Big Men - Big Times

The times were similar for both teams. One team had climbed to the top of their division after five months of mostly turmoil, only to find themselves hanging onto the lead by a thread. The other had made the playoffs for thirteen straight years but were in danger of getting swept by their most hated rival.

Each team would weather the storm. Each of them would accept their challenge and survive. And each would have some heroes of the day, but, in each case, the biggest hero would be their big man.

For the Mets, it would again be Carlos Delgado, whose heroics have been so numerous, I half expect him to come out of the dugout in gleaming armor and wielding a lance instead of a bat. To borrow from Richard Adams in his great story Watership Down, Delgado’s walk-offs and game winning hits have been, as the rabbits would say, “hrair”, which means a great many, as rabbits can only count to four.

For the Yanks. it would be Jason Giambi, who, despite his prodigious numbers this year, had been branded most recently as a non-performer in big spots, as had his even more infamous teammate, Alex Rodriguez. The Giambino had been benched quite a bit as of late, as his fielding and running game lagged somewhat behind his bat, which was saying a lot.

As this writer has most often been a Yankee-hater, and as I was otherwise occupied for the Yankees afternoon game, I only heard about Jason’s big hits after the game. The last thing I heard on the radio was Susan Waldman somewhat viciously panning Arod and Giambi for their failures to hit with runners in scoring position. That reaming was followed by Arod flying out with runners on first and third. Giambi was spared only because he wasn’t yet in the game.

The next thing I know, one of the gym rats is running around with an ear to ear grin, for not only had the Yanks won, but they did it against Jonathan Papelbon. Only later did I discover that it was my favorite Yankee who did the damage. And, to be honest, I guess I really don’t hate THESE Yankees. Not these pitcher-less and Posada-less Bombers, whose biggest hero for the year had been Mike Mussina.

And not THESE Yankees, who had converted Joba Chamberlain from the holder to limited starter, then full-blown starter and now slated to become the holder again after his time on the DL. Not THESE Yankees who actually looked forward to Carl Pavano’s return, with good reason as it turned out.

And not to belabor a point, but the boys in pinstripes are still holding on, notwithstanding Cano’s massive inconsistency, Arod’s fall from grace, Damon’s misadventures in the outfield and Jeter’s off-year. It’s easier to count the blameless, only the Moose and Bobby Abreu of the core group, and of course the ageless one, Mariano Rivera, in any event decidedly less than “hrair”.

But the main reason they’re still breathing a breath of life today is Jason Giambi. In the biggest game of the year, on the very precipice of disaster, the Giambino was the man once again, mustache and all, coming off the bench to destroy the hated Red Sox and their peerless (if tainted in Yankee-land) closer Papelbon.

It’s almost always the big men who draw the attention in any sport, and it’s no different for baseball. And no big man personifies that relationship more than Carlos Delgado. Since July 13^th, the Mets have only lost four games in which Carlos Delgado has had an RBI. And with the Mets relief staff, that’s saying an awful lot.

Delgado has, if my math is right, 43 ribbies since July 13^th. But that doesn’t really tell the story. He’s had at least one ribbie in 20 different games, and the Mets are 16-4 in those games. And, in many of those, Delgado has had the walk-off home run or the game-winning RBI. So he’s been, um, good.

Delgado always has a smile, it seems, even when he’s not doing so well. It’s really a pleasure to see him make some numbers for his new contract, and playing the complete game at first base too. And nobody celebrates like the Mets, and especially when Delgado’s doing well.

You have to admit, the Mets are a cool team to root for, and Delgado’s maybe the coolest. The big guy, playing like the big guy in that batters box and around that keystone bag. He strides (slides) back towards that dugout, big smile, amused that he can still be the man, at least right now, and all those big hits will go a long way towards ensuring his future too.

Even the manager’s cool. If Delgado has been Lancelot, then Manuel has been Merlin. It really is extraordinary the presence of the man when talking baseball, so comfortable, like talking to the local hardware store guy about your patio, for your seven houses.

And the big man is certainly making him look good. The record’s good, they’re up by a game instead of down by a game, and Carlos’s two dingers had a little bit to do with that. Those Phillies, they ain’t so baaaad.

So there it is. Giambi and Delgado, two big men in New York making their presence felt in that lineup. The rest of the guys can be faltering, on both teams, guys like Beltran and Arod, but these big first basemen can take you where you want to go, all by themselves sometimes. At most they need just one or two other guys to do something…..walk, get a little base hit, a sacrifice, whatever, and the big men can do the rest.

They say timing is everything in life. And so it is for these two big fellas. A little hot streak for them both right now, the Yanks chasing the Red Sox and the Mets trying to just hold on, would be perfect.

