There are many adjectives that are used in conjunction with the 86 Mets. Confidence. Arrogance. Swagger. Obnoxious. But they were good, damn good. And they knew it. That’s a far cry from the 2013 Mets. However, it’s not just wins that count. It’s playing as a cohesive unit. It’s playing as, no pun intended, a TEAM. And that is something this club does not do. You don’t have to get along off the field. You don’t [...]

Lately, it seems the only thing the Mets excel at is finding ways to lose. Shaun Marcum had his first quality start as a Met, going 6.2 innings allowing three runs (two earned) on five hits while walking one and punching out three. He threw 96 pitches, 65 of which for strikes, however fell to 0-4 on the year in easily his best effort for the Amazin’s this season. After matching goose eggs with the [...]

Ike Davis frustrates me. Unlike Lucas Duda who was drafted much later in the draft, expectations have always been really high for the first-round first baseman and for the most part I’ve wanted more from him than what he’s shown thus far. I gave Davis a pass during last season’s first half, what with the Valley Fever and that whole ankle debacle, but what’s his excuse this time? How long can we afford to continue [...]

I don’t know what’s up with Keith Hernandez lately. I mean he’s always been kind of funny, provides great insights, is definitely entertaining and amusing, and he keeps each Mets broadcast light-hearted and serious all at the same time (when he’s there). The truth is that love him. I was crazy about him as a player, and I’ve felt as though we became buddies, through the magic of TV, when he joined Gary and Ron [...]

Ever since Lucas Duda burst into our consciousness in 2010, nobody has been satisfied with his plate approach. Too many strikeouts and not enough walks, I frequently wrote. He gives away too many at-bats. He tries to pull too much and doesn’t use the entire field. All valid in the early Duda critique. Now, unbelievably, he’s become too selective, too patient at the plate. No matter how hard I try, I don’t get this one. Even Keith Hernandez, [...]

Hitting for the cycle has always been one of the more singular batting feats in baseball. It is a relatively rare occurrence but not one that guarantees anything in particular for the team of the player who achieves one beyond a mention on the sports page. Granted, it involves getting four hits (a good thing) with three being for extra bases (a very good thing), but from a pure baseball perspective one could propose that [...]

“Lucas Duda is the preeminent example of the Mets’ organizational offensive philosophy of patience and power,” writes Jorge Castillo of the Star-Ledger. The left fielder’s .417 on-base percentage was 11th in the majors entering play Saturday and his .538 slugging percentage ranked in the top 30. But his remarkable selectivity could also be detrimental on a team that relies on the slugger to drive in runs from the middle of the order. In 24 plate [...]

The street I live on is a fairly quiet residential one lane road. Three miles to the south it meanders up into the foothills that look down on the valley. It gives way to an expansive residence, the proverbial mansion on the hill. At night, the home is illuminated in a sea of blackness. There’s nothing close by and the property seems big enough to warrant its own zip code. On many Saturday nights, I [...]

About two weekends ago my church had a men’s breakfast meeting, and the guest speaker was none other than Dwight Evans, the very productive right fielder for the Boston Red Sox from 1972-1990. Listening to Evans speak about his life in baseball and the many things that affected his game, brought me back to the only game that mattered in my life when I was a kid. Dewey didn’t mention the 1986 World Series, but he didn’t [...]

While approaching Citi Field last night one couldn’t help but notice the monstrous digital image of Matt Harvey on a video board outside the stadium with the screaming caption, “Harvey-licious.’’ When logging onto the Mets’ website there was an advertisement plugging Harvey T-Shirts. And, all of this is for a guy who was starting just his 15th major league game. I am waiting for the Mets to put him on a banner outside the stadium, joining the likes [...]

Baseball is a game of adjustments. The Mets under Dave Hudgens’ tutelage have adopted a doctrine of selectivity that emphasizes seeing lots of pitches, running up pitch-counts, zoning in on your pitch, and ultimately getting on base one way or another. There has been a lot of discussion on MMO about whether this approach is effective. The consensus, bolstered by a pile of data, seems to be that it is. Teams that take lots of [...]