You can root for the Mets without being convinced of their doom
Tonight’s Mets Lineup: Reyes-SS, Turner-2B, Beltran-RF, Murphy-3B, Pagan-CF, Bay-LF, Duda-1B, Paulino-C, Gee-RHP
Jose Reyes is back on the lineup, and none of the National League could catch him in hits while he was gone.
I repeat, Jose Reyes is back at the top of the Mets lineup where he belongs.
Lookout Cardinals.
Pyrotechnics Night at Citi Field Friday was a bummer because the Mets lost, but everything else was pretty nice.
I’ll start with the 1986 stuff, because this is the 25th anniversary and while the Mets aren’t having a single day, they’ve been sprinkling in cool stuff all season long. They’ve done this one before, but they did some trivia stuff between innings where they had the players come out to award the prize. Of course, that made everything else pretty easy. When Rusty Staub appeared in the list, even if you didn’t know the answer to the question you knew it had to be him since he was there at the park.
Continue reading “Appreciating the Fans, 1986, and Explosions at Citi Field”
This next week or two may be the biggest games the Mets have played since the last week of 2008, and they also might be the biggest games they’ll play for years. The Mets record, as well as the Phillies and Braves, will greatly determine the look of the team going forward this year, and maybe even next year too.
Sandy Alderson has said he would consider trading Carlos Beltran right now a white flag, but if the Mets play poorly over the next two weeks, that white flag is inevitable anyway. It’s probably not just Carlos Beltran either; The Mets won’t get a ton for guys like Chris Capuano or Jason Isringhausen, but if the chances of contention plummet there will be little reason to keep them. If they manage to climb closer in the race, the small return from trading those guys won’t be worth gutting the team. In a way, the Mets could finish a handful of games above or below .500 based on how they do in these next bunch of games.
Either way this season will likely be viewed as a step in the right direction, but if the Mets fall out of it here and restructure the team with next year in mind, the record and excitement levels will fall. That probably won’t be enough to prompt many to invest in this team, raising projected income and in turn, payroll. As the memory of the last Mets game fades, we’ll be subjected to more financial news regarding the Picard lawsuit and the Madoff mess. Their will be speculations about Einhorn’s control, about how much the payroll can possibly go up, and if the Mets will actually field a competitive team. So the only real news will be mostly doom and gloom again, which won’t help sell tickets. Just today someone called into WFAN in the brief 20 minutes I had it on proclaiming there is no way the Mets compete for five or six years.
If the Mets climb back into the race and get closer, Sandy Alderson will be more likely to keep players like Beltran, and may even look to add a reliever or someone, especially if the player can be helpful beyond this year too. Whether or not they can or will win a playoff race is not the point here, the point is that if they stay close and prove that they can play with anyone it suggests that the Mets may not be years from competing. They could go into the offseason with fans thinking they’re getting close and with the right moves, including resigning Jose Reyes, the Mets could be a very good team next year.
There’s going to be a lot of stuff to watch with this team this year, and if they remain competitive and winning games they’ll bring in fans to watch versus fans switching gears to what could be a returning NFL season or something else. Jose Reyes could have a record breaking season, as despite spotting the opposition 11 or more games, he’s still got a commanding lead in base hits. David Wright will be returning, one of the Mets franchising players who they’ve sorely missed. Johan Santana may return, and while that’s still up in the air, as is his effectiveness, it will be nice to see him on the mound again. I would like to be at his first game back if I can at least.
It all starts tonight against the Phillies with your hero in attendence. The Phillies aren’t taking the Mets seriously, opting to give Halladay and Lee some extra rest coming off the break and pushing them back until after the weekend. Facing Vance Worley, Cole Hamels who the Mets routinely beat, and Kyle Kendrick is not a daunting task. Hopefully the Mets can get a hot start to the second half, while exposing the Phillies pitching depth, and start catching both them and the Braves who are playing the Nationals this weekend.