Great Game - Bad Result

What a game ! Forget about the Red Sox-Yankees; last night was all about the Mets and the Phillies. It pains me to say the Phillies were just better, but I really think they were. The Phillies endured the slow start, the Phillies fought back, the Phillies got the big hits and the Phillies had the better relief pitching. And of course they won it by a score of 8-7 in 13 terrific innings of baseball.

The things that'll stay in the mind's eye of this Mets fan are as follows:

1.Brian Schneider, the catcher acquired for defensive purposes, totally misplaying a very good relay throw by Damion Easley in the bottom of the 9th. That was the game right there.
2. Delgado and Beltran looking silly against Brad Lidge
3. the brilliant relief pitching of Aaron Heilman in the 10th through the 12th
4. great plays on ground balls by Delgado and Reyes

But the worst thing about last night's game was that every time a Phillies batter came to the plate, I worried a lot. For every Mets batter that came up in those late innings, I expected nothing. And got it.

Jimmy Rollins, Ryan Howard, Chase Utley, Shane Victorino and even guys like Jayson Werth are big-time players. When the game is on the line, they seem to come through. The same can't really be said for these Mets, as much as I hate to think it.

As good as Delgado has been since Manuel took the reins, he hits mistakes. If a pitcher can get a good breaking ball over the plate for strikes, he can take Delgado out. The same goes for the other Carlos, Beltran.

In that bottom of the ninth against Lidge, they weren't just ineffective, they were pitiful. Beltran, as he does way too often, took two breaking balls for strikes, then missed by a foot on a ball in the dirt. Delgado at least took a few swings, even if he missed by quite a bit on every one.

The Mets still have the edge in starting pitching though, and hopefully Johan Santana will continue his hot streak tomorrow. If the game is decided by the bullpens, the Mets will be in bad shape.

Even though Aaron Heilman was magnificent last night, he won’t be able to throw tomorrow. I have no faith in Schoeneweis whatsoever. He looks as if he doesn’t care. I don’t think he does. I’d like to see the Mets just drop him.

Smith and Feliciano can be good in spots. Luis Ayala should have picked up another save last night, but he was done in by his catcher. The Phillies had made the big mistake, sending the slow-footed Jayson Werth home on a hard shot to right. Church gunned it to Easley. Easley gunned it to Schneider.

If Schneider steps up to take the throw, the runner is out by a mile. Instead, Schneider backed up and made an easy play difficult. The game hinged on that play.

The great players look forward to those opportunities and step up. The lesser ones back down. Schneider backed away and the game was lost. The Phillies had tied it. I waited to see whether Schneider would redeem himself at the plate later on. That sometimes happens with good players. Schneider showed nothing.

While it’s not impossible that the Mets can still win this division, I have to say it doesn’t look good. The Mets seem to have taken a step back with the “additions” of Church and Castillo. John Maine’s injury looks ominous at this juncture. And Pedro looked his age last night.

Negatives, I’m full of them, I guess. There are some positives. Baseball is such a weird game and the season is such a long one. Players who look bad one night can look great the very next day. But the chemistry the Mets had seems lost for now, and the Phillies should just get stronger, what with last night’s big win and Rollins playing better.

But Reyes and Wright are great players. Wright made a big play on a hard ground ball to his right to save the game last night, even though he did look a little clumsy in doing it. He gets the hits when they’re needed more often than not. He looks confident in big situations.

Reyes is just a great player in all aspects of the game, a guy you love to watch and a guy who loves to have you watch him. He does it all, at the plate and in the field, on the basepaths and even in the dugout.

The Mets need more players like them. Too often, the two Carlos’s can’t overcome good pitching. They feed on the pedestrian guys, but there aren’t too many of them on teams like Philadelphia, or Houston for that matter.

And I really liked the chemistry they had there for a while, with Argenis Reyes at second, Murphy and Evans platooning in left field and Tatis in right. While there’s certainly nothing wrong with a player such as Church, his return to the lineup hasn’t added anything yet.

I’m certainly hoping these Mets can come back still one more time from a hugely disappointing loss. They certainly have the right guy on the mound today to do just that. And then there are Perez and Pelfrey and Pedro too, when he’s feeling it. But Maine’s loss looms large, and then there’s this bullpen.

Is any lead too large? Is any ballpark large enough to hold the ball in the park against this team of relievers? Will Jerry Manuel’s head bust wide open one day after still another exercise in juggling totally inconsistent relievers? It’s like doing the Sunday Times crossword on a daily basis.

Whatever happens down the stretch, one gets the feeling that it’ll be exciting. And I guess that’s just about all we can realistically hope for, great baseball, good pitching, good hitting, plays at the plate and extra innings.

