What exactly is the point of being a contender if you can't build on an early 4-0 lead over the Pirates? Or can't preserve a 5-1 lead bequeathed you by six innings of Pedro Martinez? Are the Phillies and Marlins both really flawed enough to let this crew of light hitters and heavy downers pass them? Can't anybody who doesn't have a strained left forearm get ninth-inning outs?
There were too many of these games earlier in the season, but that was when the season looked for naught. They've brought us to the edge…no they've brought us over the edge into contention, into believing 2008 could be something else. On days like this (and there have been quite a few), it looks like nothing else but more of what the Mets were doing early on and a little too much of recently. Not tacking on, not shutting doors, not kicking lousy teams who have no reason to beat you but do to the proverbial curb. It is they who kicked, it is we who are curbed.
This was a disgrace. Some games are that plain and that simple.
The anger of pre-June 17th is still there, but the direction is different. I used to find myself saying “I hate this team,” and I meant team. Hitters, bench, starters, bullpen, management. Now I don't hate the team, I really don't. But I absolutely despise that pile of crap that sits behind the 358 mark in right field. And that holds true with Wagner, too. What a damned month, no?
August 1 – Heilman L
August 2 – Wagner BS, Heilman L
August 5 – Heilman 0.1 IP, 2 H, 3 ER
August 7 – Schoeneweis BS
August 11 – Everybody take a bow.
Johan needs to go 18 tomorrow.
Certainly I don't hate the team , I do hate how it's all so predictable. I'm surprised now when the bullpen closes the deal.I blame Minaya for not getting help in there , and really the bench is rubbish too.
Alas, this excuse for a fiasco of a debacle of a game will, in all likelihood, be my last game ever at Shea Stadium. My second to last game was the meltdown against the Phillies. I feel cheated.
A conga line of schlubs, I tells ya.
Why do we have to watch the same game over and over this year?
After yesterday, I found myself hoping they'd lose tyhe next 15 or so in a row.
Put me out of my misery: I don't think I can take another month of this shit.
I dunno what was worse… Sunday's drab, lackluster game, or this fiasco.
I'm getting worn down by this.
If they scored baseball games the way they scored boxing matches, the Mets would have won an easy 6-2 decision (I make the eighth inning a draw).
But they don't, and the game added to the most horrible stat of the season so far: The Mets have lost nine games after taking a lead into the eighth inning, and have won zero games when they trailed after eight.
This come-from-ahead team needs to do something really drastic to break the pattern.
My suggestion: Make Pedro Martinez the closer and Heilman the fifth starter.
Hey, something's gotta give.
Problem with Pedro as the closer is that he often has tough/bad first innings in games he starts.
You ever get that feeling of deja vu?
This was supposed to be in the post.
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/recap?gameId=270816123
Or as you put it in the blog last year, “what game?”
Over the next few games is that from here on in, all Mets' opponents will have the following game plan: Every batter for the first 3 innings should take the first strike and foul off boatloads of pitches after 2 strikes. The objective being to work the starting pitchers over 100 pitches by the 5th.
The Mets game plan has to be (a) score 10 runs every night, (b) pray for a miracle from the waiver wire.