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Pitching Holding Up

More bad news on the Billy Wagner front, as it looks like he’ll need some more time to deal with his elbow issues, but the Mets continue to find ways to win. This is much different than the first two or three months of the season, when the Mets were finding ways to lose. Of course it’s against bad teams, but the Mets do have a good record against good teams too.

I’m pretty sure Manuel was spinning his normal tall tales when he talked about moving a starter to the bullpen, but the media, the fans, and the blogosphere can’t seem to stop talking about it. I don’t think it’s likely, despite Maine’s longevity problems lately. I’d much rather see the Mets throw whatever relief pieces they have in the minors, particularly after roster’s expand, against the wall and see what sticks. Maybe all Ayala needs is a change of scenery, and he can make an impact here. If we want to talk John Maine to the bullpen for October, that’s certainly something to think about once the Phillies fall out of it.

The Phillies are probably due for another upswing after a bunch of losses, and it’s important for the Mets to stay ahead of them. This way when the Phillies struggles resurface, which is pretty much inevitable, they can lengthen the lead and start really pulling away. It’s hard to think the bullpen could possible be worse, and any improvement in the team can only make it stronger. Despite being second in the league to the Cubs in runs scored, the Mets have struggled with big hits with RISP.

The biggest factor in thinking the Mets will take this division..semi-easily.., is that the Mets seem to have made the case that they can beat anyone and can win in a variety of ways. Conversely, the Phillies have exhibited the behavior of being able to be beat by anyone. The Phillies, particularly their starters, are very hit or miss. If their offense isn’t on that day, even the lowly Nationals can beat them, and even if their offense is on, it’s possible that their pitching will keep opponents in the game.

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Where They Belong

We all know by know that the Phillies have very little fight in them. The Mets are back atop the NL East again, alone. Where they belong. If you look closely, you’ll also notice our ‘anemic’ offense has scored more than the ‘Murderer’s Row’ offense of the Phillies. Also more than anyone but the Cubs. Without Daniel Murphy’s eight, we’d be two behind. Keep it up!

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Who’s Feisty Now?

The Mets despite the turmoil they’ve faced so far, are right where they want to be; in sole possession of first place. The Phillies are on the outside looking in. If this season, and last, has taught us anything it’s that this isn’t over. There will be plenty more ups and downs after this series, maybe starting as soon as tomorrow. We don’t even know who is starting on Saturday, a game I’m looking forward to being at.

Speaking of Delgado, his hit had so many layers. The slide into third, the racing for third on the throw to begin with, looking frustrated at being thrown out despite delivering one of the biggest hits this season. That he took it the other way.

It’s far from over, but it feels good. How about the Phillies continuing to roll over? To win the first game of every series and not get another one is just pathetic. They’ve only scored one run off of Perez all season, that’s maddeningly awesome. That Rollins can’t even be bothered to show up on time? “Traffic” come on! (Does it matter? I think Bruntlett is doing better against the Mets than Rollins). I wonder if Rollins’ traffic looked something like this.

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They’re Just Not That Good

Fear! Panic! Dismay! These are the feeling in Philadelphia today as the Phillies get read to play the Mets at Shea. Likely these feelings are mimicked in the visitors clubhouse.
Rockies dealt the Phillies their 10000 franchise loss, as well as the last three playoff losses
The Phillies signed a new starting pitcher, and the Mets may lose one in Pedro Martinez. The Phillies are bringing back Brett Myers from his Trachselesque exile to AAA, and the Mets may have an injured closer. Yet the momentum and the good feels are all on the New York side of Jersey.

After a half-season where it seemed like everything that could go wrong for the Mets, did. The Phillies consequentially played well, fighting with the Marlins for the division lead while the Mets wallowed around .500 with the perennial rival Braves. Even a weekend that saw the Mets lose two out of three giving the Phillies a chance to enter this series with a lead has now gone the Mets favor; the Phillies also lost two out of three so the teams remain tied.

While the Phillies fans start remembering how much they disliked their team before the Mets handed them the division, the Mets fans are starting to remember how much they like this team. The second Reyes has replaced most thoughts of Ruben Gotay has step-in second baseman, Delgado is playing like it’s 2006 and Endy and Tatis have stepped up to man the outfield in the absence of Ryan Church and whoever the Mets theoretically sign to take over the left field role.

