OK. Deep breaths. You out there on the ledge, don't make any sudden movements. I'm not coming out to get you — we're just going to talk.
I know things seem bad right now, but let's try to maintain some perspective.
We knew this was going to be tough road trip, and it's turned into one. The turnaround was a bit sudden, but not really a surprise. Every team has down periods when everyone stops hitting at once — you didn't think we were going to put first-inning runs up every night until the end of October, did you? You knew Jose Reyes wasn't going to hit .600 for the rest of the year, right? We spent much of June insanely hot; we're cold right now, but average it out and we're pretty warm.
Yes, I know the starting pitching's seemed a little suspect of late, with Pedro hurt, El Duque old, Soler young and Trachsel Trachsel. But we have time to fix that, whether it's from within (Pelfrey, MacLane, Heilman, Maine, Bannister) or without. And while El Duque wasn't particularly inspiring tonight, you can't argue with his line. Two earned over seven innings? I'll take that every time out, thanks very much.
Yes, we've been doing some dopey things out there in the field, whether it's pitch selection or getting picked off every freaking night. Willie warned all of us not so long ago about the dangers of getting complacent — well, this is what he was talking about. While Willie may make some questionable calls strategically, he's shown himself to be a terrific clubhouse manager. He's not going to let this get out of control. I wouldn't be surprised by a little clubhouse chat about bearing down and playing every game like it's No. 163 and the loser goes home.
Of course, it's a marathon and not a sprint, and marathon's are tough on the body. The team's beat up now, no way around it: Lo Duca's thumb, Pedro's hip, Cliff's ankle, Nady's wrist, Delgado's ribs, probably a host of other bumps and bruises we don't know about. That's part of the long season. We'll come through it and find it's happened to one of the clubs chasing us.
Oh, and let's remember that chase: The Marlins are 10.5 out, and while they're not to be dismissed (great story, in fact), they've got neither the horses nor the experience. The Phillies are hurtling downward in flames, the Braves just finished a 6-21 month and the Nationals have cratered. As my co-blogger likes to remind me, there's no extra credit for style points. If you finish first, nobody remembers how many games up you were on the last day or that your lead had been bigger earlier in the summer.
We're 10.5 up on July 1. If we could have looked in a crystal ball in March and seen that, we'd have redefined ecstatic and formed the world's biggest blue-and-orange conga line. And if we'd looked in the crystal ball and seen that we were all in the dumps despite that rather astonishing lead, we'd have concluded that we'd all gone insane.
10.5 games up on July 1. Deep breaths. Don't look down. Take my hand. Everything will be fine.
And now that I've produced that incredible mound of steaming bullshit, I'm going upstairs to scream and break things.
Usually getting shut out by the Skanks pisses me off. Tonight getting shut out period pissed me off. The identity of the opponent was pretty close to irrelevant.
Clearly, we've arrived.
I think we owe the Mets a great big thank you. Somebody must have pointed out to them the miserable showing they exhibited on the last road trip in terms of Mets tradition. Now, at last, they've rediscovered the true Met comfort zone on the road: Frustrating failure. Especially of the run-producing (or lack thereof) variety. Way to re-balance the universe, guys.
Let them have their fun. This is, after all, the post season for them.
Our season begins in October.
It's still good to be a gangsta.
99 percent of what you said is all well and true, and fair enough.
Players get hot and cold, the very nature of the game precludes
perfection, and like that. And thank every baseball god and devil
that no matter how bad the Mets' bad has been, the true competition
— the rest of the division — has been worse.
But two things really are cause for bigger worry, and both come from
the “half mental” part of the game. One is baserunning. There is just
no excuse for these pickoffs.
A guy tries and fails to stretch a double, or he gets caught stealing, fine,
he's playing aggressively and he just got beat, and maybe needs to pick
his spots better. But in games where runs have been hard to come
by, in situations where all you are doing is trying to annoy the pitcher
a little, getting picked off is just sloppy, and it does the other team a
whole lot more good than your extra two feet of lead off the base ever
would have done harm. No more pickoffs!
The other is, for lack of a better word, the “who's your daddy?” problem.
If the Mets meet the Red Sox in the post, they will do it with a cloud of
dread after that awful showing in Fenway, and if somebody else like
the Tigers or the White Sox disposes of them first, well, it'll be like
2000 when the Mets dodged having to go througg the Ted to get to
the series. We still had to play another five years knowing that we
hadn't beaten the Braves and didn't know if we could.
Let's hope the Mets can finish interleague play this year without
feeling like the whole American League is their daddy.
it's been a bad few days, no getting around it. not only getting swept in boston, not only the four-game losing streak, but, amid all their own bellyaching about their difficult season, the skanks — the SKANKS — get it together to bury the mets' bats even further.
that's why it was so good to see the randy johnson exit on this road trip.
he may be good for a lot of other things, but it seems like he's always been just the tonic for a mets batting slump. both as a dback, and now as a skank, he throws dead fastballs, and the mets, bless them, are dead fastball hitters. with the entire lineup looking like joe mcewing at the plate, here comes unit to serve em hot and tasty, letting everyone have a taste of superjoe revival pie.
not happy to see that trachsel and even wagner might be hurting as a result of fielding plays. but this win (saturday) was essential. thanks randy, ya done good.