More statistics supporting John Maine’s ability. I put some money on the game tonight, I think Maine will have a great game, as will Pedro tomorrow.
Have to Listen to the Leaders
Reyes: Fly Like the Wind
Here’s my take on the Reyes thing, I support him fully in this. I think it was a mistake to keep Manuel while firing Willie. If a change was going to work, it needed to be a clean slate, not someone leading that’s been through the same problems. So when Manuel starts his tenure by pissing off Wright and Reyes, it doesn’t look good.
Wright and Reyes, by example or otherwise, are going to be or already are the leaders of this team. The team revolves around them, and Manuel needs to work with them and allow them the ability to do that.
At least give Reyes the chance to walk it off, jog in the outfield, really see if he’s hurt. Manuel, admittedly, said that it was his first day played into his decision. This isn’t about Manuel though, it’s about Reyes and winning the game, which we had less of a chance to do with Easley. Reyes wanted to play, and the only message this sends besides “I know best” is that he doesn’t have to play hard when he’s not feeling 100%. Reyes is who he is, and we don’t need him molded into some media-darling cookie cutter player. So what if he throws a tantrum? Haven’t so many of you been saying how you want to see fire and fight with this team? Well Reyes has got it, he is who he is and trying to make him something else is detrimental to the team, as we saw early in the season when Beltran reminding him to stop worrying about how he’s perceived and play the game the way he knows how.
This whole firing situation reeks to me of setting up the team to fail. It sounds like “You can’t fire me, I quit!” by Mets management. They’ve decided the team isn’t going to win, set up a fall guy, and laid the groundwork for next year. What they forget is it’s early June. I still think the Mets can and will break out of it, but it also feels like the media and management are fighting against it. The team needs to be able to relax, and it doesn’t look like this is going to afford them that. Only time will really tell; will this team be counted out on August 1st and pull a Colorado Rockies to make the playoffs after the pressure is off? It’s still too early for that too.
The Only Way to Fire Him Badly
While I like Willie Randolph and didn’t want him fired, I’ve long said I could live with it because I felt a change needed to be made for changes sake, and who knows what the problem is?
However, if Randolph was the problem, then undoubtedly so was Manuel and Howard Johnson, but they are still here. Of course, the shoddy way the Mets handled this so far could mean they’re gone when they wake up in Anaheim today. Ken Oberkfell is promoted from Triple A manager to first base coach, and I assume that the idea is he’s the favorite for manager and Jerry Manuel is truly an interim guy, but if the Mets go on to win in the playoffs like they are capable of, how can you fire him? And firing coaches/managers twice within a season is just an unneeded (for the players) distraction and disruption.
If they were going to fire him, Friday was the time after a bad stretch of games. Instead, now they’ve won four of six and three of the last four. They didn’t make a huge move, bringing up triple A guys to fill the coaching spots, so why did they need to hold off on making this decision? I even went to bed last night thinking the Mets were on an upswing and Willie probably even had a days reprieve or so. To make a guy fly out to Anaheim and win a game well with a young pitcher on the mound, a game where he made the right bullpen moves to win the game, and then fire him after it is silly.
Maybe it was in deference to Randolph? If they fire him Friday and then the Mets start winning, he looks bad and like the cause of the Mets struggles. However, now that they’re playing well again, it just looks like any other manager firing and maybe he doesn’t get all the blame.
I know nothing about Nieto and have no reason to understand why he got fired, but Peterson I can live with an am almost happy with. I don’t really know how much impact he has had, and how much impediment he has been. I tire of his babying pitchers and his pitch counts and what seems to me to be molding a pitcher to his philosophies rather than teaching the pitcher how to succeed with what he’s got. I know nothing about his replacement though, and it’ll be interesting to see how things go. The only guy I’m really curious about is Perez. Maine has progressed enough that I think he’ll actually benefit with someone else’s suggestions and only get better. Pelfrey to me was just a matter of confidence and practice, not necessarily who was giving it to him. Plus having Pedro here is worth as much as any pitching coach.
So we have all day and night to talk about this, and then it’s time to move on and start/continue playing good baseball and get back to the ultimate goal of winning the World Series.
