These Mets Are Scary
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.
Tags: Baseball, bullpen, good teams, great teams, Home Runs, Johan Santana, jon niese, Mets, mets are scary, Mike Pelfrey, New York Mets, NL East, offense, phillies suck, Pitching, r a dickey, scary mets, starting pitching, winning, winning baseball
Why Santana Will Be Just Fine
I wonder how people back before pitch counts and speed guns were able to tell when their ace pitchers were in decline?
Statistical analysis and all the technology of present day definitely enhance the game and our understanding of it, but they also allow us to jump to premature conclusions.
I was in Baltimore over the weekend and I was listening to the post game show after the Saturday game when the Orioles announcers described the next day’s pitching matchup as “Pelfrey, the Mets ace.” There wasn’t a pause. It wasn’t qualified by “this year.”
Santana came out this spring and proclaimed himself (when asked to name someone) the best pitcher in the NL East. So is he a washed up ace trending downward and not even the best pitcher on his own team?
I’d say no. Of course Pelfrey has been the better pitcher this year so far, but Santana is far from over the hill and washed up. Actually Santana has a slightly higher ERA, but they have almost identical WHIPs and Ks. The different result is mainly due to run support, and Pelfrey’s pitches trending more towards ground balls. It just seems so different because Santana is a Cy Young caliber pitcher and Pelfrey has been a struggling prospect prior to this point.
The case can be made that Santana is merely slumping, not declining. For one he’s always been a second-half pitcher. He had surgery last year and had a longer than normal layoff between his last start of 2009 and his first of 2010. There’s something to be said for building arm strength over a couple of months, and surgery and time off sap that. You can already see that the velocity is starting to come back up a little bit. Pitching is a game of adjustments, and right now Santana is having some trouble with control of his pitches. This is leading to more walks and less strikeouts. Santana’s track record says that he’s a smart guy and knows what he’s doing out there. You have to trust that he can make the adjustments needed, and that he’ll be able to do it faster than batters can adjust to him.
The Mets are fighting for first place and arguably Santana is only going to get better. He’s a big game pitcher, a fighter, and a great ace of this staff to have. As his game rounds into form, the weather heats up and he builds up arm strength as the Mets march towards October all worries about him being in decline will vanish and we’ll be talking about the Mets having as good a 1-2 punch as anyone else in baseball.
Tags: ace, ace pitcher, Baseball, decline, Johan Santana, Mets, mets ace, Mike Pelfrey, New York Mets, pitch count, Pitching, pitching staff, second half pitcher, speed gun, velocity
Pitching Wins
Pitching wins. That’s the common refrain around baseball, and there is a lot of truth to it. So while many Mets fans may have been upset that the Mets offense is struggling, even against position players in a 20 inning game, I’m ecstatic that the pitching has been so good. It’s too early to tell for sure on the starters. Some velocity numbers seem suspect, but static numbers do not tell you everything. Pitch counts, and pitch speeds, are something that many managers and baseball experts are still working on. 20 years ago these things were barely more important than who won the airplane race. (On a side note, I kinda miss the airplane race. It was so perfect for the Mets, since Jets from LaGuardia fly over constantly.) Let’s give some guys a couple of starts to build up arm strength and get the early season jitters out of the way before we judge what they’re capable of for the season.
If the pitching is going to be this good, the Mets are going to rise to great heights. Santana is going to win games; I really don’t think there is anything to worry about with him. He’s had a little less velocity than we would like so far, but he’s also fresh back from surgery, and a slow starter. He did get up to 92 by the end of his appearance Saturday, and I hope it’s just a matter of getting his arm strength up to mid-season form. You could probably say the same thing about Oliver Perez, who looked masterful the night before. Perez mixed and matched pitches and location and speeds like a pro. Like Santana. He was _nothing_ like the Ollie we know. He wasn’t good Ollie, or bad Ollie. He was just a pitcher doing his thing. There wasn’t wildness, or getting unfocused. He was pitching, not throwing, as the adage goes.
There’s not enough to say about Pelfrey. He’s amazing. He leads the team in ERA, in wins, even in saves! He threw a masterful game in the low-oxygen Colorado game, threw a bullpen early Saturday and then still demanded the ball from Manuel in the 20th inning for the save on Satuday. If there’s anybody on the team you’re ready to say “Throw out 2009, it’s 2010 now and that’s what counts” with, it’s Pelfrey.
