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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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Have to Listen to the Leaders

Reyes: Fly Like the Wind

Here’s my take on the Reyes thing, I support him fully in this. I think it was a mistake to keep Manuel while firing Willie. If a change was going to work, it needed to be a clean slate, not someone leading that’s been through the same problems. So when Manuel starts his tenure by pissing off Wright and Reyes, it doesn’t look good.

Wright and Reyes, by example or otherwise, are going to be or already are the leaders of this team. The team revolves around them, and Manuel needs to work with them and allow them the ability to do that.

At least give Reyes the chance to walk it off, jog in the outfield, really see if he’s hurt. Manuel, admittedly, said that it was his first day played into his decision. This isn’t about Manuel though, it’s about Reyes and winning the game, which we had less of a chance to do with Easley. Reyes wanted to play, and the only message this sends besides “I know best” is that he doesn’t have to play hard when he’s not feeling 100%. Reyes is who he is, and we don’t need him molded into some media-darling cookie cutter player. So what if he throws a tantrum? Haven’t so many of you been saying how you want to see fire and fight with this team? Well Reyes has got it, he is who he is and trying to make him something else is detrimental to the team, as we saw early in the season when Beltran reminding him to stop worrying about how he’s perceived and play the game the way he knows how.

This whole firing situation reeks to me of setting up the team to fail. It sounds like “You can’t fire me, I quit!” by Mets management. They’ve decided the team isn’t going to win, set up a fall guy, and laid the groundwork for next year. What they forget is it’s early June. I still think the Mets can and will break out of it, but it also feels like the media and management are fighting against it. The team needs to be able to relax, and it doesn’t look like this is going to afford them that. Only time will really tell; will this team be counted out on August 1st and pull a Colorado Rockies to make the playoffs after the pressure is off? It’s still too early for that too.

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Subway Series, and getting going

I haven’t been a proponent of firing Willie Randolph, and I still don’t believe firing him will fix this team. However, at one point something needs to be done, and that’s about all there is to it. These next seven games are important ones though, more important than these last seven.
The Yankees are actually the right team for them to play. They’re an average pitching team with a good offense, which is actually very like the Phillies, and it plays to the strength of the Mets. Their pitching is their strength, which should be enough to shut down the Yankees, and their offense has enough firepower to score plenty of runs against them.

After that a short four game series against the Braves, who if they stay healthy are definitely better than the Phillies. Keeping themselves ahead of the Braves, and beating them in this series, would go a long way to make them, and us, feel good.

If they don’t play well against these teams, then barring suddenly going on a 10 game winning streak or something, it’s probably time to ditch Randolph because whether it’ll help or not, he’s ultimately culpable for the performance.

Watching the last few days, I’ve felt like the Mets have gotten a lot of bad breaks recently, whether it’s great catches, line drives right at people, or pitching to contact that finds holes. I’m confident this team will have good stretches, but depending on when and how that stretch comes, it might not be enough to put them in a positive, relaxed frame of mind for the rest of the season.

Maybe the energy associated with, and they can deny it exists all they want, the Subway Series will actually wake the Mets up. So here are my predictions, as crazy as you may think they are.

(Santana) Game 1: Mets 8, Yankees 1

(Perez) Game 2: Mets 5, Yankees 3

(Maine) Game 3: Mets 6, Yankees 1