The Mets played one heck of a series against the Phillies this weekend, sweeping Philly and securing their lead atopthe NL East, pushing the Phillies back 16.5 games in the division. At this point, don’t be surprised if the Nats don’t pass the current 4th place team. Then their only hope would be to play spoiler.
What a series for this Mets team, that is simply on fire. Who would have guessed at the start of the season, Johan Santana would have 20 wins in August?? True indication of why he is our Ace. Maine and Big Pelf earned wins this weekend as well, earning them each their 15th wins. And Frankie “K-Rod” Rodriguez earned his major league-leading 42nd save on Saturday, keeping his no blown save record in tact.
David Wright and Carlos Beltran went a combined 22-for-36, belting out two homers each over the four games. Jose Reyes continued his one-man marathon, swiping 6 bases, including a steal of Home in yesterday’s 13-0 blowout victory. Carlos Delgado and Luis Castillo also contributed, driving in 7 runs and 5 runs, respectively.
In fairness to the Phillies, the team has been plagued by the injury bug since the beginning of the 2009 campaign. Ryan Howard having hip surgery, Jimmy Rollins out with a bad leg, and Shane Victorino out with a badly bruised knee, have definitely not helped this Philadelphia team. Pedro Feliz was the only core player in there every day, but he too is now out with a concussion suffered by a pitch he took in the head last week. Even the backups to the backups have had their share of injuries, and so has the starting pitching.
And just today, the Phils announced that their Ace needs season-ending elbow surgery and they traded one of their closers to the Red Sox, for two players to be “disabled” later. Personally, I would have kept the guy they got rid of and let the other closer go.
Regardless of how good or bad a manger Manuel is, that will all be overlooked because the team has an excuse to play bad. Imagine if this Philly team had all of it’s players on the field, day in and day out, healthy, and playing up to the capabilities we know they have? The Mets may have had a force to be reckoned with in the NL East this year.
But such is the luck of the Philly Phans. Guess we, er, they, will just have to wait until next year.
No, Mets fans, I was not drunk when I wrote this. It’s to prove a point to the Philthies and their fans, and to those Mets fans who have given up on our team. Sarcasm seems to be the theme this week, so I couldn’t help but jump on the bandwagon. Oh, just humor me, will you?
