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Losing To Good Teams

Losing to good teams is just as bad as losing to bad teams, it’s just a different bad. The goal of baseball is to be the best, and anytime anyone asserts themselves as better than you it should hurt.

 

Losing to crappy teams is usually a comedy of errors, or running into the handful of good players the opposition has or the crappier players you’re still forced to play. It’s usually a sloppy affair. Getting so soundly slaughtered by the best teams in the league however is demoralizing because it makes it seem you’re so far away from being good. Even when you play pretty well you can lose pretty soundly.

 

The Mets, presumably, are trending upwards with young talent, playing .500ish baseball since the break, and looking to finish a place above where they did last year with maybe a better record as well. It’s hard to remember to that when you’re getting so summarily trounced by the Detroit Tigers or the Los Angeles Dodgers.

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These Mets Are Scary

Mets Win
Mets Win

This Mets team can be pretty scary.  I certainly thought they had a chance to be very competitive coming into this year, but it would’ve been hard for anyone to predict it would evolve the way it did.   The team may be the team you’d least want to face in the National League, because you never know what you’re going to get from them, they can hit you from all angles.  People talk about Philadelphia’s offense being scary, but when you get down to it the Phillies are a team built on offense; if you pitch well against them you can win any of the games.

The Mets can baffle a team’s offense on any day.  It could happen via R.A. Dickey’s knuckleball dancing towards the plate, or it could happen with Pelfrey’s dominate sinking fastball.  The next day Jon Niese could unleash his curveball, or Johan Santana could be on the mound with his two Cy Young awards.   The bullpen has also been very good, regularly racking up scoreless innings.  They’ve got some hard throwers, some specialists, and Frankie Rodriguez.

Offensively the Mets have the talent to beat a team in a couple of ways.  They’re capable of hitting big home runs one day, and the next day battering pitching to a tune of 14 runs without a long ball.  They’re aggressive, steal bases, take extra bases on base hits, capitalize on errors and play hard.  They’re capable of coming back from deficits, don’t quit until the game is over, and even if a starting pitcher is shutting them down, they’re capable of waking up against a reliever and winning a game.

They seem to have the right mixture of confidence and cockiness, and all reports suggest they have great clubhouse chemistry. (Winning will do that) Even if they don’t make a trade, it looks like they’ll be getting Carlos Beltran back to the lineup which would be about as big a mid-season acquisition as you can find.  They’re already in prime playoff position, and they’ve got plenty of guys looking to have a better second half including Johan Santana, Jason Bay, Luis Castillo, and Jose Reyes.   This is a team to look out for, and it’s looking like the final series before the All-Star break against the Braves is going to be a big one.

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They Are That Good

Just because we’re losing, or have lost, doesn’t mean that we aren’t that good.

When you encounter someone that tells you the Mets aren’t that good, give them a pat on the back. Their response is a defense mechanism against the hurt they’re feeling with the way this team is managed and playing.

No matter how you look at it, this team is pretty good and should win the division.

They’re better than last year. The bullpen has gone from bottom five to top five. That’s a huge improvement. The starters seem at least as good as last year. Both corner outfield spots look to be better than last year, as does second base.

The Phillies are worse. Being that they had a ton of pitchers have career years last year, it was obvious they wouldn’t repeat that performance. They weren’t even the best team last year, except as far as ultimate results go. They have been getting by on their offense so far, but their offense, while good, can’t carry them all year. Offense slumps, and that could lead to disastrous stretches of games if their pitchers continue to be mediocre. They certainly didn’t look like a great team in any of the four games they played the Mets.

Even if you go position by position, the Mets are a good team. They’re getting top of the line performance out of 3B and CF. The corner outfielders are around league average or better, and under-performing. Catcher is right around average, while SS and 2B are above it. Pelfrey and Maine are both above league average, which means that we have a favorable pitching match up more times than not.

I know it’s tough sometimes, when they find ways to lose; the manager throws the game away, the 1B of the inning throws the game away, someone makes a key error, or a reliever doesn’t have it. It’s not cause to give up. (Of course, if you’ve truly given up I don’t know what you’re doing watching games or reading blogs) It’s not often teams run away with the division in May. Even great teams. Even championship teams. There is a lot of good, and fun baseball coming. Don’t let a couple of bad games get you down.