Now, the offense hasn’t been great. However, the offense is also underperforming. Bay, Pagan, Castillo, Reyes are all better players than they’ve played so far, and there is little reason to think they won’t get better. That will win games. They’re 4-7 right now and once the offense clicks they could easily rattle off a winning streak. Once we get Murphy back, or Murphy comes back and doesn’t improve and Ike shows up, the offense will get a boost as well. Like Murphy or not, he’s not the automatic strikeout that Jacobs is.
A lot hinges on tonight. Every other pitcher has shown that they’re going to put up some good games this year. Even Niese’s quality start is perfectly acceptable out of the 5th guy. Maine is the only holdout, and after scrapping the changes that didn’t work this spring, he’ll revert to what’s given him success in the past. It might be too soon to expect him to have that nailed down and for him to pitch a gem, but a competitive game over six innings or so that gives the Mets ample opportunity to win the game would be a great start.
The offense will work itself out, but if the pitching can do what it’s started to show it can do, this 4-7 record will be a mere slow start in a great season.
Tags: Baseball, baseball adages, bullpen, cardinals, Mets, Mike Pelfrey, New York Mets, offense, Pitching, pitching not throwing, pitching wins, success, winning
Upcoming Expections For The Mets
I understand the season has been hurtful so far. I also understand that even the worst teams in baseball don’t play this badly, and that they will win more games. So how do we shake this feeling of doom?
I’m pretty confident in Pelfrey throwing a good game tonight. I think what he worked on this Spring is going to help a lot, he’s getting less distracted on the mound, and has that cocky confidence that this team needs.
You never know with Perez, and I worry that the stupid tinkering that Warthen did with Maine was also a failure for Perez, but I think the Mets will have a chance to win the game tomorrow when he pitches.
Santana is due to bounce back and win one on Saturday. He’s Johan Santana after all.
Then Maine, who I think gets a huge boost being out from under Warthen’s shackles. Doesn’t mean he’ll be successful though, especially the first time going back to what’s worked for him, but the numbers are there if you choose to believe. (those numbers being a 4-1 2.75 ERA May last year before surgery in June. Those numbers being that he was hitting 93 last year, and was 91-92 in the return from surgery in September) I’m hoping being able to be comfortable will be like a weight off his shoulder and he’ll do just fine. I’m certainly not ready to believe Maine’s career is over.
Maybe they drop one of those, which would put them at 5-7. Then they go home for a 10 game home stand where if they go 6-4 they’re back at .500 and go to Philadelphia, a park the Mets love to hit in with hopefully the offense finally clicking, and knock the ball, and 2009, out of the park.
That’s the formula to shake these bad feelings away. If the Mets can get to Philadelphia near .500 and play well there against an injured Phillies team and assert, even if it’s just for one series, that they’re the better team it will go a long way to returning the confidence to this team, and to it’s fans.
Tags: attitude, Baseball, Confidence, dan warthen, fire manuel, fire warthen, Johan Santana, John Maine, Mets, Mike Pelfrey, mop, New York Mets, Oliver Perez, optimism, phillies suck, recipe for success, ya gotta believe
More Pressure For a Quick Start
It’s not just Jerry Manuel and Omar Minaya that have to worry about fast starts to the season or their jobs being in jeopardy. The same case could be made for Jeff Francoeur,
Daniel Murphy, and Rod Barajas. The way Ike Davis, Fernando Martinez, and Josh Thole have been playing in a way this spring that makes you suspect they’ll be knocking at the door to Citi Field sooner rather than later.
With Reyes possibly being out some, or all, of April the pressure on the starting pitching has just doubled. The most recent report on April suggests that he may be back closer to mid April, but that’s still a rough estimate.
We’ve known for a while that the season was going to hinge on the starting pitching. The offense was projected to be one of the top in the league, and surely would’ve won some games on it’s own even when the pitching struggled. With Reyes and Beltran out, they may not have that cushion for a while, but this doesn’t mean the Mets are doomed to a 9-13 type record to start the season.
The fast start is more important than ever, and if Maine, Perez, and Pelfrey can have a good month of April the Mets will still win games. We all know they’re each capable of pitching good games. It was expected before the season that they could definitely pitch competitively and keep us in games, but now they may be pressured to actually win the games. Instead of quality start performances and limiting the opponents to three runs over six innings, stepping up and going seven innings and occasionally limiting the other teams to merely one or two runs becomes important to the Mets early success.