Does Willie still get to go to the All Star game? Also, I don’t want to hear from Yankees fans on this. The Yankees totally mishandled Joe Torre (although at least it was in the offseason) and have a crybaby for an owner.
And in a game of what if?
Willie Randolph gets Jim Leyland’s job, and manages the Tigers to a championship over the Mets. Then after asked “You’ve just won the World Series, what are you going to do now?” he returns to Anaheim where he was fired. “I’m going to Disneyland!”
Last True Doubleheader
This very well could be the last true doubleheader ever at Shea Stadium. It’s also on Fathers Day, which seems rather fitting.
I was ‘at’ the game Saturday Night, and I got quite a few interesting pictures. The Field was an absolute wreck by the time they called the game. There were puddles everywhere, including a lake on the warning track in center field. I didn’t take any pictures of the inside as I was leaving, but all I could think was “Is it time to go to the Citi yet?” As I waded through stagnant puddles of water and dodging raindrops somehow leaking through the ceiling.
Before the game, during the brief non-rainy period they were holding a Nathan’s hot dog eating contest. The winner ate 42 hot dogs, which was rather disturbing, but it was kind of interesting too.
Also, I’m in the process of uploading a video of the Texas Rangers playing Slip N Slide on the trap as the game was being called. I assume the Mets were either already dressing to go home, already on their way home, or not in a jovial mood the way they’ve been playing. Either way, there were still fans that managed to criticize them for not being out there on the tarp, and it almost seemed like there were callers to WFAN blaming Willie for the rain out. Probably a bit much, but I was disappointed Trot Nixon wasn’t in the lineup, and Easley was supposed to be playing left field. I suppose we’ll see them all tomorrow.
Subway Series Makeup
Friday at 2pm is an awful time to make up the Subway Series game.
Rangers Can’t Win
Texas Rangers are 1-5 all-time at Shea Stadium. Of course, they’ve never played the Mets. The Yankees ripped them apart back in 1975 when they played at Shea. The only certainty about this weekend is that the Rangers won’t ever have a winning record at Shea Stadium. This isn’t an absolute however, but it’s unlike the Rangers will visit Shea in the World Series.
I ‘have’ to go to the game tomorrow. I’m looking more forward to getting my Nathan’s Shea replica than the game though. It’s sad, but it’s a lose-lose situation for a while. They lose, it sucks. They win, okay fine, show me more. It is ultimately still kinda early, and the Phillies aren’t going to run away, but they need to get around to figuring out what type of team they want to be and how to play like winners.
What now?
or not.
E. T. Phone Home
Tonight reminded me of the movie E.T., when E.T. and Elliot are both in the hospital and seem to be linked. The link is broken and Elliot begins to recover, but E.T. doesn’t, being out of his element. So went tonight.
After eight innings of baseball, the Mets were deflated by Billy Wagner giving up the game tying home run, and Chase Utley drives in the tying run in the top of the 9thin Florida for the Phillies. Things seem as bad as they could be, but then that link is broken and the Phillies to whom first place is as alien as Earth was to E.T., will soon be back where they belong.
The Marlins storm right back and set the Phillies down with a walk off grand slam. The link has been broken and it takes a little time before the Mets recover, in the bottom of the 13th, with Beltran’s sixth walk off home run of his career. Beltran’s last walk off two run home run was against those very same Phillies back on May 23rd of 2006. This was a long time ago, back when players like Steve Trachsel were still on this team,but we’ve been looking for turning points all season and maybe all the symmetry associated with this win is what they truly needed.
There was energy, determination, fight, and all sorts of good qualities during this game. Don’t forget that Castillo was on base and Beltran at the plate because of a fielding error at third base, so the Mets were capitalizing on errors too. Beltran also had a key two-run single, on a clean line drive to center, earlier in this game to start the scoring. This hit also came after an error charged to Brandon Webb allowed Castillo to reach base after Reyes got the call from the ump on a close play at first. You take what breaks you can get and do the most with them.
Team chemistry? It’s something that’s not easy to tell from the outside, but teams that don’t like each other don’t pass out papers with formulas to make the playoffs. Do you think fans could stop getting on Carlos Beltran? The guy is great, I don’t know where we’d be without him. He had a little power outage, and he had a little bit of a struggle getting runners in from scoring position lately, but so did everyone. Beltran is as vitally important to this team right now as Wright and Reyes.
