In what turned out to be the one and only opportunity for the Mets to breakthrough and rough up C.C. Sabathia, the Mets blew a golden opportunity. Actually, let me clarify that and say Jerry Manuel blew a golden opportunity. In the fifth inning, after Gary Sheffield broke up Sabathia’s perfect game with a lead-off solo homerun, Sabathia was rattled and after singles by Fernando Tatis (who is finally hot again) and Nick Evans (will Murphy ever play again?), the Mets had runners on first and second with just one out.

Omir Santos was next up and after a great at-bat that saw Omir foul off three straight fastballs, he went down swinging after chasing a slider. It’s now two outs and Pelfrey is due up. Manuel still has Daniel Murphy on the bench, as well as Jeremy Reed, but he opts to send Argenis Reyes to the plate who strikes out to end the inning.

Argenis Reyes in that big spot? He and his .167 average against lefties!!!

Daniel Murphy has hit well against lefthanders in his career, and this season he is actually hitting better against lefthanders (.276) than he is against right-handers (.247). Does Manuel even know these facts?

Jeremy Reed is 4-4 and batting 1.000 against lefthanders this year! Plus he has thrived as a pinch hitter for the Mets this season with a half dozen big hits already in his pocket!

How can you make a mistake like that and send Reyes up in what ends up being the most critical at-bat of the game?

What is it with this team that transforms them to a bunch of bush leaguers whenever they face the New York Yankees lately. Don’t they know how much we hate losing to them? They don’t seem to be caught up in the drama that is before them like former Mets Al Leiter and Mike Piazza did.

Fundamentally, it seems that the Mets are at their worst when they play the Yankees. I believe they have outscored us 24-1 according to my colleague Big Wes. That’s is as lopsided as you can get.

The one thing I noticed during this year’s Subway Series, is how well the Yankees are at doing the little things, like running hard on every ball, always throwing to the right base defensively, making the routine plays, making the not so routine plays, running the bases smart as in knowing when to steal…

It’s almost embarrassing how much more refined they are than the Mets. In that regard, it’s like a David versus Goliath matchup when it comes to heads-up baseball.

Nobody capitalizes on mistakes more than the Yankees. Maybe that’s an exaggeration, but it’s my perception from what I’ve seen so far in the first four games they have played.

This Mets team which was supposed to be so much more fundamentally sound according to Jerry Manuel, is just as bad or maybe even worse than last year’s model.

Three errors in one inning… Really?

Last year, the Mets committed 83 errors which was second best in the league. This year, the Mets are on a pace to surpass 100 errors. Are you kidding me???

This team needs to get their act together and real fast too…

On a side note regarding this site…

I have received a few emails asking why we haven’t been posting as much this week. We have made the decision to focus more on our content and the quality of that content. Fear not, as we will still rant and rave like we always do, and our posts will still carry that raw passion and emotion after every win and loss. What we’ve decided to eliminate are those posts that are mostly blurbs. Instead we’ll gather them up and post them all together in one daily post (sort of like this one) which will be more entertaining. You probably won’t see 15-20 posts per day again, except for maybe the hot stove season when it is warranted, but the 8-10 posts you will get now, will be more content rich, opinionated, informative and sometimes even objective (yeah, right!). It’s not really a change in philosophy, just a more efficient way to deliver our opinions to you. Thanks for all your support.