Panic Room

I’ve been trying to avoid references to 2007 for as long as possible but after seeing tonight’s deflating, lifeless, lethargic 7-2 loss to the last place Nationals, I can’t help but rewind to last year when the Mets were losing the same games to the same teams in the same way.  For fuck’s sake, they got handcuffed by a team with 93 losses and we still have two more weeks to play!

I always thought what separated this bunch from last year’s was the ability to re-group after a tough loss and win a few in a row.  It happened after blowing the 5-2 lead to the Phillies at Shea and the 7-0 game in Philly and after yesterday’s horrific meltdown against the Braves, I felt going to DC was exactly what the Mets needed. Instead it seems like the team is just hell-bent on ripping off those year-old scabs and taking their fans through another September to Misremember (thanks Rog).

13 games left… 3 in Washington, 3 in Atlanta, 4 against the hopefully already clinched Cubs, and fittingly the Marlins wrap up Shea with a 3 game set, just like they did in 2007.  If these guys have any pride or balls, the results will be different.

Mets-Phils… the last time at Shea

Hello reader (s) – we decided to keep a running diary from tonight’s Mets-Phils game.  Enjoy (or try to anyway, especially the post-game stuff).

MightyDerf86 (4:59:13 PM): Hello asshole

MightyDerf86 (4:59:24 PM): “The Phils should win the first game for the good of the blog”

TarheelMike82 (4:59:29 PM): HAHAHAHAHA

MightyDerf86 (4:59:29 PM): FUCK OFF, YES?

TarheelMike82 (4:59:43 PM): Well, that makes for a MUCH more entertaining chat here this evening

TarheelMike82 (4:59:49 PM): Oh absolutely asshole

MightyDerf86 (5:00:01 PM): it makes for a must win game for both teams

TarheelMike82 (5:00:32 PM): Speaking of assholes

MooseheadJack13 (5:00:43 PM): yeah Solly is here

MightyDerf86 (5:00:48 PM): shut it

MooseheadJack13 (5:01:17 PM): the Phillies got shut down by Jamie Fucking Moyer today

TarheelMike82 (5:01:32 PM): Didn’t Jamie Moyer have an ‘86 Topps card?

MightyDerf86 (5:01:37 PM): so did the Mets, ace

DO SOMETHING LOU!

OK, I’ve been a Lou supporter during his time in Chicago.  I’ve defended some of his dumb decisions.  But I can’t for the life of me figure out why he didn’t use last night as an opportunity to fire up his team and get kicked out of the game.  You have a lifeless offense out there on the field.  With the exception of Tuesday night, the bats haven’t been awake in almost a week.  Finally, there’s a close play at the plate where Ronny Cedeno appeared to get in in front of the swipe tag, and Lou does nothing but pace in the dugout?  It was the perfect chance!

Run out onto the field!  Scream and yell!  Kick some dirt!  Shit, at the very least, get the home plate umpire to ask for help!  He was clearly blocked from the play with the angle he was at.

Something needs to fire this team up, or they’re going lose sight™ and have a Mets-like collapse.  It worked in June last season.  It may not work now, but, in my opinion, you’ve got to at least try.

YOU GO, WE GO

If I can quote the great Stu Nahan: “What started out as a joke has turned out to be a disaster.”

It’s been a while since I blasted my favorite team, the New York Mess.  I wanted to be fair to new skipper Jerry Manuel and and given that it’s been almost two months since he took the reigns from Willie Randolph, I’m due for a mini meltdown.   I’ve never thought of pre-Septmber games as “must win” since you can still live to play another day if you lose in June or July.  It just makes it a bit harder to do so.  However, there are a handful of games a team can’t afford to lose.  The Mess lost one today to the Pittsburgh Pirates.  The same Pirates who traded their two main cogs, Bay and Nady, away and were basically fielding a AAAA team out there.  Today’s game was a make-up game from an April rainout and let’s face it, the Pirates probably just wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible and with an early 3-0 deficit due to a Wright 3-run HR, that’s what it looked like.