My in-laws owned a deli in Brooklyn in the ’70s. One of the beers they sold was Rheingold, and a result they had this display board hanging in the deli, and then collecting dust in the basement until this weekend. The bottom reads: “Enjoy Rheingold here, and at the home of the World Champions”. Well, in 2011 that deli, and Shea, are gone, The Mets are no longer World Champions, and you cannot get Rheingold at their home. (Check out the Citi Field Beer List for what you CAN get)
I attended the All-Star Game in person in 2006 in Pittsburgh, and it really changed my opinion of the game in general. It’s a true celebration of the greatest sport on Earth, and that’s something I can look forward to.
Just because I enjoy the game does not mean I don’t recognize that there are a lot of problems with it. The biggest is the huge amount of players that do not participate, and truly do not want to participate. There are problems with the voting, with the ballots, and with how much the game matters. There are similar issues with the Home Run Derby, including it’s length. I did actually like the way it was done this year, with two players selecting the rest. It’s harder to say no to a coworker than it is to a boss.
So I’m going to enjoy celebrating baseball this week, and wish I was there. If you don’t like the festivities (And if you don’t, I question why you clicked on a link that said “I love the All-Star Game”), don’t watch. That’s fine, the Mets will be back Friday. Just please refrain from tweeting and arguing about how much the game sucks and this and that. Why rain on my parade? I try to keep the negativity to a minimum myself when I see my timeline filling up with boring soccer tweets, or college basketball tweets, so do me the same courtesy. I don’t need to see you tweeting about how you’re so much better because you’re not watching the game.
The Mets are looking to finish the unofficial first half with a positive note, despite losing Jose Reyes this week for six or more additional games. They have three All-Star pitchers to face to get there, although the name Vogelsong doesn’t exactly fill you with fear.
With the Braves and Phillies rarely losing lately, the Mets have had trouble making up ground even when playing well. Which is why it’s important that they win some of these games against All-Star pitchers before they lose anymore ground. They still have plenty of time and plenty of games against their opponents, but you can’t let them get too far ahead either.
The Mets will have a chance to finish anywhere from one game under .500 to five games over. Merely winning the series would put them a comfortable three over, whereas losing it would drop them to just one. The Braves and the Phillies play each other this weekend, so one of those teams will have to lose at least two games. The Mets winning ensures they can at least gain ground on one of them. They then have a chance after the break to gain even more ground on Philadelphia directly.
If the Mets can win some of these games, including some of the ones after the break, they’ll start getting healthier with Jose Reyes, David Wright and maybe even Ike Davis returning to this offense. Adding those guys would suggest that the Mets would be better than they have been so far. There’s no saying that that will be enough to propel them above and beyond their competition, but it should be fun to watch. Hopefully the Mets can give those guys an opportunity to still be in the race when they return.
The Mets starting rotation has been performing pretty well. No one’s an ace, but mostly they’re keeping the team in games and pitching pretty well. Johan Santana appears to have taken the next step towards return, but there are a lot of questions revolving around that. Will he be the dominant Santana we’ve come to know and love, or some lesser pitcher while still recovering from the shoulder surgery? Which pitcher would he replace in the rotation, and will he be able to go deep into games, or will he be on a strict pitch count?
Maybe it’s Johan Santana who should go to the bullpen. In the best case we’re talking about five weeks of games, and maybe six or seven starts. He’ll barely have time to really get into a routine and build up some arm strength. Pitching out of the bullpen would allow him to work on his game and proving his shoulder is repaired without having to really push it. He’ll be able to build muscle and arm strength and work on his mechanics without the strain of 100 pitches at a time. They could work out a schedule and not pitch him too often or back to back days or whatever works best for him.
He has done it before. When he first came up with the Twins he spent a lot of time in the bullpen, and while that was before he was established it’s not exactly a foreign concept to him, he’s pitched 77 games out of the bullpen in his career. Let the beat writers joke about the Mets 23 million dollar middle reliever, it’s still better than the Mets 23 million dollar Ace who’s still experiencing soreness in his shoulder. Or..