Wagner’s blown save may have been a punch to the stomach as Gary Cohen said, but Carlos Beltran coughed up the disappointing start to the season and booted it out of the ballpark in the 13th.
Aboard the Runaway Train
I don’t buy the argument that the Mets are .500 over the last 162. It’s a misleading statistic. This team has rarely played .500 baseball. It’s played better and it’s played worse. Talent wise we all know they should be better. Anyone that tells you otherwise is either disappointed, or a Mets hater.
The biggest, and main reason for their failures has been their inconsistant hitting. They often fail to do the situational stuff, like get guys in from third, or get a big hit with runners on. They’re doing better at scratching and clawing and adding on than last year, but often they only do this, failing to have the big 5-6 run innings. Some of this can be attributed to lack of power, notably the decline of Carlos Delgado, who’s actually hit the ball well lately. However, as Keith would tell you, they didn’t always used to look for the damn 3-run home run. Could this be all the problem is? Rather then trying to simply bloop one or make solid contact up the middle, everyone’s trying to drive the ball high and far? Could someone please tell the Mets that a ground ball often scores the run as easily as the sac-fly, so stop worrying about driving the ball or long home runs and just get a hit. Maybe more guys could score from second and go first to third if every hit didn’t look like it could be caught causing them to have to hang back.
I’ll even give the Padres two of these games. Wagner is going to have the occasional blip, so maybe you give them Sunday. And the offense isn’t always going to be on, maybe an opposing pitcher actually pitches well, and maybe the Padres can take one of those other three. Still, the Mets should’ve been able to take those other two, and they have no excuses. They’re backing themselves against a wall for no reason.
100 games left. You could project numbers, guess or estimate what everyone is going to do. And you’d be wrong 95% of the time. The Mets are capable of winning anywhere from 45-70 of the remaining games. The Phillies are capable of losing anywhere from 40-60 games. Looking at the big picture is what got them into trouble last year. I say they look at being in position to take the division back from the Phillies by their next meeting in early July. That is 22 games prior to a four game series. Probably 23 games if you factor in the Yankee makeup. There is no reason why they can’t play one game better than the Phillies every week, and be in a competitive place by July.
Who knows where they’re going to go, how they’re going to play, or if the Phillies are going to keep this pace. It’s up to the Mets, and the most infuriating part of it all is that we could be on a train ride headed for a wreck with no way to get off.
Oh, and could they go ahead and announce the Yankee makeup date already? If they’r really planning on doing it in two and a half weeks, it’d be nice to know. Especially if they make it at an iffy time like Friday afternoon.
DVD Review, Six Essential Games at Shea Stadium
I recently had the pleasure to view A&E‘s DVD, The New York Mets: Essential Games of Shea Stadium. I was surprised at how easily I was able to just slip back into the past and enjoy some of these games.
This DVD set contains six of the arguably greatest games played by the New York Mets. Most of these games we all know about, may have seen live, or recently replayed on SNY, but it was nice to see them without commercials. It’s nice to be able to just pop in a DVD and connect with all the emotions and excitement associated with all of these great games, especially after the disaster that was this west coast trip. I don’t know that I would call these the six most essential games, but they are certainly six big ones. Arguably this DVD set isn’t complete without at least a clip of Ventura’s Grand Single, but the rest of the content certainly makes up for it’s absense.
The 6th disc also contains a bunch of special features. Endy’s catch is obviously on there, because it’s everywhere, and might be the only clip from a losing game. Other fun ones to see, some of which I’d never seen before, include the ’86 division clincher against the Cubs, and Gary Carter’s game winning opening day home run in 1985. They had Todd Pratt’s home run in 1999, and also the 2000 clincher against the Cardinals. 
One of the fun clips to watch was a montage of 2006 walk off hits. It brought back all sorts of exciting moments, and reminded me how the 2006 Mets used to beat up the guy who got the walk off hit, pounded on his helmet and really getting into it. After the Mets clinched the Pennant in 2000, they showed a guy in the left field loge holding up a sign that said “Bring on the Yankees!” I couldn’t help but yell at him from eight years in the future to shut up and root for the Mariners.