It’s Memorial Day, a day many baseball fans traditionally use to take their first real assessment of the team. Now suddenly standings start really meaning something, it’s considered okay to scoreboard watch, and most batting averages and rate statistics have at least a reasonable sample in which to infer some judgement on the player beyond a hot or cold start. (Jose Reyes is batting .335, is the best shortstop in the game and is just plain exciting to watch. Please extend his contract.)
So where are these Mets going? Right now it certainly doesn’t feel like they’re going very far. They faced the Phillies and the lesser two of their aces and their rotation filler and outpitched all three of them but lost the series. The fielding got sloppy in close games and the bullpen picked the worst possible time to struggle. Still, can you proclaim anything as over in May? The Phillies were 1-3 against the Mets, one game over .500 and 7 games back on Memorial Day in 2007. Sure, the Phillies look better than the Mets right now, but you would’ve said the opposite in 2007.
There is no doubt that the Mets need to play better to have any hope at some sort of reverse 2007 season. The latest news on Ike Davis and David Wright doesn’t exactly have them returning immediately, but it won’t be too much longer either. The news on Johan Santana remains good. If the Mets can find ways to win games without them, and that would include hitting better with RISP and fielding the ball cleanly to not force pitchers to have to get 4 or 5 outs too many times, then they can crawl back to .500 and be poised to add two big bats to help them chase the Phillies. They still have nine games against them and won’t face them again for over a month. The Mets play eight of the next 14 games against the Pirates. It is not unreasonable to expect the Mets to slaughter them, and be able to be above .500 after those 14 games. Minimize the losing stretches of baseball and maximize the winning ones. I think two weeks of this losing is enough, it’s time to start another strong run.
This was a rough weekend for the Mets, but it’s one they can look at and realize that maybe if they field the ball cleanly they win two or three of those games. No excuses; fix the problems or find players that will.
One thing that’s starting to concern me is Terry Collins’ bullpen usage. (#1 thing fans nipick about a manager right?) I really like the Mets bullpen, but i do not like their situational guys, and I wish Collins would stop going to them like they’re gold. These pitchers are not Pedro Feliciano and I would leave Capuano or even Pelfrey in those games. A lot hinges on Buccholz and Beato. Both showed a lot of promise and if they can be relied on in those fringe innings between Isringhausen and K-Rod and the starting pitching then Mets will have a lot of chances to win baseball games.
Some sports writers and bloggers can’t help but recycle the same stories over and over again, merely inserting different information to reach the same conclusion. A free agent someone deems worthy is passed over, therefore the Mets will not spend money. Someone on the team tweaks a muscle, and the medical staff is inept. The players have a bad game and suddenly they’re unfocused and uncaring. So it should come as no surprise when someone out there twists the Jason Isringhausen signing to meet a common plot point: The Mets are desperate to cut payroll for 2012 and will do anything to get out of K-Rod’s contract. It’s possible that by the time I publish this it’ll already have been written. It’ll probably be something like this: