces with men on base, with Niese, that he’ll realize he’s young, with Maine and Perez, that they won’t totally implode.
None of those maladies befell the Mets starters in this streak of good fortune. The closest thing to a bad start was Maine’s injuring his off-arm and coming out in the fourth inning on Friday, the opener against the Braves, those same Braves that just seem to thrash the Mets at every opportunity. But Hisanori Takahashi, one of their two Japanese imports this season, struck out seven Braves in three innings.
What a game that Friday night affair was! For a long stretch there in the middle of the game, it was two Japanese pitchers facing each other, and they were both looking very effective. But, in the Mets half of the sixth, Ike Davis hit the Shea Bridge in deep right centerfield to put the Mets ahead. It was a truly majestic shot, one that seemed to pee on the Citi Field dimensions.
Then, in the seventh, as if to show that Ike wasn’t the only Met player with power, Reyes and Bay hit two triples in a row. Bay’s shot was quite a shot, just hitting the base of that long wall. Then Wright drove in Bay with still another long shot to right center to put the game away.
I say “put the game away” but when the Mets play the Braves, that never seems to be the case. But after Takahashi left the game in the 7th, Raul Valdez got the third out, Feliciano mowed the Braves down in the 8th, and K-Rod, after giving the Braves life with a walk and a single, finally closed it out after striking out two very dangerous hitters, McLouth and Prado.
That game put the Mets at 8-9. After taking 3 of 4 from the Cubs and smoking the Braves in the opener, they just had to somehow get by Braves pitcher Jair Jurrjens to get to .500. Once again, Jonathon Niese got the call, and once again, he came through. He threw lots of pitches and walked more than his share, but in the end, the Braves had scored just one, thanks to some pretty fair (to put it mildly) relief from the likes of Manny Acosta and then the usual suspects, Nieve, Feliciano and K-Rod.
The Mets were .500.
It was a wonder that Sunday’s game got off at all. It had rained all day. But the Mets got a run in the first that Reyes virtually stole and Pelfrey blanked the Braves for five innings before the rains came down for real in the sixth, thus fortunately ending still another game in the Mets favor, and voila, the Mets were a winning team.
It’s easy to like this team too. They still can’t hit very much, especially early in the game, but they have come through in the stretch more often than not. Ike Davis really energized this team while the new lineup, with Reyes batting third, seems to be working too.
Jason Bay seems to have found his swing finally after three weeks of mostly frustration. Wright’s struggles continue though, and it seems he’s lost that swing from the legs that was supposed to bring his power back this season. Hopefully, he can find that swing again.
This Mets team seems complete just as it is. This team has won 7 of its last 10 and its last four in a row. If the Mets had any thoughts about trading Carlos Beltran, who seems to not want to return, this would be the time to pull the trigger, before he comes back, before encountering the risk of a bad start after a long period of injury.
Angel Pagan is no Beltran, but he is a good player and seems to hold his own. And, with Fernando Martinez in the wings up in Buffalo too, I’d think centerfield was not a worry, especially given that Gary Matthews, that second ill-advised pickup (the first being Mike Jacobs), is still with the team.
Beltran could easily bring another pitcher to Citi Field, an established pitcher who could lend some savvy and experience to that rotation, especially if it begins to show signs of faltering. With Maine and Perez, it seems almost inevitable that, somewhere down the road, another starter will be needed, especially if the Mets are still in contention in July.
In the meantime, I’ll enjoy watching these Mets as presently constructed. It’s a fiery team, a resilient team, one that’s becoming successful with great pitching, a much better defense with Ike at first base, and just enough hitting to get by, even with some potentially big bats still struggling.
Tonight it’ll be the Dodgers coming to town, with Kuroda facing up against Ollie Perez, who is winless thus far despite his 3.71 ERA. If the Mets can continue to get by his turn in the rotation, anything’s possible in the NL East, even a pennant.
Showing posts with label Smith Mets Takahashi Jacobs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Smith Mets Takahashi Jacobs. Show all posts
Monday, April 26, 2010
Saturday, February 13, 2010
An Easy Transition to Baseball
Geez, I let myself get really lazy about writing, as there was nothing I cared about going on this week anyway. Winter Olympics, Lindsay Vonn, bad Rutgers and Seton Hall basketball teams, the Nets and Knicks…please. As I have spent considerable time re-watching the Super Bowl though, let me for one last time ruminate on that wonderful game for all Saints fans and for all proponents of the underdog…something that you may not have heard.
