At the end of 162, it’s the Philadelphia Phillies 89, the New York Mets 88.

Wow. That sucked. So much for my optimism. I’m not going to be one of those fans that throws blame and anger all over the place, calling for heads and trades and all of that. I will break down the team and next year and what I want to see happen sometime in the near future. I expect I’ll update a bit through the playoffs (I’m rooting for the Cubs) talk about awards and all of that. After October I’ll still post, maybe once a week, or when other things happen. I’m proud of myself for getting through the entire season with this blog, and look forward to making new bloggie friends in the off-season and next year. Here is my postseason prediction, and my in-season stats for the year.

I think the Rockies win tomorrow.

AL Divisional Round
RED SOX defeat
ANGELS (3-1)
INDIANS defeat YANKEES (3-0)

AL
Championship
RED SOX defeat INDIANS (4-1)

NL Divisional
Round
ROCKIES defeat PHILLIES (3-1)
CUBS defeat
DIAMONDBACKS (3-1)

NL Championship
CUBS defeat ROCKIES (4-2)

World Series
RED SOX defeat CUBS
(4-2)

Personally I went to 33 baseball games this year.

My record at Shea Stadium was 15-12.

My record at Mets games was 17-12.

My record for the hometeam was 18-15.

My record for the Nationals was 3-2. (This included three stadiums, RFK, Shea, and Dolphin Stadium)

This year I attended games in 4 stadiums(Shea, RFK, Yankee, and Dolphin)

I’ve now been to 13 Stadiums(Shea, Yankee, Fenway, Wrigley, Citizens Bank, Dolphin, RFK, Petco, ½ old Busch, ½ new Busch, Dodger, Angel, San Fran, McAfee)

Next year the goal is to check out Camden Yards, Nationals park, and Tropicana field.

The Optimistic Mets Blog player of the year is: David Wright.

Is there any doubt? David Wright is looking so good. He was the most solid, consistant player on this team. He struggled in April when the team didn’t, and since then there have been very few games he hasn’t gotten a hit in. He’s now in the top two or three in career Mets avg, slugging, obp and ops. He’s got a .311 career Mets batting average. He expanded his game, learned from his peers, and took on more of a leadership role. He’s a great fielder who needs to figure out his throws a bit, but I’m so glad he’s on our team.

I still trust Willie, I do. It’s only the regular season, but I wish they’d played more to step on their throats. They’ve hit a little downswing offensively which is understandable after a two week stretch on fire, but the bullpen has been unable to make anything stick.

The Phillies won’t catch up, but you can’t let them sweep either. Even the four games, while it doesn’t sound like much, is enough for the division. Willie has some hard decisions ahead of him about postseason rotations and bench players, but he’s got an equally hard and much more important one in finishing out this bullpen. We’ll get some September call ups, and Willie has to be looking for some extra bullpen help. Someone needs to play well, so Willie can pull the “I can’t leave this guy off the way he’s throwing” justification for not putting Mota on the postseason roster. Honestly the Mets need to do some cost analysis and realize that the extra postseason money that they’ll make from the team going further into the playoffs is more than enough to pay off Mota’s contract.

Tomorrow I’ll be watching the game at the Ziegler theatre with the Mets at the Movies promotion they’ve been promoting for a couple of weeks. I have no idea what to expect, but hopefully it’ll be fun to see the Mets on the screen like that. Look for me, I’ll be the one with the Mets hat.