Fitting Endings

It was fitting, I thought, that the Olympics should end with 400 Chinese shakin' their butts in the air. That's just the way I was feeling about the Olympics as they finally wound down, except my pants would have been at half-mast. While the beginning of these Olympic Games were practically earth-shaking, and the middle was excellent, by the end, I was ready for baseball again, oh, and football too. It was the two concurrent fantasy football drafts though that really did me in.

As I had feared for some time now, the Mets were not able to put away a team with good pitching. Although they hung around for ten innings, it was the middling Astros who took the third game of the series yesterday. And, as expected, the starting pitching was pretty good. That the relief pitching was less good, if not downright awful, had to be expected too, I guess. It had to catch up with my Metsies sometime.

The Giants-Jets game was a real yawner too, I thought, though we did see some pretty good defense, I suppose. That Osi Umenyiora was lost for the season is a real heart-breaker though. We can only hope it's not a forbidding omen, and that albatross I thought I saw flying over the stadium was just a gigantic pigeon, gone crazy from too many hot dogs and beer. Oh well, at least I won't have to spell his name again this season.

The most startling football news though, for fans not interested only in the local teams, was that Kurt Warner may have kept his starting job in Arizona over the bonus-baby heart throb from USC, one Matt Leinart. Kurt has been pretty darned good this exhibition season, but the word was that Leinart would surely be the starter. I'm sure salary negotiations may have played a part, too, in Warner's sudden ascension. When handing out millions to anyone, it's kinda nice to see them on the field, especially in Arizona, a place that has never happily given away anything, just ask Anquan Boldin.

In fact, if salary negotiations thrill you, this is your season. (Turn, turn, turn). Plaxico Burress may get some kind of extension and Antonio Pierce has had his hands out too, we are led to believe. At least the Jets seem a lot more settled right now, having already doled out multi-million dollar contracts to quite a few newcomers, such as Faneca and Pace. They may even be able to protect what's-his-name althoughthat wasn;t much in evidence on Friday night.

That the football season starts on a Thursday night thrills me not. What a stupid way to start a season. I know. I have to learn to adapt to change, Olympics in China, Jamaicans winning all the sprints, and making a big deal about the Redeem-Team beating friggin' Spain in basketball. Ho-friggin-hum. Kobe-Kobe-Kobe, WOOHOO.

But this piece is supposed to be about fitting endings, right? Well, based on this beginning, I'd have to say it would be entirely fitting if the Jets made the playoffs, what with about five rather extreme additions to both offense and defense. But for the Giants, alas, it doesn't look good. To lose Osi after losing Strahan is taking two big hits right off the bat. The rest of the league wasn't standing still, you know. I expect both the Eagles and the Skins to be more formidable this year. You can be sure Donovan McNabb will be singing no sad songs for the G-Men.

But now I must turn to the most fitting ending of all, the end of yesterday’s Mets game. I guess Mr. Manuel can’t spin a miracle every time out after all. Finding the right combination of mediocre relief had been a Manuel specialty as of late, but yesterday wasn’t one of those days. Well, actually, it did look as if he’d pull it off one more time, but he ran out of options at the end.

Pedro Feliciano gave up two, two, two big home runs in the top of the tenth to pretty much seal the Mets fate Sunday afternoon. And I say it was fitting only because the Mets have not been able to secure a top reliever after losing Billy Wagner. They did secure a pretty fair holder, if you will, but he had been used up in the ninth.

I suppose the real story of the game was that Oliver Perez could only put in 6 1/3 yesterday. Heilman relieved Perez in he seventh but couldn’t hold the lead for the southpaw starter, giving up two hits while retiring only one batter. Schoeneweis and Smith finished out the seventh and eighth very nicely too

Luis Ayala, the reliever they did acquire, has been very good, and he continued to be, pitching the ninth inning to a very good effect. But in the 10^th, Manuel was running out of options; there were only two relievers left.

Manuel opted for the lefty Feliciano. It was not his day. And it was very quickly not his day; no infuriating walks or seeing-eye base hits yesterday that in the past had brought Jerry out to the mound for a magic pitching change. No, yesterday, it was all over very quickly. Boom. Boom. Down two.

Duaner Sanchez, the last reliever, did finish out the tenth with no further damage but the Mets didn’t show much in their half of that 10^th inning and it was all over. The Astros closer, Jose Valverde, handled the top of the Mets lineup pretty handily yesterday.

But all is not lost. The Mets still retain their first place position in the NL East. They can tie the Astros series 2-2 with a win tomorrow and, as Mike Pelfrey takes the mound, things look pretty good, especially if he can give them seven or eight good innings. Then it’s the Phillies for two and Florida for three.

I sure hope the starters can keep on keeping on. Otherwise, there may be more fitting endings to come.