You may recall the pivotal play of the game…the Tracy Porter interception of Manning. I’ve heard that play discussed and re-discussed but nobody mentions that a Saints lineman, probably Will Smith but I can’t be sure, since the rush part of the play was so ignored by Phil Simms, makes Manning rush the throw. Yeah, it was a maximum blitz (against Simms’s advice), but still it was those defensive ends that got in there, the other one being Bobby McRae.
You hear Wayne was slanting in, Wayne was slanting out, Wayne was late in the break, Wayne should have broken up the play, all kinds of stuff about Wayne. They mention that Manning hurried the throw but not why very much. It seems to me that Manning doesn’t make that type of throw if not for Will Smith.
It looked to me like a slant that Manning should’ve waited out for one more tick or two to throw. Yeah, you could say Porter jumped the route, but only in the sense that he was right there. He just had to react to the throw, which was right there for the taking. Not to disparage Porter’s play…after all, he made the Favre interception too, that saved the Saints win against the Vikings…but he had a lot of help from that blitz.
Anthony Hargrove was a factor too. Hargrove actually got hurt on a prior play, making Manning hurry a throw to Collie that missed. Nobody mentions Hargrove’s desperate effort to get to Manning on the play. Nobody mentions Manning had to hurry the throw to Number 17 because of it.
Another guy that could have gotten more attention was Jonathan Vilma. He was great the entire game. But that game could have gone in a much different direction if not for his knocking down that pass to Collie in the endzone. It came on that 3rd and 5, forcing the Colts to make that critical decision of whether to go for the three or punt (or go for a first).
Of course, the field goal missed, the Saints lead was held to just one, and the failed kick gave the Saints great field position. The change in the attitude of both teams after that miss is almost palpable. The Colts are hanging their heads while the Saints look ready to kick ass. You could make an argument for Vilma kicking off that entire chain of events with his breakup of that pass.
The other somewhat neglected factor was the coaching. The obvious errors were pointed out, the decision to go for the field goal, the failure to put the ball in the air right before the half (thus giving the Saints their field goal opportunity back again). But there were other problems with the coaching too, the conservative defense that got victimized all game by Brees, and their failure to put the game away twice.
Everything was coming up roses for the Colts in that first quarter. That Colston dropped pass and an overthrow by Brees on his first series, put the Saints in a ten-point hole. If the Colts had stayed aggressive in the second quarter, they could have danced in the streets after the game instead of having to watch the festivities with their heads down.
Instead of putting the game out of reach, they played conservatively and the half ended at 10-6. After the Saints scored to take the lead, Manning and the Colts came right back and scored a TD of their own. That could have been another game-changer if the Colts had stayed aggressive. Instead it wound up being their final score and the Saints went on to score 18 unanswered.
Never has there been a better example of a lack of aggressiveness losing a game. Caldwell coached it as if he had the better team and all they had to do to win it was to not make the big mistake. So the Colts were playing to not lose while the Saints were going all out all the time. Similarly, never has there been a better example of aggressiveness winning a game. Sean Payton could have been MVP if coaches had eligibility for it.
Oh well, another football season is over. One good thing about protracting the NFL season is that baseball then becomes a thing right around the corner, so to speak. Perhaps just coincidentally, the Mets finally made some badly needed moves along with just about every other team doing the same. So the hot stove stuff coming to the forefront of things right now means I’ll never have to watch a basketball game. WooHoo!
My favorite Mets team had been beat up all over the dial for not making essential moves to strengthen the club. What about first base, what about another pitcher? What about yada yada? Well, Mike Jacobs, although he’s coming off a meager year, adds a power element to that first base position to team with Daniel Murphy, the much-maligned Mets incumbent there.
And they picked up a very good and well-seasoned Japanese pitcher in Hisanori Takahashi. He’ll be fighting to become either the fifth starter or a relief guy, but definitely adds to the competition in camp. It should be interesting to see how both he and Ryota Igarashi will develop and how they’ll interact with themselves and the rest of the team.
