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Just One Game…but a good one

Barely half a day after the horrible loss Tuesday night in Los Angeles and all the things we were complaining about have been put to rest momentarily, but hopefully for good. Situational hitting, getting hits with two outs, with runners in scoring position, tacking on runs, offense in general..all looked good in this Wednesday afternoon game. On the pitching end, the Mets took another big step, finally reaching the 9th inning with a starter. John Maine struggled a little in the 9th and didn’t get to finish, but that’s alright. John Maine has taken steps to show that he’s going to get better this year, and with Santana and Maine, forget Pedro, at the top of this rotation, it gives me a lot of confidence. It’d have been nice for Maine to get the complete game, but Peterson and Willie gave him a lot more rope than I expected, and I think that says that they agree with me about him being improved over last year. Also, the game isn’t about personal stats and 8.1 is plenty from a starter, even bad bullpens should be able to get those last two outs. The bullpen will pitch .2 innings over two days, getting some much needed rest, hopefully charging them for a strong homestand.

However, it’s just one game, and we’ve seen these flashes in other games, and other stretches. The Mets need to isolate whatever is causing the difference between these last two games, whether that be the approach at the plate, the lineup, the manager, or just plain bad luck, and figure out how to make Wednesday stick. The plane ride home just got a little bit lighter, and hopefully the off day will give them time to figure out what went right on Wednesday afternoon.

A quick note on the leadership that so many people think is absent from the Mets and their clubhouse. It’s becoming _very_ obvious to me that Reyes and Wright have taken an active role, if not a public role, in leading this team. They were the first two, as is often the case, out to the mound to congratulate Maine. When a key error gave them the final game against the Diamondbacks, Reyes and Wright, nowhere near getting up in the inning, were the first two out of the dugout to give Beltran a high five with the go-ahead run. There is so much going on in terms of team chemistry that we just don’t see, or only see through the media’s eyes, who are so obviously just searching for anything to write about. The team is under performing, so they look negative.

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Good Days, Bad Days

I don’t know what’s with this team. Where has all the popping out with runners in scoring position gone? What happened to our inability to tack on runs late, or to hold a lead? What happened to the good old days of a pitcher going 100 pitches and calling it a night? Did we forget to practice booting ground balls during pregame warmups?

If these statements sound silly to you, remember that the reverse is probably true too. It’s just one game, and it matters no more or no less than any other game. If you thought the Mets looked lifeless, or not that good on Wednesday and used that as a determination for the rest of the season, how can you not look at tonights game and think just the opposite?

The Mets will lose some games. They’ll win some games. They certainly proved tonight that they still have that ability to play hard, play well, scores runs and look good. That doesn’t just vanish. Of course there are still issues, but there are also plenty of good signs for this FIRST PLACE team.

This isn’t the time to talk about the Braves or the Phillies (or the general Yankees bashing that’s always fun). They certainly have issues and problems, but for now it’s just about the Mets games, whoever they’re playing. Scoreboard watching is fun in a “Die Braves Die” type of way, but it’s not a big deal in May.

One thing I do want to say, and I know it’s gone now anyway, but can I point out that the Mets aren’t/weren’t the only ones to use Sweet Caroline? I was walking into Penn Station on Thursday around 6:30 and they were definitely playing it along with Ranger highlights outside the Garden.

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Chipper Jones on the BQE

Just finished listening to Ed Randall interviewing Chipper Jones on WFAN. He happened to mention that he was in the car with Smoltz driving to Shea Stadium. Can you imagine driving on the Grand Central and you look over and see those two next to you?

If you haven’t heard, Chipper won’t be playing today because of back spasms, and might miss some of the Nationals series next week too.

Randall brought up the comment Chipper made years ago about Mets fans not needing to be so upset, they can just go put on their Yankees gear now. We all thought he was betraying Boston-type ignorance about the incapability of rooting for both teams, but the way he explained it today, it was more of a jibe than ignorance. He says he made the comment later after seeing one of those idiots behind the dugout who was wearing one of those half-Mets half-Yankees caps and was disgusted by it.