Since the Mets took the division by storm in 2006, the East has been theirs. They took it for granted, let it slip through their fingers, and watched a rival get Rockied in the 2007 playoffs. Now it’s time to step up, knock the crown from the Phillies undeserving heads, and run with it. This week is the week the Mets take the last dregs of Philly confidence, turn the Phillies away with their tails between their legs and down the Turnpike back to Philadelphia and 20000 losses.

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Can’t Rain On This Parade

Five in a row! Again! Suddenly, the sky is blue and the paths are rosy. The Mets can do no wrong, the bench players come through with big hits, the bullpen and starters don’t allow runs and the Mets win the games instead of finding ways to lose.

Nothing has changed and yet everything has changed. Pelfrey looks so good that even the Mets of next year look good! The biggest difference in my eyes has been Carlos Delgado. Delgado is finally hitting the baseball hard, laying off of bad pitches, and driving it all over the place. I think Delgado has suddenly become better than he was in 2006, where he was even streakier. His ability to hit the ball hard has changed this lineup drastically, and he’s starting to scare pitchers again. He’s suddenly gotten his batter’s eye back, and as he hits more, pitchers will pitcher him more carefully, which means he’ll be able to draw more walks and consequentially, make less outs and ground into less double plays. If he remains hitting sixth, whoever hits in front of him is going to find more pitches to hit, and do better themselves. I know Endy has been playing well, but it’s no surprise that since Delgado has started hitting, this offense has been hot and those outfield holes have looked a lot smaller. Smaller holes means less desperation for Omar to find another outfield bat, and less desperation means he can be patient and find that diamond in the rough without sacrificing prospects and the future. I look forward to see what he can do over these next three weeks.

Except for a brief euphoria after Santana’s opening game win, or the brief glee we felt in April of 2007 starting with the vengeance sweep of the Cardinals, this may be the happiest Mets fans have felt since Endy came down with that catch. There will still be rough patches; The Phillies aren’t a great team, but there offense will have more hot streaks where they win a stretch of games. This is irrelevant if the Mets continue to perform as they have, as they’ll far outclass the Phillies. There are four games left before the break, and for the first time I find myself not agonizing over having to have a certain record to match a certain record to the Phillies. Barring catastrophe, we’ll go into the break with a virtual clean slate; able to outplay the Phillies, and the Braves and Marlins and Nationals, and win this division.

Chances are the Giants will find a way to score at least one run in their trip to New York, but I have a lot of confidence in John Maine to get the job done tonight. Let’s Go Mets!

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No longer sinking, but rising

And the Mets take three out of four from the Phillies in Citizen’s Bank Ballpark. Billy Wagner made it stressful, but when it came down to it, the Phillies offense just wasn’t that good, and they just weren’t clutch enough to get the job done. In fact, the only win they got was in walk-off fashion in the 9th inning of a game in which Johan Santana should’ve been pitching. Instead Jerry Manuel pulls the Mets ace with only 95 pitches thrown and Sanchez gives it up in the 9th.
Pedro pitched well, but in typical Pedro Martinez fashion falters after he reaches the 100 pitch mark.

The Mets finally give former Met Killer Adam Eaton a loss, get Pedro his first win, and now are only two games out in the loss column. Billy Wagner pitched two of his bad games, and the Mets won anyway. The so-called ‘gamer’ Phillies have been bad, especially last year, after facing the Mets. Let’s hope they continue that trend, and the Mets can win in these final six games. They could even be in first by the break.

Of course, the Mets have showed signs before, particularly against average Philadelphia who they are 7-3 against. A winning record over these next six would be a big step up though. Maybe the Mets really do turn it on now, and take the division they deserve.

Whether last year, or now, the Phillies have been incapable of building or holding a division lead. When it comes down to it, they’re just not a first place team. They’re a mediocre team that can pummel some teams and get hot, and can occasionally get up to play the big game against a better team, but usually that averages out in the long run and they finish where they belong, a couple of games above .500 and in second or third.

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Palette Cleanser for the Phillies

The best thing about the St. Louis blowout is that it set this team into a no-stress, easy going, comfortable mode that it hasn’t had since they went into the second game of the season and Pedro hurt himself. Hit the ball, beat crappy pitching, move along. Carlos Delgado looks freaking locked in. That home run he hit was just a nice, lazy, Delgado(old Delgado)like swing. That recap of the home run would fit in well in 2002, except for the Mets uniform. It was nice to see, and he’s amazing close to being on pace for a 30 HR, 100 RBI season, which you certainly would like to see him keep up at.