24 + 1

In a nutshell, the Mets are incredibly inconsistent.  They’ll score 15 runs one game and make Sidney Ponson look like Cy Young later that night.  Reyes can go from hitting triples and stealing bases to popping up on the first pitch and making errors.  There is a lack of focus throughout this organization so it pretty much absolves Randolph.  Every game, win or lose, there are numerous mental and/or physical errors.  Reyes alone has been picked off 2nd TWICE in the span of a month.  If you’re going to score from second on a hit, stealing 3rd with two outs is moot.

The pitching, which was supposed to be the team’s strength, has been spotty at times. Every pitcher, whether it’s Santana, Pedro, Maine or Perez seems to be sailing for a few innings before getting derailed in the 4th, 5th, or 6th.  Again it just seems to be a lack of focus that prevents the Mets from winning these close games.  Is it any wonder that they lead the majors in HBP with 43?   That being said, I can’t really blame the pitching because the lineup is horrifically anemic.  You can’t expect to win a lot of games having near automatic outs after your 1-4 hitters are up.  You can’t have corner outfielders of Chavez, Phillips, Tatis and Anderson and think you’re going to outscore anyone.   The team has the worst LF production in the game and there’s someone available who can produce a 1.000 OPS without the cost of prospects. You can’t tell me Bonds wouldn’t have better numbers than those guys.  Forget creating a circus atmosphere, this is a team that twice held press conferences to announce nothing was happening with the manager before firing him in the middle of the night.  I hate to say it but Bonds gives this lineup an instant shot (no pun intended) of credibility.  Otherwise the opposing pitcher can take a breather after getting out Beltran because it’s smooth sailing until Reyes comes back up.  It puts more pressure on the pitchers because this isn’t a team that will outslug anyone.  One bad pitch can mean the game.  An error on the field or on the basepaths can mean the game.  This is a team with absolutely NO margin for error.

This brings me to my last point.  Santana has been very very good this season, but not great.  I understand he’s a 2nd half pitcher but he’s pitched well enough to win but well enough to lose at the same time.  He has been victimized by no run support, bad defense and a bad bullpen, but what makes a great pitcher one of the best is being able to win those close 2-1, 1-0 games.  I do know that the best pitcher in baseball shouldn’t be giving up a grand slam to a pitcher no matter HOW the bases were loaded.  Wright made an error, fine.  Pick him up and get Hernandez out.  What do you don’t do is throw your teammates under the bus like you did with the Seattle game and yesterday’s Yankee game.  This is what he said yesterday:

“I’m doing my job.  Other than that, there’s nothing else I can do.  I can’t go out there and do the things that my teammates have to do.”

Holy shit.  Not only did he throw all of his teammates under the bus, he backed that fucker up to make sure it hit all 24. It’s a cliché but you win as a team and lose as a team.  I don’t think the guy who stalled negotiations to milk every last dollar should be acting all high and mighty, especially when he’s getting taken yard by a guy with 8 career ABs and walking & balking his way to another loss. You want to show some fire?  Do it on the mound and pick your teammates up when they’re not scoring or fielding for you.

Meet the new boss… same as the old boss

So Willie Randolph was fired because his team was underachieving and playing lazy, lethargic baseball, yes? Funny how the team played the same damn way last night under new manager Jerry Manuel, making physical and mental errors, capped off by Jose Reyes acting like a little girl with a skinned knee when Manuel removed him from the game.

My only question for Omar Minaya is this: you’ve said all along that you couldn’t guarantee Randolph’s job the rest of the year because in your words “what happens if we lose 15 in a row?” Fair enough, but then why in the next breath would you say Manuel is your manager the rest of the year? What if you lose 15 in a row, Omar? You can’t commit to a guy who won 300 games for you but you can to the guy who suggested Cliff Floyd would be a great pinch hitter in Game 7? Forget it, I’m done trying to figure out Minaya logic. This is the same guy who decided to fire Randolph on Friday but slept on it for 3 days. Whatever.

Anyway I liked Manuel’s presser yesterday, he showed some humor and a bit of fire, but the bottom line is whether it’s Randolph or Manuel in charge, this team needs to start playing with their heads out of their asses. That said, if Manuel wanted to make a big splash yesterday he should have brought Wright up there and put a C on that uniform.

