18
2011
3 Up, 3 Down: The Damned Thing’s Over
An article by Gregg Hopps
“The damned thing’s over,”
Legendary New York Mets announcer Bob Murphy, was talking about a marathon game between the Mets and Braves. Of course I’m referring to the seven game losing streak. The Mets were down in Atlanta this week and lost two of three games to the Braves. Friday night’s game was rained out, making Saturday’s action a double header. The Braves took both ends, but the Mets win the final game of the series.
3 Up
1. Dillon Gee: No ifs, no ands, and no buts, Dillon Gee is the weekend star for the Mets. Pressed into duty as a spot starter Sunday Gee pitched a gem going 5 2/3 innings giving up only one run. Gee looked really good on the mound and during the post game show on Sunday Terry Collins indicated that Gee will be taking Chris Young’s slot in the rotation.
2. Terry Collins: In Sunday’s game Terry managed as if it were game seven of the World Series. He went so far as to use both Chris Capuano, and R.A. Dickey in relief. I really like the way Terry has handled this whole losing streak. Terry has remained totally positive. What I found very telling about Terry was how he handled reporters after Saturday night’s double header loss. There was little doubt that Terry was upset with his team (especially Daniel Murphy), but he stayed calm and cool with the press, and never mentioned which players he spoke to or what about. Terry is doing a good job here, he knows this is a process, and good things take time.
3. Pedro Beato: Beato came in Saturday night and he looked great. So far this season Beato has not given up an earned run is six game appearances spanning nine innings. Early in the season Beato has been one of the few bright spots in the Mets bullpen.
3 Down
1 David Wright: It pains me to put one of my favorite Mets here, but Wright was 0-11 this weekend. This season Wright is batting .271 with 16 strike outs. Simply put in a big series against the Braves, with the team struggling Wright has got to step up and do better.
2. Mike Pelfrey: Game two Sunday night we saw a classic Mike Pelfrey meltdown after disagreeing with the home plate umpire’s call. Clearly, Pelf is not the number one on this staff. So far this season he’s 0-2 with a 9.72 ERA. Frighteningly Pelfrey has only pitched a total of 16.2 innings in four starts this season (an average of just over 4 innings a start). Pelfrey is no longer a kid around here, I’m getting sick of his act and he clearly has to pitch better.
3. Bob Ojeda: I’m not sure what Ojeda’s angle is here, but Saturday night after game two of the double header Ojeda called out R.A. Dickey for appearing on FOX’s coverage of game 1. Dickey was talking about a mountain climbing expedition he’ll be making in January for charity. Ojeda was appalled by this! First off, Ojeda came off as a coward, by not mentioning Dickey by name. If Ojeda was so upset with Dickey he should have called him out directly. During his rant Ojeda said players shouldn’t talk about what they will be doing during the offseason, this early in the season. Maybe Ojeda is right. But what about this, when pitching for the Mets in 1988 Ojeda was doing some hedge trimming and injured his finger. He wasn’t the same after the injury. One thing I know for sure, starting pitchers should NEVER do their own landscaping!
About the Author: Gregg Hopps
Gregg lives on Long Island, and has been a Mets fan since Bud Harrelson and Pete Rose slugged it out in the 1973 playoffs. "Keith Hernandez is the best defensive first baseman to ever have played baseball."
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Gregg, the last issue re: Ojeda shows us one thing: losing makes most of us pretty ugly.
Were our record the opposite, Ojeda probably would have talked about what an amazing guy R.A. is.
Let me start off with I like Bobby O on TV but they really need to add a positional player/Hitter persepctive to the post game show.
It seems with Bobby doing the analysis it is always about the pitching which is prob appropriate for the most part this season so far but we need someone who can address the hitting issues this team has and not harp on the Pitchers and errors so much.
That’s a pretty good point.
Good Job on the 3 up 3 down choices. Sometimes i don’t agree with 1 choice but this week you nailed it.
Disagree with you on Pelf having a melt down. He got nicked to death. That happens to “pitch to contact” types. He’s always been streaky. At some point this season, he’ll have 4 or 5 starts where he’ll look like a world beater and people will be claiming he finally figured it out.
Good article. But to nitpick, the game you are referring to was between the Mets and Phils in July of 1990 when the Mets almost blew a 9-0 lead at the Vet and held on to win 10-9. Bob Murphy said “they win the damned thing” after Mario Diaz caught a liner to short to end the game.
Great call.
I was going to say the same thing, Brian. I almost fell over when I heard Murph say “The Mets win, they win the damned thing!!” Best Murph moment ever.
Hey guys, thanks for watching my back. I though Murph said that after the never ending game in Atlanta. They had a bunch of rain delays, and I think the game ended around 3AM. Then there was a fireworks show afterward. Good catch, what can I say I’m getting old and my memory isn’t what it used to be.
I don’t about you guys, but I still miss Murph. What a great broadcaster he was. Nobody was better at “painting the word picture” than Murph.
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collins has been fired at every stop and this one will be no different, he yells from the stage but the results on the field speak louder. more errors, more base running blunders, and over using the bullpen will be some of the reasons. he act will get old real fast especially as the loses continue to mount. krod pitches down 4 with a vesting option.lol just dumb.