Jackie Robinson Rotunda Elevators

Thanks the Pelfrey and the surprisingly rejuvenated offense, there was no late inning thoughts of “How are they going to find a way to lose this one?” and just a nice, relaxing blowout going into the series of the year. Now unfortunately, the Braves suck and have halted the Phillies losing ways temporarily, but they pitched pseudo-ace Hamels against the reeling Braves, almost underestimating the Mets.

The Mets now have 10 games left until the All-Star break, and you’d like to see them be able to turn the corner, put this bad stretch behind them, and starting making confident strides towards first place and the division title. There are a couple of things they need to do that.

Beat Philadelphia. Obviously, anything but winning three or four against the Phillies leaves them right where they were, averagely struggling through the season. While a sweep is unlikely, it’s also possible, and a sweep would put the Mets with the same amount of losses as the Phillies going forward. If they win three, they need to win at least one more than the Phillies during the next six, and go into the break at worse one game out.

Get to the break above .500. If they do win the series against the Phillies, they’d be one over. Obviously a split of the final six against bad teams isn’t ideal, but right now if they could go into the the break one loss out and above .500 in anyway, it’s a good thing.

Win the final Sunday game against the Rockies. A nice solid win to finish up the unofficial first half would be a good way to cauterize the first half and just move forward with winning baseball games in the second half like a different team. Obviously it’s silly and impossible to place much importance on any single game within a 162 game season, but it’d put the team in the right mind frame for the second half.

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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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Series Two in the books

They didn’t manage to put the Phillies away, but sometimes you’re 4th/5th starter isn’t going to be great, and the bullpen isn’t always going to be spotless. They came back immediately after Utley’s three run home run (And more people need to pitch this guy inside and hit him) to tie the game, which was nice.

They’ve been playing better now, and while a week ago people were prematurely screaming about how bad this team is, suddenly they don’t look so bad. They got five games in a row, which is something they struggled to do last year, and it means that everyone in the rotation was able to keep them in the game. The bullpen has been much better than expected, the only concern I have is that it’s kind of being overworked. But so far it’s got a depth that was it’s biggest weakness last year. If they can keep Schoeneweis and Sosa well rested, I think they’ll be able to squeeze a little bit of consistency out of them, which would be nice.

So what if the Phillies didn’t have Jimmy Rollins? We didn’t have Pedro. Or Alou. Or El Duque. The injury card isn’t valid, we beat the best they could throw at us.

The Mets recalled some of 2006 with a nice streak of scoring in the first inning. This fits well with their style of aggressiveness and putting pressure on the opposition, and it has a lot to do with Reyes getting on base. Now that we’re a couple of weeks in, it’s time to settle in and see how they do over a long period of time, let the slow starters catch up and the guys that are going to be carrying the team continue to step up and produce.

On a side note, I wish I had gotten to go down to Philly with the Metsblog crowd among all the others who made the trip, but I did get to visit Cooperstown for the first time this week.

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it’s 2008 and the Mets win

Last night’s game had questionable managing decisions, some poor plays, some inability to hit in the clutch, or to execute in certain situations at the plate, and even some base-running issues. The Phillies had all of these problems, and they lost because of it. It was a rough and tumble series, but the Mets take two of three. Naysayers may want to question how they won them, but that doesn’t matter, just that they did. If you want to go back to last year.. And I really don’t want to go back to last year, it doesn’t help anything. Just as going back to 2006 didn’t help the 2007 team. If you go back to last year, plenty of those games against the Phillies could’ve gone on the other way on some very minor things.

It’s the bullpen that’s important, and despite Wise’s home run, despite Heilman’s struggles, it looks like the Mets have started trying to take the right steps into addressing this issue. The bullpen was the strength in 2006, and we need more consistency out of it this year. Part of this is getting starters deeper into games, but part of it is also one or two more guys stepping up and being able to execute when Willie calls on them. Did the Mets lack fight last year? I don’t know that they did, there were plenty of games where they came back two or three times in a game, only to have the bullpen blow it again and again. That can be mentally exhausting, just like amping yourself up for a fight and having your pitcher pitch you into a deep hole in the first inning can do. This isn’t an excuse by any means, but the Mets have the tools, the attitude, the leadership and the drive to win, and they’ve had it all along; You just have to know where to look.