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Winning Baseball?

What’s this? Winning Baseball?

Craig Carton mimicked the optimism I’m feeling on his show this morning. Livan against the free-swinging, slumping Marlins. Livan probably pitching for his job, if not his career. If the Mets and Livan can beat Nolasco, they go into Wednesday looking for a sweep, and to go above .500.

And Wednesday isn’t a normal Mets game. Wednesday is the day even regular Mets fans feel confident. Johan Santana is pitching. Even better, Johan’s pitching against Josh Johnson, the guy who ‘out-pitched’ him for a win the last time they matched up together. Despite Johan actually pitching better, you know he’s itching to put Johnson in his place.

The three games after that are against the Phillies, then to Atlanta for two, then home for two more against the Phillies. The Mets are all set for a turn around and to take May by storm. What better way to set us at ease then to steamroll the pathetic Phillies pitching, exorcise some demons in Turner Field, and then come home to make Citi Field rock by stomping the Phillies again?

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On Top of the World

A huge confidence booster to end the unofficial first half on this kind of note. Win or lose tomorrow, when they resume play on Thursday it’ll be with the knowledge that they can and will beat everyone.

The Mets now control their own destiny. They are zero losses behind for the lead, so if they win, they win. It’s a good place to be, and even if they were to fall back to one out, they can go into the break relaxed and confident.

For the first time probably all year, their was optimism and confidence in the stands at Shea while I was there. And the place was virtually packed too.

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Mets Believe Mets Fans Believe They Can Win

I was at the Subway Series games this weekend, and while a lot of the juice has gone out of it, there was still excitement in the air. The lack of juice could be attributed to both teams struggling. I didn’t hear one “Jet-ers Boy-Friend” chant for A-Rod. No Hip-Hip You’re-Gay! No Captain Cologne! (Admittedly, some of these are better left unsaid) There were still a good amount of Yankees fans being positive, cheering “Der-ek Jet-er” and other assorted lame Yankees chants. Despite the Yankees being in arguably a worse position than the Mets, their fans are still more optimistic.

The argument everyone always falls back on is they’ve won in the past. But winning in the past doesn’t do anything for winning in the present. The only thing it affects is confidence, and part of that is fan confidence. Who do you think has more confidence in their team, and their own performance? Cano, or Castillo? Both are playing badly, but one guy is having his head called for constantly and booed. The other is certainly souring faces, but he’s not yet being chased out of town or having fans seriously consider releasing him. Sometimes if you tell someone that they are a certain way enough, they believe it themselves. When Delgado comes up to the plate, everyone at Shea is convinced and screaming at him that he’s going to ground out to second, so he’s thinking about grounding out to second. Just like you can’t stop thinking about the giant elephant in the room. Conversely, Derek Jeter comes up in a big spot thinking he’s going to come through because that’s what everyone always tells him he does. So he hits roughly the same ground ball, but instead it seems to go a little faster, and just seems to find that hole between second and first.

So how about we go about our business as Mets fans with a little bit of swagger and confidence. We just crushed the Yankees, winning the series 4-2. Play that way all season and the Mets would win well over 100 games. We’ve gained on the Phillies, and we’re coming with a vengeance that they should be frightened of. Even bad teams can win frequently, and whether you think the Mets are good, bad, or somewhere in between, lets go out there and root like we think and know they will win the game instead of constantly telling them how they’re going to fail and not good enough for us. Maybe they’ll start to believe it too.

Oh, and Jerry Manuel telling everyone that the it’s the Yankees town isn’t helping. All it did was give fodder to the newspapers to continue talking about the Yankees and treating the Mets like the second team.

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How Many Strike-Outs for Mets Pitching This Year?

Tomorrow is the day. At noon tomorrow the moment we’ve all been waiting for since Glavine walked off the mound that Sunday afternoon. His upgrade, Johan Santana, will report to Port St. Lucie and officially start the 2008 baseball season. It’s not quite the regular season games we’re waiting for, but having daily news, even if it isn’t much, to look forward to everyday will be a much needed joy.

David Wright will be showing up this weekend, as ready to get started as we are for him to get started. Wright is the player I think we have the most confidence and faith in. He played his heart out last year, all year. He truly cares, truly wants to win, and plays the game the right way both on and off the field. I would rank the players I have the least questions about going into next year like this. David Wright, Johan Santana, Jose Reyes, Carlos Beltran. I also have few worried about John Maine, or even Pedro Martinez.

I know most people probably think I’m insane for not worrying about Pedro, but I’m not. As the time came for him to return last year, I thought he’d have a good couple of starts, and that he could really contribute in the playoffs. We never got there, but Pedro did pitch well. Now everyone is saying you can’t count on Pedro, but I don’t think that’s true. His pitching in September proves that the injury he recovered from isn’t going to inhibit him, and he’s only recovered more from it now. He’s still an ace pitcher, he still knows how to pitch, he still has that ability. And he’s healthy. Sure he’s brittle, but he’s always been brittle, whatever that means. It’s possible anyone can get hurt in 2008, but I don’t think Pedro Martinez is more likely, and certainly not a given, to get injured. Plus Pedro is a competitor. I think he’ll truly thrive on this come back of his, plus I think he’ll thrive on the friendly competition he’ll have with Santana. They are going to feed off each other all year. A thriving, strike-out thirsty 1-2 punch of Santana and Martinez is going to have opposing batters at Shea Stadium whiffing so much it’ll change the wind patterns.

However, this team did come off a horrible collapse, and we’re going to need to see something from them to really regain our confidence in them. One thing that comes to mind would be to see a combined 3-22 stat from Jimmy Rollins and Pat Burrell during the opening series. That would really make us feel good, although we can’t forget that Rollins and Burrell had a pathetic showing during the opening series at Shea in 2007 also.

A quick word on the former player Roger Clemens. I listened to some of the hearings today, and I was actually laughing at Clemens. He comes off so badly in my opinion, that I’m absolutely convinced he did steroids. It’s no longer a he said, she said situation, it’s a he said, THEY said situation. From the little I heard, McNamee, Pettite, Pettite’s wife, and Mike Stanton all have said Clemens has taken steroids. Clemens countered most of this with garbage like “I don’t remember that.”, or “Pettite must have misheard”. It doesn’t look good, and I’m done with all the attention this is getting, it’s time to talk about baseball now that spring is finally here.