This isn’t to say the Mets lineup is useless, and that they won’t occasionally put up a crooked number, but Jose Reyes and Carlos Beltran are two of the most irreplaceable players in the game today. The season is never won and lost in April, but if the pitching can step up and win more games than they lose, not only will it minimize the damage caused by losing Reyes and Beltran, it will set them up nicely once they return.
This post, and vibrant discussion about it, also featured on The Real Dirty Mets Blog.
Tags: Baseball, Carlos Beltran, daniel murphy, fast start, fernando martinez, fire jerry manuel, fire manuel, ike davis, jeff francoeur, jerry manuel, John Maine, Jose Reyes, josh thole, Mets, Mike Pelfrey, Oliver Perez, rod barajas
Excited for Spring, Rooting for The Mets
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| From Mets |
20 Days until Pitchers and Catchers and Injured Players report to Port St. Lucie. I’m excited. To me, it’s hard not to be. It’s still Mets baseball, and no matter how you feel about the Wilpons, the front office, or the team, there are still fun games to be played this season, and fun players to watch.
Johan Santana’s due to make 33 or so starts, and every one of those games is worth watching.
Jose Reyes is reportedly healthy and is always a joy to watch play the game. He’s due to be out there on the field at least 155 games or so.
David Wright, Jeff Francoeur, and Daniel Murphy may have varied amounts of upside or talent, but all three of them play their hearts out. You can’t ask for more out of a baseball player. You can truly believe that these guys want to win at least as much as you want them to.
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| From Mets |
Exciting rookies like Josh Thole, Jonathan Niese, Fernando Martinez, and maybe even Ike Davis are candidates to make appearances this year. It’s always fun to watch homegrown guys try to break out and become major leaguers.
You may be down on Mike Pelfrey a little, but he’s going to work out to do better this year. He’s still a young, talented, homegrown pitcher who will hopefully have a bounceback type season, and there is a good chance we see Niese come up and pitch this year.
The 2010 season won’t be won in January, it won’t be won on paper, and when April 5th comes and the Mets take the field, they’ll do so tied for first place. This is small consolation right now, but anything can happen. There is still time for a trade to happen for another pitcher. It’s entirely possible that one of the Mets starters has an excellent season and pitches great to compliment Santana. The offense isn’t bad, and it’s entirely possibly Beltran is back and healthy by May and Francoeur continues his resurgence and everyone plays well. If some of these things happen, the Mets will be extremely competitive and rather than berate the players I think will fail I’m going to focus on rooting for them to succeed. Isn’t that the point of being a fan?
Tags: Baseball, daniel murphy, David Wright, fernando martinez, jeff francoeur, josh thole, Mets, Mike Pelfrey, new york, New York Mets, optimism, pitchers and catchers, Spring Training
Manuel’s ‘ultimatum’
Manuel’s ‘ultimatum’ to the pitching staff is basically a case of buying low.
He knows they are better than this, and he also knows Redding could be pretty close to coming back and taking Livan’s spot anyway. So he makes this statement about one more time through the rotation and then there will be changes, but he’s really just stating the obvious. He’s taking a bet that the pitching will be better and/or Omar will make a change with the 5th starter. If the pitching gets better, he looks like he got them going, and if they don’t, likely a change will be happening anyway, and he can take credit for it. This is how he’s been winning people over since he’s been in charge.
Anyone watching these games can clearly see that the starting rotation is struggling, but also that they’re like to get better. Perez was reported to have not done what he was supposed to do in Spring Training while at the World Baseball Classic. So he wasn’t quite ‘ready’ when the season came. It’s now three starts later. He hasn’t looked real good, but there have been small signs between a raise in velocity to a couple of key strikeouts that could give you hope if you’re looking for it.
Maine was coming off an injury. I thought it would take him a couple of starts to get going, given the longer layoff from pitching in real games. He’s had some bad moments, but some good ones too. I suspect he’ll start giving some worthwhile performances soon.
Pelfrey is probably what I’d call the least worrisome. He had some tendinitis so they skipped a start, so he’s had even less. He really stepped it up last year, and It’ll probably take him a little while to start getting back to that point, and to adjust to any scouting adjustments made to him. He’s always shown promise, and I see no reason to think he won’t have a good year.
