{"id":150,"date":"2008-06-09T15:45:00","date_gmt":"2008-06-09T20:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ceetar.com\/optimisticmetsfan\/?p=150"},"modified":"2008-06-09T15:45:00","modified_gmt":"2008-06-09T20:45:00","slug":"aboard-the-runaway-train","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.ceetar.com\/optimisticmetsfan\/2008\/06\/09\/aboard-the-runaway-train\/","title":{"rendered":"Aboard the Runaway Train"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I don&#8217;t buy the argument that the Mets are .500 over the last 162.  It&#8217;s a misleading statistic. This team has rarely played .500 baseball.  It&#8217;s played better and it&#8217;s played worse.  Talent wise we all know they should be better.  Anyone that tells you otherwise is either disappointed, or a Mets hater. <\/p>\n<p>The biggest, and main reason for their failures has been their inconsistant hitting.  They often fail to do the situational stuff, like get guys in from third, or get a big hit with runners on.  They&#8217;re doing better at scratching and clawing and adding on than last year, but often they only do this, failing to have the big 5-6 run innings.  Some of this can be attributed to lack of power, notably the decline of Carlos Delgado, who&#8217;s actually hit the ball well lately.  However, as Keith would tell you, they didn&#8217;t always used to look for the damn 3-run home run.  Could this be all the problem is?  Rather then trying to simply bloop one or make solid contact up the middle, everyone&#8217;s trying to drive the ball high and far?   Could someone please tell the Mets that a ground ball often scores the run as easily as the sac-fly, so stop worrying about driving the ball or long home runs and just get a hit.  Maybe more guys could score from second and go first to third if every hit didn&#8217;t look like it could be caught causing them to have to hang back.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ll even give the Padres two of these games.  Wagner is going to have the occasional blip, so maybe you give them Sunday.  And the offense isn&#8217;t always going to be on, maybe an opposing pitcher actually pitches well, and maybe the Padres can take one of those other three.  Still, the Mets should&#8217;ve been able to take those other two, and they have no excuses. They&#8217;re backing themselves against a wall for no reason.<\/p>\n<p>100 games left. You could project numbers, guess or estimate what everyone is going to do.  And you&#8217;d be wrong 95% of the time.  The Mets are capable of winning anywhere from 45-70 of the remaining games. The Phillies are capable of losing anywhere from 40-60 games. Looking at the big picture is what got them into trouble last year.  I say they look at being in position to take the division back from the Phillies by their next meeting in early July. That is 22 games prior to a four game series.  Probably 23 games if you factor in the Yankee makeup.  There is no reason why they can&#8217;t play one game better than the Phillies every week, and be in a competitive place by July. <\/p>\n<p>Who knows where they&#8217;re going to go, how they&#8217;re going to play, or if the Phillies are going to keep this pace.  It&#8217;s up to the Mets, and the most infuriating part of it all is that we could be on a train ride headed for a wreck with no way to get off.<\/p>\n<p>Oh, and could they go ahead and announce the Yankee makeup date already?  If they&#8217;r really planning on doing it in two and a half weeks, it&#8217;d be nice to know.  Especially if they make it at an iffy time like Friday afternoon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I don&#8217;t buy the argument that the Mets are .500 over the last 162. It&#8217;s a misleading statistic. This team has rarely played .500 baseball. It&#8217;s played better and it&#8217;s played worse. Talent wise we all know they should be better. Anyone that tells you otherwise is either disappointed, or a Mets hater. The biggest, &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ceetar.com\/optimisticmetsfan\/2008\/06\/09\/aboard-the-runaway-train\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Aboard the Runaway Train&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[191,465,2964,185,363,466,246,282,133],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ceetar.com\/optimisticmetsfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ceetar.com\/optimisticmetsfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ceetar.com\/optimisticmetsfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ceetar.com\/optimisticmetsfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ceetar.com\/optimisticmetsfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=150"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.ceetar.com\/optimisticmetsfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ceetar.com\/optimisticmetsfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ceetar.com\/optimisticmetsfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ceetar.com\/optimisticmetsfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}