He also said he’s not changing his son Shea’s, name but that he hopes he grows up to be a great ballplayer one day and gets to hit in Citi Field.

So that’s my interesting Larry Jones tidbit for the day.

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Bring The Magic Back

Could Wagner completed his “Reliver No-Hitter” for the Mets be a turning point in the season? It’s certainly the closest a Met has come to the real thing. Maybe this brings the magic back.

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A Perez Idea

An Idea

This is just an idea I had yesterday while watching the game. Oliver Perez was obviously struggling, again, late in the game. I don’t really have a problem with Willie pulling him, although I would’ve left him in, but something needs to be done with this guy. I was thinking about this in the 5th, and here’s what I would’ve liked to see.

Just leave him in.

Let him give up 15 runs. Go to the mound, tell him Heilman and Sosa are sitting back and having a soda and he’s finishing six innings no matter what happens. Perez has strived in pressure situations right? So take away the ‘safety net’ so to speak. Let him learn something about himself, and figure out how to get himself out of these situations, because it’s an important lesson a good pitcher needs to learn.

Would this be an irreparable blow to his confidence if he did give up 15 runs? I don’t really buy into that irreparable stuff anyway, but Perez has already had those in Pittsburgh before coming to the Mets and he managed to bounce back. We know he has great stuff, the problem is it’s a coin flip on whether he’ll be able to throw those great pitches. What will make him take that step to a great pitcher is being able to climb back to that peak after he’s fallen out of stride during a game/inning/batter.

With Santana, Willie can prepare to use the best guys out of the bullpen and mentally prepare for which guys are going to come in that day, because Santana will pitch to within an inning or so of expectation nine out of ten times. Even John Maine usually can be expected to be pretty consistent, even if that consistency is a lower amount of reliable innings. However, with Perez there is still always that possibility that he walks 14 batters in the second inning and you need to piece together the rest of the game. If Willie leaves Perez in there last night, maybe he learns something. Or maybe we lose the game, which we did anyway, and the bullpen gets an extra inning of rest that it might need for tonight.

Getting Perez and most of the starters an extra inning or two I think could be the biggest key to this season. It would allow Willie to use his relievers that are struggling less, and able to go with the hot guys. It doesn’t matter what bullpen you have, if you have to use too many pitchers in one game, likely someone won’t be on his game that day.

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Too Early To Worry or Overreact

Three Game Losing Streak

Doesn’t look good does it? The Sunday night game against the Phillies was probably just a result of Pelfrey not going to be excellent every single time out there, and Feliciano’s occasional streakiness. Yesterday was probably a result of using the B lineup, coupled with the remaining A guys slumping.

There are some concerns, but it’s still a little early to be panicking over them. Delgado has been declining, and it looked rather bad last year. The thing is, he had good stretches where he looked fine. So the ability is still there, and I suspect what he needs is some consistency, some warmer weather, and just some swings. For everyone screaming about Church batting 6th, you have to think that him hitting well in the 6th hole helps Delgado. As little as lineups matter when everyone’s not hitting, there are pluses and minuses to each of them.

Luis Castillo has been bad early, but he’s also still hurt. Maybe he’ll be hurt for the rest of his life and he sucks, or maybe, like Delgado, time will help. I don’t want to hear about the contract anymore. Stop thinking about 2011. If this was a one year deal, you wouldn’t be complaining about it, and since this is the very first year you can’t have a problem that he’s on the team in 2011. I liked Gotay too, but he wasn’t the greatest defensive player, and he only had a small small sample of hitting successfully. It’s smaller than the sample size people are using to bash Castillo and Delgado even.

So give it time. Some of these things may turn into big problems, and then it becomes Willie and Minaya’s problems to address, but for now they’re merely points of interest. You can’t fire the manager, bench your star first baseman, or promote question marks from Binghamton on April 22nd.

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Series Two in the books

They didn’t manage to put the Phillies away, but sometimes you’re 4th/5th starter isn’t going to be great, and the bullpen isn’t always going to be spotless. They came back immediately after Utley’s three run home run (And more people need to pitch this guy inside and hit him) to tie the game, which was nice.