Many feel Francisco Rodriguez is a lock to get traded before his option vests. It’s certainly possible, and it does seem like the Mets have a plan in mind with him as they certainly don’t seem to care about his option or use. What about using Johan Santana to close? Closers don’t have a whole ton of value, which is part of the reason you don’t need an overpaid closer clogging up the roster, but you do still need to replace the quality innings Rodriguez gives you and what better way than someone like Santana? You could say that Santana is not used to getting ready to pitch that fast, but he’d have all of “Spring Training” to get used to it, and with a closer you often have a couple more minutes.
After all, the goal with Johan is to get him pitching again. He needs to build up his arm muscles again and recover from having his shoulder sliced open. He doesn’t necessarily need to throw 40-50 innings to do so, 20-25 in a more limited capacity could be just fine. He’d be able to test out his shoulder, get some time under his belt with major league innings, and shut down at the end of the season healthy and ready to rev it back up in Spring Training like normal.
A lot of this could depend on how the Mets are doing in the playoff picture when Johan Santana comes back. On the other hand, it’d be foolish to rely on Johan for anything this year at this point in his rehab, so if he does indeed come back, the Mets don’t need to desperately shove him into the rotation and demand he win every game. Let him ease himself back into pitching, and take what value you can get while keeping him healthy and strong. He’s too valuable to future years to push him too hard coming back from surgery.
Jason Bay hit the wall in Dodger Stadium hard and made a great catch. A couple of days later he was done for the season, and when he returned this year it was like someone had switched him off. He struggled, was dropped in the order, failed to have an extra base hit for weeks, and watched his average plummet. Then he started to get some more hits, and the occasional home run. He was drawing more walks. Then he made another amazing catch and hit the wall in Dodger Stadium.
One of the first things they ask you when you call a tech repair shop for service on your computer is, “Is it switched on?” No one thought to ask that of Jason Bay this season. Then Bay hit the wall, and his switch went back on. Guys back in the clubhouse hung their heads in shame and said to themselves, “Why didn’t I think of that?” and Jason Bay hit two home runs and drove in four runs in a 6-0 rout of the Dodgers.
It was also Jason Bay’s 155th game as a Met, which would probably be more than he would’ve played in his first season as a Met. Perhaps he’s just safely past his ‘first year in NY’ slump, and back to being a good baseball player.
Couple of noteworthy things to look at today. The first is the Mets are playing a day game today at 1:05. The potential National League MVP, Jose Reyes, will leadoff the game against the potential American League Cy Young, Justin Verlander. Should be a fun day. The Mets won the first game on a blowout, the second on a slugfest, could the third be a pitcher’s duel? Is Mike Pelfrey up for it?
Secondly today we need to get #votereyes trending on Twitter and also to vote for Reyes as many times as we can. It would be a travesty if Reyes was not the starting shortstop for the National League. While you’re voting, throw in some votes for Carlos Beltran too. On the American League side Asdrubal Cabrera deserves your vote, especially as he’s currently being led by a player having a poor season that’s on the disabled list in Derek Jeter. Mike Francesa thinks the All-Star Game should be Jeter’s personal 3000 hit celebration, which is even more fodder. Also, Alex Avila deserves your vote for AL Catcher.
Thirdly, last night a bunch of bloggers talked with Paul DePodesta and Michael Baron of Metsblog kindly put up a transcript. I’m sure there are couple of other breakdowns out there too.
Well that was fun wasn’t it? After a ridiculous amount of games without a grand slam, the Mets hit two in one trip through the lineup last night. Jose Reyes had ANOTHER 4-hit game, his second in as many days and he’s reached based nine of his last 10 appearances. Bay had one of those grand slams, Dickey gave the team length and the Mets climbed above .500 baseball on the season. They remain five games out of a playoff spot, but there is a lot of baseball yet to be played. Jose Reyes has as many triples as 17 other major league clubs and still hasn’t gone two consecutive games without reaching base.
What’s not to love about this team right now? The Mets schedule is still tough in the immediate future, but they have a chance to put .500 behind them for good. The way they’re playing, I believe they can do that no matter who’s in the other dugout. Being able to add David Wright to this mix is going to be a nice bonus as well.
Whereever this team is going, the ride sure is fun!