People that continually blame an entire season on one AB remind me of……..people who blame Beltran for one AB.

Fact is there was plenty of blame to go around on that 2008 team. Plenty. Start with 33 blown saves, an all time record. Delgado’s poor first half. Second most walks in the NL. Two consecutive sub .500 months, Randolph being undermined, Castillo not being able to rehab both knees in the off season AND get in shape for the year, a 41 year old LFer only making it through 15 games, Pedro’s 5.50 ERA, Figgy, Knight, Stokes, Vargas, Armas and Niese starting 19 games. Heilman, Sosa, Munoz and Ayala pitching at all………

Plenty of blame but lets give it all to the guy who had the best BA, OB, SLG, 2nd most HR’s, most RBI, 2nd most runs.

Yup. Must be his fault.

YES, DW struck out in the bottom of the 9th with Murphy on 3rd, and what makes it worse is he had a 3-0 count to start. Yes, it horrible and sucked no one can deny that.

However, in your haze of hate for DW you fail to leave out the rest of the facts, that K was the first out of the inning. Beltran and Delgado were intentionally walked then Ryan Church grounded out to 2nd with a force out at home, and then Ramon Castro k’d on THREE pitches. However, all the blame should going on Wright after all for making the first out of the inning.

You also leave out that in the 8th Mets hitters left a runner on 3rd, with none other than the great Jose Reyes grounding out with a runner on 3rd to end the inning, but DW k’d out the bottom of the 9th.

You also fail to mention that Perez had a 5-1 cushion after 4, and coughed it all back up, left 2 runners on and when yanked out and Duaner Sanchez couldn’t hold ‘em, a very shaky bullpen all year, and the starter can’t make it past the 4th inning, but DW k’d out the bottom of the 9th.

You fail to mention after that 9th inning K for the first out with a runner on 3rd, the game was still tied and the next inning the lovely bullpen and Alaya gave up three more runs, and the bottom of that inning Jose Reyes k’d to end the game, but DW k’d with Murphy on 3rd for the first out of the 9th inning is all you remember?

You want to talk about how much that strikeout hurt, and continue to document it as the cause and effect of 08 at least include ALL that actually happened that game since we are talking baseball.

YEP, all it takes is a full season hitting 243 with RISP and a HUGE strikeout to doom the team,’s chances to make the playoffs, or at least stay afloat..

However, lets take it easy with the big spots, 35+ homeruns etc… for either guy, neither guy has proven that yet, ever.

Again as Mets fans that would be great, but lets not put the cart before the horse.

He looked good in parts of 2010 and early in 2011!
But lets not forget that 214 and .250 he hit in July and August of 2010! Was it fatigue, Pitchers adjusting or merely a funk?

We need to see:
1 – If he can be as hot as he was early last year
2 – If he can maintain that deep into the summer months
3 – That his Ankle is fully healed and not an issue
4 – That he can consistently hit about .260-.275 without hurting his power swing.

He is one guy who didn’t need the fences brought in but we still have yet to see him a whole season let alone a consistent season.

Duda can go either way but most of the bad we saw from Duda in the past was a product of irregular playing time!
Him and Pridie were both MUCH MUCH better when they had regular playing time!

That being said, remember how quickly these “clutch” arguments can change.

Lucas, despite a couple of walk off hits, hasn’t shown the ability to do that yet, but if he does he can become a star too even though he may not hit as many HRs as Ike. Or maybe he will sometime down the road who knows yet. But if Duda doesn’t take on Ike’s other characteristic of being able to WIN GAMES by driving in runs when you need them the most then he’ll just become another numbers compiler with a high OBP. But they like OBP a lot here, they don’t talk about what it takes to win games anymore. I call it the “worker bee” mentality.

I prefer the “Close the Deal” mentally. And you only get that from guys who can rise to the occasion and deliver dramatic hits when you need them the most = RBIs = winning.

Hope I’m wrong but all these pep rally articles remind me of year’s past…

You said it, Alex!

I hate to say that I’m getting my hopes up already for 2012, but I’m getting my hopes up for 2012!!!