They’ve been playing better now, and while a week ago people were prematurely screaming about how bad this team is, suddenly they don’t look so bad. They got five games in a row, which is something they struggled to do last year, and it means that everyone in the rotation was able to keep them in the game. The bullpen has been much better than expected, the only concern I have is that it’s kind of being overworked. But so far it’s got a depth that was it’s biggest weakness last year. If they can keep Schoeneweis and Sosa well rested, I think they’ll be able to squeeze a little bit of consistency out of them, which would be nice.

So what if the Phillies didn’t have Jimmy Rollins? We didn’t have Pedro. Or Alou. Or El Duque. The injury card isn’t valid, we beat the best they could throw at us.

The Mets recalled some of 2006 with a nice streak of scoring in the first inning. This fits well with their style of aggressiveness and putting pressure on the opposition, and it has a lot to do with Reyes getting on base. Now that we’re a couple of weeks in, it’s time to settle in and see how they do over a long period of time, let the slow starters catch up and the guys that are going to be carrying the team continue to step up and produce.

On a side note, I wish I had gotten to go down to Philly with the Metsblog crowd among all the others who made the trip, but I did get to visit Cooperstown for the first time this week.

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Important Quotes

“I have to enjoy my game and be the way I am,” Reyes said. “I can’t worry about the other team getting mad because other teams they do that, what we do they do it, too. I don’t care about that. I just care about this team.”

“We don’t care if these other teams get offended,” Beltran said. “We’re going to play the game like that.”

This is what I like to see. My team, enjoying the game, playing the game hard, and winning the game. I don’t care about Philadelphia or Atlanta or anything they have to say. Or any other team for that matter. The Mets should take these quotes, and focus on their own game and not worry so much about the media-fueled drivel that is sent their way.

On a side note, shouldn’t John Maine have beaned Belliard last night?

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Booing New York

The Booing New Yorker

This post has been brought on by recent discussions about booing, and recent inaccurate statements by the media about how the Mets fan thinks, and how he boos, particularly of Santana on his first start at Shea.

I want to start by denouncing comparisons to places like Boston or St. Louis. These cities are often cited as good baseball/sports fans, as if somehow the way they choose to respond to their team’s form of entertainment is somehow better than anyone else’s. I’m pretty sure Red Sox fans boo, and their must be at least some Cardinal fans who boo, even if they’re just transplanted New Yorkers or something, but it’s irrelevant. In those towns the baseball teams are part of the culture, are part of the every day news cycle and the general small-talk conversations. “Did you see the Sox game last night?” Can almost always be met with conversation in Boston. In New York, there is so much diversity of culture and variety in choices of sports and entertainment that not everyone is into the same things. “Did you see the Mets game last night?” Can be met with anything from “I don’t watch sports”, to “No, I was watching hockey, the Devils looks good last night.”, to the more derisive “Mets suck! Did you see the Yankee game?”

If the Cardinals or Red Sox are bad, people still watch and root, if with less enthusiasm. In New York, the Mets are competing with the Yankees (because there are, and always will be, thousands of band wagon fans), the Rangers, Islanders, Devils, Knicks, Nets, Giants and Jets. There are dozens of news programs, sports writers, newspapers, columnists and bloggers out there trying to cover these teams and write stories. Often times those stories are negative ones, and many times when a team isn’t that good, less attention is paid to it and writers grasp at anything for a story, sometimes without getting all the facts. This leads to stories about players being booed, when the facts don’t support it. Sure there were some boos, take any group of 50 thousand people and you’re sure to get some ignorant losers, but even the audio clips I’ve heard seem to suggest more cheers than boos. I’ve heard accounts from three different parts of the stadium, and the worst account of it was ‘mostly cheers’. The media has made this into a huge deal, and probably made Santana more wary, and less liking, of the fans in general. It is the media that is painting a picture of us Mets fans as a bitter hateful group that is going to panic at every road bump this year. This is the case for some, but many of us are ready to forget and move on. As David Wright said after the Opening Day loss, last year is over and the losing streak was at one as far as we are concerned.

