The fears broached in spring training are coming to fruition in the first month of the season. Will the Mets be competitive when spots 2-5 come up in the rotation? The answer this week was a resounding NO. After Johan Santana pitched another one of his signature games last Saturday, it’s been all downhill.
Oliver Perez and John Maine are hard-pressed to get through five innings and Mike Pelfrey is not sound. Livan Hernandez was shelled yesterday afternoon in St. Louis. The Cards look to be a scrappy team, or unMetslike. They run the bases hard, flash the leather, and come up with the timely hit. It doesn’t hurt to have the game’s best hitter, Albert Pujols anchoring the lineup.
Basically, the Mets had their lunch money stolen by the Cardinals along with their dignity. There were some very disturbing signs on display at the house that Budweiser built. First of all, when you score eight runs, that should suffice. When your starter allows seven, and the next man out of the pen (Sean Green) yields five tack-ons, there’s not much hope of a rousing comeback.
In fact, when the Mets have trailed this year they have shown little moxie or spirit. Mostly, they have folded up their tent and gone home. Yesterday, after they fell behind 4-1 did anyone believe they would rally? Homers by Beltran and Ryan Church were window dressing.
Besides the lack of proficient starts, the base running so far has been abysmal. Daniel Murphy one of the main culprits.
However, yesterday, they went station to station all game, needing seemingly four hits to score a run. They need to push the envelope more than once a game on the base paths. Moreover, where has the stolen base gone in the arsenal?
Jose’ Reyes will get his. David Wright and Carlos Beltran have fastened themselves down as if preparing for rough seas. Beltran’s base running blunder on Wednesday night raised some eyebrows. He has scored standing up before and not been caught. Not this time. In a tight game (remember, the Mets lost a division each of the last two seasons by a game) he made a wonderful aggressive play by tagging from second and drawing a throw.
Nevertheless, he managed to be hero and goat on both ends of the same play.
Once you commit to scoring there is absolutely no need to look back at the fielder. It only slows you down. What Beltran did was a Cardinal (no pun) sin-that is Assume in baseball. That Thurston (who made a great play) could or would get to the ball is irrelevant. Put your head down and steam toward the finish line and kick up some dust..
A player with Beltran’s immense ability was caught with his pants down.
Another play in the series was endemic of how the Mets are playing passively. On a play at the plate, Ramon Castro made no attempt to block the path of the base runner, a pitcher no less. He received the throw behind the plate and did not ward off the charging runner. The runner slid underneath the throw for a run.
If you are not going to be aggressive on the diamond you will lose a lot of games.
If your starters cannot complete five innings you are going to lose. Thankfully, the Nationals come to town and the Mets should get healthy. If not, the humidity around Jerry Manuel’s collar should percolate.
I think there may be a problem in the manager’s office. When talking to Francessa the other day Manuel said he thinks Murphy can be an “adequate” left fielder. That’s Manuel’s word not mine. As a manager how can you be happy with adequate? (At some point I’m going to use the quote in a blog posting but I haven’t figured out quite how.)
“In fact, when the Mets have trailed this year they have shown little moxie or spirit”
I disagree with that…Thought the team hasn’t looked great, the offense has done their best to keep the team in the game with late scoring. In fact, the team has reversed last years trend of scoring early and hiding, by outscoring opponents late. Unfortunately, it ends up being too little too late, but they are certainly trying to stay in the game.
Ultimately, the starting pitching needs to really tighten up. There are really no viable options outside of the 5 guys already in place, so we need to hope they can get their act together, and get going.
So basically you’ve written the same thing that’s been posted here like 5 times a day for the last week. Does Joe even edit this stuff?
This is the WFAN crowd isn’t? The same idiots calling in moaning about moxie and swagger and fire and hustle and leadership. This site is my daily laugh.
Metsies, we have a broad range of opinions here from 25 different bloggers. We also accept guest blog posts as long as they are well written. Why not share your opinion and submit a post and share your philosophy on the Mets. I think we’d all love to read your take on things. We promise we won’t laugh or hurl insults either.
Nah, I wouldn’t want to improve the writing here, thereby ruining my daily laugh. Atleast there’s some other Mets blogs out there that are rational and well written like Always Amazin’ or Amazin’ Avenue or Metstradamus. You ever think quality is more important than quantity man? Like, you have a ton of writers posting 20 times a day but does that mean that they’re good writers? Do you even read what people write before they post?
And when you say you get a lot of different perspectives, I have to disagree – every post is the same. “this team has no moxie. they have no fire. screw statistics. this Mets team plays for themselves.”
I will give you this much though – you’re better than Metsblog.
lol, I can almost guarantee there’s no chance in that happening. He mentions WFAN which is odd because he is like most callers there; always complaining but never offering a solution. It’s so easy to pick things apart, but it’s a totally different story when you have to articulate your own solution. I don’t always agree with whats posted on this site. It’s about 50/50 which in the grand scheme of things it’s why I like this site so much. But those of you who have seen and read my comments here over the years, know that when I disagree I always explain why and add my own counterpoint.
