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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.

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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.

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Frustrations.

Frustrating.

Something just hasn’t been right with this team on the West Coast. Maybe it’s all the travel, which would be a poor excuse, or maybe it’s something else. This failure to get runners in is the biggest frustration of them all. You’d almost excuse a small offensive blip, especially in San Diego, but the way they’re getting the hits and the runners and just not getting them in sucks. Some of it’s just poor execution, and some of it even seems luck and good defense, like Hairston’s great catch on David Wright’s hit the other night.

Time to turn the page, get energized by Pedro and take the final game of the series. Then use the off day to recover from jet lag, and beat the tar out of the Diamondbacks and Rangers.

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Projected Stats

Some projected stats after 55games, just over a third of the season. (Prior to the San Francisco Road Trip)

Pitching projects are approximate since it depends on where they fall in the rotation and days off and all that.(Santana won’t end up with 35 starts.) I included total pitches thrown and pitches per game. which are very arbritrary and meaningless. I couldn’t find Inherited Runners Scored for Smith, but i’ll look more carefully when i next to projections.

I intend to project some of the Phillies players too, and match them up a little bit, but I don’t have time for that now, so later in the week.

Projections
Reyes, 106R, 189H, 15T, 21HR, 74rbi, 68BB, 53SB .284avg/.347obp/.480slg
Wright, 109R, 186H, 50D, 32HR, 124rbi, 106BB, 24SB, .293/.395/.535
Beltran, 115R, 156R, 44D, 18HR, 100rbi, 106BB, 21SB, .264/.372/.458
Delgado, 130H, 24HR, 68BB, 21D, .224/.306/.383
(47g)Church, 103R, 159H, 24D, 29HR, 100RBI .320/.384/.556
(44g) Castillo, 80R, 127H, 9HR, 27SB, .265/.374/.364
(36g) Schneider, 94H, 44rbi, 27R, .258/.326/.323

Santana 21-9, 35G, 3.20, 209K, 59BB, 239IP, 230H, 3696p, 106(p/g)
Maine 15-12, 32G, 3.66, 189IP, 159H, 159K, 88BB, 3387p, 106(p/g)
Perez 12-9 32G, 4.83, 174IP, 147H, 147K, 121BB, 98(p/g)
Pelfrey 6-18, 29G, 4.98, 165IP, 206H, 85K, 74BB, 2981p, 103(p/g)
Wagner .039, 68IP, 32S, 41H, 82K, 12BB,
Smith 2.95, 62IP, 44H, 62K, 24BB,

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Tidbits from the Tatis-ed

So much to talk about after this game. It was probably the best feeling after a game in a while. That said, there is still a long way to go to restore faith and confidence.

Beltran. Metsblog.com quoted a statistic that Beltran was betting .301 in May. That’s pretty good, so stop killing him. He also got a big big hit tonight, again.

Tatis. Remember when we were screaming about how we thought Tatis was going to make this team over Pagan? Not that I don’t like Pagan, but maybe Omar actually does know what he’s doing.

Is it just me, or is SNY making a point of showing Willie Randolph after good moments more? Also, Willie made some excellent managerial decisions tonight. If he doesn’t put on the hit and run in the 12th, the Mets very well might lose this game.

A lot of us have been down on Endy, which I think reflects our overall feelings on the team. But maybe we should lay off a bit and let Endy be Endy. Maybe Willie was right when he said he just needs to get Chavez going.

Sanchez gained some velocity today which Amezaga was able to turn around on him and hit over the fence, but it’s still nice to see Sanchez building his strength up. It was also terrific to see him run hard on his sacrifice bunt.

Speaking of energy, if it ever was really gone, it’s also definitely still there. Beltran was pissed when he popped up the first pitch late in the game. Sanchez had some drive and energy. Tatis couldn’t have looked more excited as he ran around first. Reyes looked a little more relaxed today. There were signs of life all over the place.

Hanley Ramirez’s lame little pseudo-Reyes home run dance with Amezaga was pathetic. I’m really growing to hate that guy.

And of course, finally a nice come from behind win. Twice.

I’m not going to try to over-analyze this game and claim the Mets have turned a corner. They certainly have turned a corner, but they are still at the beginning of the maze.

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DL and Games

Just yesterday I was debating not going to as many games, and now 24 hours later I’m debating adding tomorrow night for Popcorn Night and Sunday night for Santana’s possible 100th win to the games I’m attending this year. I’m already going Saturday which is yet another Mets cap day. It’s not even because of their win last night, I just don’t believe the Mets can be this bad, and I truly don’t think it can get any worse…but I’ve thought that before too.