Not to say that booing can’t or shouldn’t happen. It will happen, and that’s fine, the players have to get over it, and the best way to do that is to not pretend they don’t deserve it. We want to cheer you, we want to scream and yell and shout your name, but you have to earn it.

I personally don’t think players should ever be booed while trying. You can boo Schoeneweis when he is announced. You can boo Delgado when he grounds into yet another double play with runners on, but while they’re pitching or batting they should be cheered. Nothing could be clearer that we’re rooting for you, but are displeased with your performance when you routinely fail us. We, most of us, aren’t booing you, but the job you are doing.

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Book Review: Working at the Ballpark

Book Review: Working at the Ballpark by Tom Jones

Skyhorse Publishing

This book is basically a collection of different stories from different people working around baseball, from players and front office guys, to ushers and street vendors. I thought this book would have a few interesting tidbits surrounded by a bunch of boring stories, but I was surprised at the information contained in those stories, and how few of them were actually boring. The book is written in a style where if one guy’s story is boring the life out of you, you can just skip it and read someone else’s.

Of the on the field guys the one whose comments were most interesting was Leo Mazzone. He talked a lot about pitch counts and arm strength, and a lot of it was very thought-provoking. When he was the pitching coach in Atlanta before they started putting the pitch count on the board, he says he used to cheat and not count pitches for Glavine, Maddux and Smoltz. According to him, pitch counts are just a way of talking the pitcher into being tired. He also talks a little about Little League and how having pitch counts actually prevents kids from learning how to pitch properly. It was very insightful and really makes the Orioles look even worse for firing him.

One of the other interesting stories was trainer Todd Hutcheson with the San Diego Padres. The amount of training and work they do on players, particularly pitchers, every day is mind boggling. After reading it I felt like if a pitcher didn’t have these guys, their arms would fall off by June. I know it’s not true, but they’ve got everything down to a science. He goes into details about the work they do on Trevor Hoffman everyday, about some of the rehab work they do on pitchers, and about all the different types of treatments they do from joint mobes and vibration therapy to ultrasound stimulations.

The book encompasses so many different intricate parts of baseball, and it’s surprisingly enlightening.

Luke Yoder, who is the director of landscape and field maintenance for the Padres talks about the dangers of covering the field with the tarp. Maybe just because I never thought about it, but I had no idea that it weights 2300 pounds. Yoder says that if you get a good gust of wind and some of the guys let go, it’s possible for the people that were still holding on to be whipped 10 feet up in the air.

Jim Trdinich, the director of media relations for the Pirates, discusses many of the uneasy relationships between the media and the team. He talks about allowing the manager to vent and scream at him after a tough loss to let him to cool before allowing the media in to ask their questions.

Kurt Schloss, the director of Merchandising for the Cleveland Indians, talks about products that were busts, and how they come up with some of their ideas. He mentions how he finds out with the other fans, and how much it sucks for merchandise sales, when a player has been traded. Which is a very good point; I’ve noticed the Bryant Park Mets clubhouse shop still had about a dozen Kazuo Matsui shirts.

Steve Liddle, the bench coach for the Minnesota Twins, talks about signs and using the information from the advance scout to help figure out where to play hitters, and when is a good time to steal a base or hit and run. He talks about trying to steal signs during the game, and about all the signs that get passed around that most people never even see.

Bob Watson tells a story about the only time he was thrown out of a game.

“You called that a strike?”

The umpire says, “Yes, the ball was on the corner.”

Watson says, “On the corner of Fifth and Main. If you call that a strike, you need these.” and handed the umpire his glasses.

The book is riddled with these interesting tidbits, whether they come from a scoreboard operator, an usher, a guy who designs ballparks or the the mascot. There are thousands of people working behind the scenes around baseball who aren’t as noticed as the players, but they all contribute to bringing us this great game. This book does an excellent job of bringing us their stories, and helping us understand the complex nature of a ballgame.