What are we asking from Met players? If Daniel Murphy slide hard into Molina the other night when Molina was laid out across the plate would he have been safe? Probably not. It would have made us all feel better and Murphy’s stock w/ his teammates and fans would have surely risen.
If Beltran slammed into Molina the next day would Beltran been safe. Again most likely not.
And in the Thursday afternoon game if Shef had that run over the player standing in his way when trying to reach a base in that game would that have made a difference? Most likely no.
So what are we asking from our players? I think we’re asking Met players to share the same sense of urgency, fear, awaiting doom feeling, that all Met fans seem to harbor. They demonstrate to us the Mets that they have interest in winning by physically completing tasks that reflect our feelings. Should have when feeling frustrated throwing helmets, running over opposing catchers, basically expressing visible frustration and anger regarding the timid start tht the Met season has had.
I think we need to remember that these guys are professionals who play baseball every day for 6 months at a time. They don’t share the same feelings we have as we watch hanging on every pitch, looking for little signs in every inng of every game that Murphy will improve in LF, Beltran’s personality will suddenly morf into Wally Backman or a Pete Rose type or perhaps today will finally be the that Ollie Perez cognitively ages 15 years and leaves the little 12 year old little league boy behind once and for all. We look for tiny litle things that reinforce our own preceptions on what we think the Mets and individual players need to do to improve their game and thereby the team as a hole.
In doing so we lose site of the big picture. We’re all guilty of this. It’s called being a fan. It’s a long season. And as WFAN’s Steve Summers puts it. “Just sit back and enjoy the ride already will ‘ya!”
Dude, (aka Metsies) You’re being rather cynical and your criticism is unfair. Now I just read the post from John about Home cooking, and I read the series preview which I see you commented on.
Those were both positive and as a matter of fact YOU CRITICIZED the series preview because I guess you thought it was too positive to hope for a three game sweep against the Nationals. (are you serious!!!)
How can anybody take you seriously? You mention MetsBlog which I detest, but I’m thinking it was a cover story and you’re a mole sent from MetsBlog. lol Nothing else makes sense.
Now I’d like to surf and read all the different Mets sites out there, and I don’t comment much unless it’s a poll or question, but you compelled me to comment on this post because I thought your remarks are unfair and there’s like five writers on this site who’s opinions I enjoy including the blog owners. I don’t always agree but I still enjoy coming here for their opinions.
Now from what I recall, there were at least two writers on this site one was named Christian and the other was Chris I believe. All they ever posted was statistics, graphs, and all this assorted mumbo jumbo that I don’t even understand. I don’t know why they don’t write here anymore, but from all the befuddled and negative comments they used to get, the non-egghead Mets fans ran them out of town.
Hey that’s it!!!! You’re Christian aren’t you???
“Nah, I wouldn’t want to improve the writing here, thereby ruining my daily laugh.”
Now that was good for a laugh.
The problem with the Mets isn’t statistical, or I think more of the posts here would focus on them. I guess their pitching woes are statistical, but then, you don’t need a supercomputer to crunch those numbers. And it’s basically what most people have been saying here for months: starting pitching will be a weakness on this team. But no significant moves were made. The chances that Ollie will be more “consistent” than in his contract year are slim, but I haven’t given up hope completely.
Mr. Met for President! ha ha
I must say, I definitely recall some posts at MMO saying that Oliver Perez is primed for a breakout year and John Maine will contend for the Cy Young. Neither of those posts were based on any kind of objective rationale. So to see any writers here complaining about the starting pitching after singing the praises of Pelfrey, Maine and Ollie all offseason is ridiculous.
What’s killing me is that Molina thinks he owns home plate BOTH when he’s at bat and behind the dish. I feel helpless watching Dan Murphy and Carlos Beltran tip-toe home into Molina’s tags when they should absolutely have cleaned his clock. Someone needs to lay him out and wake him with smelling salts. Church gets a pass.
Castro has to go, and I like him but his style of play is a silent killer. He DID sit behind home plate with a pitcher heading toward home. Ramon should’ve turned Piniero into a Pinada – he’s twice his size. Instead, he allowed him to score. For all of his shortcomings, Schneider would have never permitted Piniero to slide in uncontested. Castro’s a good hitter, but slow and lethargic behind the plate.
The team really has no balls. Remember how Eli Manning took off after Tiki took a swipe at his leadership skills and Jerry Reaves called him “skittish.” We need a few Mets with a football player’s mentality, and acquire someone such as Matt Holliday. Maybe he and Church can help DW find the fullback lost inside. Tatis and Murphy have mental toughness. Reed may, as well.
On the mound, I would absolutely wipe that smirk off Molina’s face. He would immediately become the most uncomfortable man in St. Louis – bear in on his hands, throw high and tight beyond chin music, waste a slider low and away, and throw serious heat high and tight again. I’d keep doing it until he understood that his personal safety was at risk.
On a positive note, the bullpen appears airtight. I like JJ Putz better than K-Rod, however. Stokes should get a crack at the rotation. Maine can’t put batters away.
Wow James K., you’re Amazin Avenue? I never realized that…
[...] in “passive mode” [...]