Livan however, might be more of an issue. Besides that Manuel routinely comes out and basically says he has no confidence in him, he doesn’t seem to have much left. He pitched well in the spring, but it looks like he’s getting by on a lot of trickery and smarts. Batters figure him out and he seems to crumble as he gets through the order a couple of times. Hopefully he can give us one more reasonable start, against the Marlins, and then maybe Redding will be available to get us a couple of good starts at least.
Another thing to note is Sheffield; he still appears to be done. We talked about how it was a win-win situation for the Mets, but it really isn’t. It took at-bats away from Church when he was hot. It’s taking at-bats away from Castillo when he’s hot by way of Tatis not having any fill-in time in the outfield and having to find him a place to play. Barring a sudden turn around, I think the Sheffield experiment should be terminated. However, Manuel is playing him again today. A day after getting swept, sitting Murphy another day. Who’s more likely to get a hit? Who’s more likely to score runs for Santana? Who’s more likely to benefit from a day in LF and will be here all year? Hint: It’s not Gary Sheffield.
Tags: fire manuel, gary sheffield, John Maine, line ups, livan hernandez, Mets, Mike Pelfrey, Oliver Perez, redding, sure bet, ultimatum
Rookies are Rosey
I’m feeling rather chipper, excuse my pun, about the state of the Mets right now. Specifically about Mike Pelfrey, and Daniel Murphy. It’s still too early to know anything about Murphy, but so far he’s looked spectacular. He may not be the greatest outfielder, but he’s not an outfielder. He’s shown the willingness and ability to play anywhere however, and if the Mets decided the best way to fill left field, for now and the future, is to keep going with the conversion process for Murphy, I’m sure he’d turn out to be more than serviceable out there.
Pelfrey has got enough major league innings under his belt now to say that he’s not a flash in the pan. Pelfrey is looking more and more like the real thing the more he pitches. The Mets organization, even without uber-conservative Peterson, wants to try to keep an eye on Pelfrey’s inning count as the latest viewpoint is that it’s important to keep the young pitchers from throwing too many innings too fast. Pelfrey is pitching too well for that. Manuel was probably thinking that he’d let Pelfrey pitch a solid six or so innings, and go to the bullpen. Pelfrey was too economical and too dominant to make a decision like that anything but stupid. With less than 100 pitches, Letting Pelfrey finish out the game for his first complete game was good for the bullpen’s stamina, Pelfrey’s confidence, the fans entertainment, and most importantly, It was good for the Mets. 
Church looks like he could return soon, and where a month ago the Mets were desperate for a _second_ outfielder, now they’re trying to figure out how to have playing time for five of them…not to mention Endy, who really has been a big help, despite the horrible start he got off to. Assuming Church comes back soon, there should be enough playing time for Church, Evans, Murphy, and Tatis among the two corner outfield positions, including the possibility that some of them could give Delgado a day off. Hopefully Endy can find some playing time also, to stay sharp, and maybe Beltran can get a day off here and there, depending on the playoff race.
Everything’s coming up roses for the Mets lately.
Tags: daniel murphy, division, dominant, gypsy, Mets, Mike Pelfrey, outfielders
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.
Tags: Carlos Beltran, chemistry, clutch, division, e.t., Mets, Mike Pelfrey, movie, Philadelphia Phillies, turning point, wins
Ups and Downs
As harrowing as Tuesday’s game was, last night’s game was pleasant. It was basically against a minor league team, but it still counts. Oliver Perez still pitched well, and the offense still swung the bats well.
One thing it was good to see was runs in the top of the 9th to make it 13 to 0. There was no mailing it in, or signs that anyone thought ‘Hey, maybe we got enough tonight.’ Excepting Casanova, the rest of the bench and bullpen got their first appearances out of the way. Billy Wagner managed to come into a non-save situation and not pitch like me.
The news about Pedro is not good. Four to six weeks plus rehabilitation. The biggest impact this has is on Mike Pelfrey. If Pelfrey can figure out how to be consistent and pitch like he seems to be capable of, Pedro will barely be missed. We’ll see how that goes, against Glavine of all people, on Saturday. Maybe Pelfrey will make his case that it’s him that will replace Glavine’s innings from last year, and that Santana’s are just icing on the cake.
The baseball season is here, and it’s even been christened with it’s first wrinkle. You didn’t really think the entire season was going to be as easy as Monday did you?