Why Willie Randolph, you look like somebody walked all over your grave

Check out the scene in Tombstone where Doc Holliday surprises Johnny Ringo in the woods… I was wearing Ringo’s expression this morning as I headed straight for espn.com where I was greeted with this:

What a fucking disgrace. I understand managers are hired to ultimately be fired but OVERNIGHT after a hard-earned win in California? Good fucking Christ. Why this didn’t happen after the Colorado series, let alone 2007 is beyond me. Why they had to use him as a fucking ping-pong ball is beyond me. I’m not mad about the decision, I’m mad about how it went down. For an image-conscious franchise, they CLEARLY have no idea what they’re doing. My only hope is Omar fired the coaches and Willie said if the coaches go, he goes too. Either way, firing a guy at midnight is classless and disrespectful. Seriously, Bender showed Vernon more respect than what Willie got.

Whatever. Willie was fired as soon as he was hired. He was NEVER given full autonomy of the team, never got to pick all of his coaches, and tried to make chicken salad out of a chickenshit bullpen, not to mention being saddled with a gimpy Alou and a broken-down Pedro. And Omar better watch his back too…from the day he was hired he said how he wanted to make the Mets younger and faster. Nothing says speedy like carrying 3 catchers and having the oldest roster in the game.

Stay classy Mets – you’re making Rachel Phelps look like Mother Theresa.

Random Moosings II

Couple of things I forgot to write about yesterday, so that gives me a reason to write again today.

np: Through the Fire and the Flames – Dragonforce – not sure if this qualifies as speed metal or not, but it is some of the fastest, understandable metal I have heard in a long time. Good way to start the day,

Must be a New York Thing: First you have the New York Knicks doing their damnedest to wrestle the title of “worst run franchise ever” away from the Arizona Cardinals, and now it appears that you have the Mets throwing their hat into the ring for that competition as well. Last night, the Mets fired Willie Randolph. That comes as no surprise, Willie was on life support (and based on his lack of expression or pulse in the dugout, I think he may have been that way for a whole lot of years) and the firing was inevitable. But what makes me laugh is the timing of the whole thing, I am not sure the Mets could have handled this any worse than they did. They decided not to fire Willie after a horrific 3-7 road trip that saw them get swept by the Padres (scoring only 9 runs in 4 games) and drop two of three to the Diamondbacks. No, that might have made some sense. Instead they wait till after the Mets come home and take two of three against the Rangers, then go out west and WIN their game against the first place Angels. You let the manager get on the plane and go all the way across the country, he wins the game, talks to reporters after the game, THEN gets fired? Via a press release? That is bush league right there. Is Eric Bischoff running the Mets? Did they fire Willie via fax? Again, I hate the Mets more than any other team not named the Yankees, and Willie’s firing was deserved. The Mets were a slightly respectable 84-78 in their last 162 (they had been flirting with .500 for several weeks over that span – for the record, the Phillies are 94-68 in that same span) which, when you have a payroll of nearly 140 million is pretty hard to swallow. Jerry Manuel takes over this team, and from what I hear, he has just about as much of a pulse as Willie did. I just can’t see the Mets going on a hot streak in the second half, this team has no heart, and I really don’t think this is what is going to shake them up.

Got a good lock… firing…

Congratulations Mets, you found a way to make the off the field stuff more pathetic than what’s on the field.

Fresh off the abortion known as waiting for weeks to finally put the twice-concussed Ryan Church on the DL, Mets management has gone to a new low with the handling of Willie Randolph.  The absolute nerve of the Wilpons to leave Randolph twisting in the wind for weeks now, culminating in last night’s embarrassment of Willie answering questions of if he’s even going to get on the plane to Anaheim. Just fire him already if that’s the plan but this hemming and hawing is a joke.  Stop being so fucking indecisive and do something, whether it’s firing Randolph and/or the coaches or flat out saying his job is safe for the year.  Just get the focus off this mini soap opera and put it back on the field where it belongs.

Poor, poor, Solly…

So remember when I posted about the ironically captioned Mets shirt I saw in Atlanta? Well, I found another one in Myrtle Beach and sent it to Solly. As you can see, he wasn’t happy.

It doesn’t look like they will be making anymore of those this season.