Gas is expensive these days and so would be swallowing the contract of Ollie Perez.  Right now you couldn’t get a tank of unleaded in a trade for the maddening lefty.    Nevertheless, it’s time to remove the tags and push this clunker down the hill.  For everyone’s sanity.  “They Shoot Lefties, Don’t they?” has found it’s leading man-Perez, and the Mets gleefully send him off to his next starring role.   Because he ‘ain’t getting it done [...]

A few weeks ago, I suggested that the Mets pitching staff’s overperformance could result in a hat-tipping to Dan Warthen, who may be deceivingly quiet. By “deceiving,” I mean he is not a flashy pitching coach, people rarely ever heard of him before he came to the Mets although he does have a bit of a distinguished and respectable career as a pitching coach. His pitching staff is very formidable. Johan Santana is who he [...]

Coming into Spring Training there was a lot of positive buzz on Oliver Perez.  Besides new facial hair he had been working out in Arizona for months getting in shape and trying to work on his pitches.  Perez arrived in excellent shape, a complete 180 from the year before.  People who follow the team on a daily basis said that Ollie was more focused and ready to earn his 36 million dollar contract.  Then came [...]

Oliver Perez took the mound today against the National League’s best starter, Tim Lincecum. Sometimes in a matchup like this, you’ll see some mediocre pitchers unfortunate enough to be in this matchup, at least elevate their performance somewhat. That wouldn’t be the case for Ollie as he delivered one of his worst performances of the season, lasting just 3 1/3 innings and allowing four runs while walking seven batters, throwing a wild pitch, and hitting one batter.  It was [...]

“We- players, writers, fans- talk about the importance of the little things and getting the breaks and clutch pitching and hitting, but sometimes I wonder whether the truth isn’t more simple. The main difference between the winners and losers? Winning.” Keith Hernandez from his novel If At First… The wisdom of Keith Hernandez whether on the field or today in the broadcast booth, has always been the gift that the Mex keeps on giving. His [...]

Yes, you did read the title correctly. Over the past week and a half, Mets pitchers have indeed been good for nothing, meaning they’ve been good enough to hold the opposition to practically nothing on the scoreboard. Pitching was not supposed to be the strong point of the 2010 Mets. After all, the Mets’ starting rotation was supposed to be made up of Johan Santana and The Four Rainouts. Mike Pelfrey had come off a [...]

I asked this question the other day while on Twitter, with Jenrry Mejia in the bullpen, Nelson Figueroa in Philly, and no major league ready pitching prospects on call, who would be the Mets’ first choice to replace an injured or under-performing starter? Kelvim Escobar, Hisanori Takahashi and Fernando Nieve were the most popular answers I received. Unfortunately, Escobar may not comeback from his injury and even if he did, he signed on as a reliever, and [...]

Sure, we’re all thrilled that the Mets continued their Opening Day dominance on Monday with a win over the Marlins to start the 2010 season.  It was a very complete performance with Johan Santana, Fernando Nieve and K-Rod holding the Marlins to one run; and our hitters, starting with David Wright belting a first-inning two-run homer against our nemesis Josh Johnson, delivering enough runs to make it a rout.  Newcomers Jason Bay, Gary Matthews Jr. [...]

You may have noticed that I have not written much in recent weeks.  It’s simply because I’ve had little to say.  And as spring training winds down, I am left shocked and speechless, with my mouth wide open.  It’s sad but true.  I am extremely discouraged on the state of the 2010 Mets. All winter long I stuck up for the Mets.  I jumped early on the Murphy bandwagon and called for fans to accept [...]