Don’t you think he’s giving Chipper Jones a run for his money in terms of being one of those fantastic ballplayers who just torments the Mets and their fans? Now, I wasn’t there tonight, but I am sure some group of Mets fans thought they could get in Pujols’ head as usual by taunting him, calling him names, etc. And he’s been through this many times before. He thinks, “Oh, yeah, Mets fans: stick around, mock me, and in just a bit I’m going to rip the heart right out of each and every one of you.” He did. He just took a little longer than usual tonight. He had to wait until the top of the 13th when he got to come up against the overused, Perpetual Pedro.
I’ll bet each and every one of you knew exactly what the outcome of that at bat was going to be. Runners on first and third, two outs, and here’s Pujols to face Feliciano. The Lefty Specialist versus the right-handed, well, perhaps best hitter in the game. No, that was not going to end well.
Funny to listen to Ron and Keith debate whether or not he should have been walked in that situation. Ron said no because he didn’t think Pedro could be trusted to get an out with the bases loaded. From the hitter’s perspective, I think Keith made more sense.
Sports journalists and perhaps fellow MMO writers will recount just how well we battled back after Santana stunk it up, allowing six earned runs in the top of the first. Then we battled back, despite more base running failures, such as Wright’s inability to get a double off of a ball that he hit off the wall in left, Reyes getting thrown out at 2nd by Molina. Now, these weren’t huge blunders, just the kind of poor execution that shows your battling, NOT WINNING! There were positives tonight no question, as in we hit pretty well many times during the game. But we didn’t hit well enough to win.
I am so sick of it, so sick of the almost wins, the close-but-no-cigar results. It just isn’t looking as if we have nearly what it takes to win consistently so that we can vie for the playoffs. Of course, some will opine that such an expectation for playoffs was always crazy. After all, this is a .500 team at best, etc. I really don’t care to argue about that. I just want my team to play and win, not play as if they’re trying, or playing as if they’re putting up a fight.
By the way, what are the differences between a manager like La Russa and Manuel? To me, it’s as if La Russa knows exactly what he’s going to do when, and he never really sweats it. Not only doesn’t Manuel ever give you the feeling he knows just what decisions to make, but you always feel he’s late on the switches. I cannot give him too much crap for the Feliciano outing, but I was surprised he was starting the 13th, and reasonably sure he was going to be yanked with two on and one out. In the end, and maybe because it’s attributable to the lack of an Albert Pujols in our clubhouse, Manuel just does not seem to have what it takes to inject the precious extra ounce of rocket fuel into that clubhouse that gets us to the promised land on a daily basis—victory land.
Ugh! Ugh! And triple ugh!