Lots of people on the DL, although I don’t know if guys like Jason Vargas really count.

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What’s going on here?

It’s depressing that Shea has become such a hostile place instead of a relaxing place to watch a game. I went to, literally, dozens of Mets games each of the last two years. I don’t feel like I’m going to make it to that many games this year at this rate. I bought a Saturday Plan last year, for the sole reason that it gave me the guarentee of playoff tickets to each round of the playoffs, something that I felt sure after 2006 was going to happen in both 2007 and 2008. Now, even though I was thinking about going to the game on Thursday, I’m probably not going to want to. Where last year I was looking for any excuse to go to a game, lately I’m taking any excuse not to watch.

The thing is, I can’t think of any huge changes I would make, or any big acquisitions that would make this team better. The “on-paper” looks good. There are some disappointments and some weaknesses, but they shouldn’t be causing the team to play like they are. I don’t even think the players know what to do, and I do believe a good amount of them are frustrated.
I’ll probably only flip over to check the score tonight while playing Grand Theft Auto, it’s gotten to the point where even watching them play well for one game just isn’t satisfying. Even the players that are normally fun to watch haven’t been playing like that.

However, I don’t think this can persist all season. I don’t count statistics from half of last year and this year, that’s not how they work. With how the division looks, with the talent on this team, with the nature of baseball, in one month we could be looking back on today and wondering what we were so worried about. Or we could’ve already torn all our hair out.
I still really do think when September arrives the Mets will be in a position to play well and make the playoffs. The Mets need to look at the Super Bowl Champions, put the past behind them, and move forward.

Oh, and to the anonymous Braves fan that commented on my last post…Get a life, or at least sign your name.

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Where’s the Spark?

I’m as frustrated as the next guy. I’m just thankful there aren’t too many angry pessimists reading this blog, harassing me. I don’t think firing Willie is the answer, but at this point I don’t think there is much the Mets could try that I wouldn’t accept.

The one thing I hold on to, is last year I felt like had that horrible September been earlier, and had the Phillies played better, the Mets would’ve been able to snap out of it. It just came too late for them, and I feel like they’re really letting the pressure get to them.

They need to find a way to succeed, and then once the pressure is off, move on. This might boil down to getting some lucky bounces and having some bad teams make mistakes to cause them to have some big comebacks and big winning streaks. Maybe a big (June 30th, 2000) comeback is what they need to say, “Alright, we can do this.” and do it. Or maybe they need to lose some players/coaches/managers. Or maybe they need to be 20 games out in mid-august and have a crazy run once they’ve been counted out.

Maybe they need to just lock out the media for a day or two and focus. I’m still not panicked, but lately that’s more because I know the Phillies and Braves aren’t that good/healthy than because I like how the Mets are playing.

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Subway Series loses some luster, but the Mets gain some

The Subway Series this year was very subdued. I’m still a fan of it, I like how it takes over the city and the general feel of it, but most of the novelty has worn off. It’s certainly no longer a David versus Goliath type match up like it was when it started, or when it reached what I think was it’s peak in 2000. It’s no longer a competition to see who is the better team, but who isn’t the worse team. Both clubs had issues to work out, and the opponent at the moment wasn’t important enough to matter. The fans, excepting when trying to shout down opposing chants and cheers, were almost quiet. I only saw half a dozen fights at the Stadium Sunday night. I’m sure a lot of that atmosphere was due to the game being a blow out, but it was more important that the Mets won, than it was who they beat.

And they did beat them. They played better baseball; hitting, fielding, and pitching. Derek Jeter, who always does well in these competitions, did well with the bat, but was average at best everywhere else. He failed to make the only high-caliber move he has at shortstop, his leaping throw to first, early on Saturday. He also got thrown out trying to stretch a single in that game. On Sunday he couldn’t keep his foot on the bag while fielding a bad throw from Giambi during the Mets first rally.

The Mets, particularly Church, played great defense, hit the cut offs and made great plays. They hit, Reyes hit, Wright hit, and they scored 18 runs. They also pitched well, Santana to Wagner on Saturday and Perez went as far as Santana before giving the ball to Smith and Schoeneweis.

More importantly, whether a result of a team meeting or something else, the Mets played with enthusiasm. They played with energy and heart and they really came alive during these two games. Wright was already on the mound encouraging Perez by the time Matsui’s ball went over the fence, everyone was excited when they got hits and scored runs. Maybe the Mets fans’ unwillingness to boo their own players in the hostile environment of Yankee Stadium helped, and maybe the Mets can go and put together a nice streak of games over the next seven so that when they return to Shea, there isn’t a single person we want to boo….besides Hanley Ramirez of course.