Yankees fans may scoff. None of these acquisitions are sure things, anathema to Yankees fans. But I look forward to them working out, making the pennant that much more enjoyable.
You may recall the pivotal play of the game…the Tracy Porter interception of Manning. I’ve heard that play discussed and re-discussed but nobody mentions that a Saints lineman, probably Will Smith but I can’t be sure, since the rush part of the play was so ignored by Phil Simms, makes Manning rush the throw. Yeah, it was a maximum blitz (against Simms’s advice), but still it was those defensive ends that got in there, the other one being Bobby McRae.
You hear Wayne was slanting in, Wayne was slanting out, Wayne was late in the break, Wayne should have broken up the play, all kinds of stuff about Wayne. They mention that Manning hurried the throw but not why very much. It seems to me that Manning doesn’t make that type of throw if not for Will Smith.
It looked to me like a slant that Manning should’ve waited out for one more tick or two to throw. Yeah, you could say Porter jumped the route, but only in the sense that he was right there. He just had to react to the throw, which was right there for the taking. Not to disparage Porter’s play…after all, he made the Favre interception too, that saved the Saints win against the Vikings…but he had a lot of help from that blitz.
Anthony Hargrove was a factor too. Hargrove actually got hurt on a prior play, making Manning hurry a throw to Collie that missed. Nobody mentions Hargrove’s desperate effort to get to Manning on the play. Nobody mentions Manning had to hurry the throw to Number 17 because of it.
Another guy that could have gotten more attention was Jonathan Vilma. He was great the entire game. But that game could have gone in a much different direction if not for his knocking down that pass to Collie in the endzone. It came on that 3rd and 5, forcing the Colts to make that critical decision of whether to go for the three or punt (or go for a first).
Of course, the field goal missed, the Saints lead was held to just one, and the failed kick gave the Saints great field position. The change in the attitude of both teams after that miss is almost palpable. The Colts are hanging their heads while the Saints look ready to kick ass. You could make an argument for Vilma kicking off that entire chain of events with his breakup of that pass.
The other somewhat neglected factor was the coaching. The obvious errors were pointed out, the decision to go for the field goal, the failure to put the ball in the air right before the half (thus giving the Saints their field goal opportunity back again). But there were other problems with the coaching too, the conservative defense that got victimized all game by Brees, and their failure to put the game away twice.
Everything was coming up roses for the Colts in that first quarter. That Colston dropped pass and an overthrow by Brees on his first series, put the Saints in a ten-point hole. If the Colts had stayed aggressive in the second quarter, they could have danced in the streets after the game instead of having to watch the festivities with their heads down.
Instead of putting the game out of reach, they played conservatively and the half ended at 10-6. After the Saints scored to take the lead, Manning and the Colts came right back and scored a TD of their own. That could have been another game-changer if the Colts had stayed aggressive. Instead it wound up being their final score and the Saints went on to score 18 unanswered.
Never has there been a better example of a lack of aggressiveness losing a game. Caldwell coached it as if he had the better team and all they had to do to win it was to not make the big mistake. So the Colts were playing to not lose while the Saints were going all out all the time. Similarly, never has there been a better example of aggressiveness winning a game. Sean Payton could have been MVP if coaches had eligibility for it.
Oh well, another football season is over. One good thing about protracting the NFL season is that baseball then becomes a thing right around the corner, so to speak. Perhaps just coincidentally, the Mets finally made some badly needed moves along with just about every other team doing the same. So the hot stove stuff coming to the forefront of things right now means I’ll never have to watch a basketball game. WooHoo!
My favorite Mets team had been beat up all over the dial for not making essential moves to strengthen the club. What about first base, what about another pitcher? What about yada yada? Well, Mike Jacobs, although he’s coming off a meager year, adds a power element to that first base position to team with Daniel Murphy, the much-maligned Mets incumbent there.
And they picked up a very good and well-seasoned Japanese pitcher in Hisanori Takahashi. He’ll be fighting to become either the fifth starter or a relief guy, but definitely adds to the competition in camp. It should be interesting to see how both he and Ryota Igarashi will develop and how they’ll interact with themselves and the rest of the team.
Yankees fans may scoff. None of these acquisitions are sure things, anathema to Yankees fans. But I look forward to them working out, making the pennant that much more enjoyable.
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