Not too long ago a post was placed that said the Mets would’ve lost this season even with healthy club. Ok maybe not in those exact words but they did say we were already on the way down. Now clearly that comment was most undoubtedly written based on the frustration the Mets have imposed upon us with this lack luster season. I would consider that venting is something that all of us are currently doing as we watch game after game.
However, I have to say those injuries really put us on the losing path as we began to lose player by player. Now am I not going to sweep every loss under the injury rug of 09? NO WAY! That would be foolish, but I can say that the Mets record would undoubtedly be better had they had the speedy Reyes giving us that first inning run off of a walk or bunt single. That would turn into a stolen base then maybe a second stolen base or another single by the hot hitting Castillo. We definitely would have had a few more runs had the Batman, Carlos Delgado been in the line up and we would’ve had more home runs as well. I can’t really say much about the pitching except the possibility of having a healthy Putz would’ve given us a strong second option for closing games when Franky would have one of his off days. Maybe we would’ve had a longer winning streak if Nieve hadn’t gone down when he did. For now though, we will just focus on the fact that we would have had more runs scored. Especially with a one, two punch of our league leading hitters in Wright and Beltran had they been given the chance to play more games together.
I am not making excuses for the dropped balls, throwing errors or even the base running blunders, those games should’ve been won and those errors proved to be costly. I understand that everyone is upset about how this season (a season we were picked to win the division) has played out, but to say they would’ve been in the same place had their starters been healthy is a little on the extreme side. If you think I am wrong about the injury thing you are free to your opinion but remember this. The division leading Phils lost Ibanez for a stint this season and in his absence their record was awful. So if one starter for the league leading Phils (it pains me to keep typing that by the way but for the sake of proving my point it must be said) has that much of an impact for W’s and L’s, I can most certainly take heart in knowing things would’ve been much better had we had all our guys. Currently the Phils only have 4 that’s right, 4 players on the disabled list and they are all pitchers compared to our 11 players, 6 of which are position players.
I’m not going to say we would’ve been winning the division for sure, but it would’ve been a damn good fight and maybe we don’t win the division, but we win the wild card. We will never know but please don’t go throwing the team you love under the bus. We all know they would’ve had more wins had we had our guys you can not deny that. The only question that can not be answered is, “How many more wins?”
