Saturday, September 17, 2005
The National League 7, Mets 2
Since I last posted here, the Mets have played nine baseball games. They won just two of them, despite being outscored just 37-29. They were swept by the Washington Nationals. The only victories were a 7-2 defeat of the Cardinals and a 4-0 shutout of the Braves. The winning pitcher in both of those games was Pedro Martinez, who pitched his first complete game shutout of the season last night to win his fifteenth game.
Breaking down the Mets' individual statistics over the course of these nine games would seemingly require calculating them myself, as no website I can find allows you to split stats up from one specific date to another as you please. The best I can do is to look at the team's stats for September, not including today's 7-4 loss to the Braves. Steve Trachsel gave up five runs in six innings, though only two of them were earned, and Cliff Floyd, Mike Piazza and Mike Jacobs each homered.
Thus far in September, the Mets' hottest hitter has been Kazuo Matsui, who is hitting .367/.396/.551 in a mad dash to earn himself a job next year. He's got three doubles and three triples in forty-nine at bats. In the "too little, too late" category we have Carlos Beltran, hitting .310/.394/.414 with one home run. David Wright has cooled off quite a bit from his otherworldly August, hitting just .298/.365/.386. The twenty-two year old's season stats are still a terrific .312/.392/.513 with twenty-one home runs, forty doubles, sixty-five walks and sixteen stolen bases in twenty-three tries. Mike Jacobs has hit decently in limited action, going .292/.320/.542 in twenty-four at bats.
Martinez has been the Mets best pitcher this month, just as he was in every other month aside from August. He's put up a 1.96 ERA and struck out nineteen batters in twenty-three innings while walking just six and he has not allowed a home run. Also having a good month is Tom Glavine, who has a 2.53 ERA in twenty-one and one-third innings, striking out fourteen and walking seven. That quality pitching has been enough to earn Glavine an 0-2 record this month, which gives you some idea which half of the Mets' team might be responsible for their demise. Jae Seo has faltered a bit in September, posting a 3.60 ERA in twenty innings. He's struck out sixteen and walked just three, but he's also allowed twenty-three hits, two of which were home runs. No other pitcher who's started a game for the Mets this month has an ERA lower than Victor Zambrano's 4.50, and no other pitcher who didn't get booted to the bullpen has an ERA lower than Steve Trachsel's 5.84. It has not been a good month for Kris Benson (0-2, 6.00, 7:8 K:BB).
So the Mets stand at 72-76, the consequence of which is that they still have to play fourteen more games. After tomorrow's series finale with the Braves--Glavine (10-13, 3.88) vs. John Thomson (3-4, 4.76)--they'll play three each against the Marlins, Nationals and Phillies before finishing the season with four at home against the Colorado Rockies. They've already won one more game than they did last year, but finishing anywhere but last place might be a struggle at this point. ¶ joe | 8:00 PM |
Since I last posted here, the Mets have played nine baseball games. They won just two of them, despite being outscored just 37-29. They were swept by the Washington Nationals. The only victories were a 7-2 defeat of the Cardinals and a 4-0 shutout of the Braves. The winning pitcher in both of those games was Pedro Martinez, who pitched his first complete game shutout of the season last night to win his fifteenth game.
Breaking down the Mets' individual statistics over the course of these nine games would seemingly require calculating them myself, as no website I can find allows you to split stats up from one specific date to another as you please. The best I can do is to look at the team's stats for September, not including today's 7-4 loss to the Braves. Steve Trachsel gave up five runs in six innings, though only two of them were earned, and Cliff Floyd, Mike Piazza and Mike Jacobs each homered.
Thus far in September, the Mets' hottest hitter has been Kazuo Matsui, who is hitting .367/.396/.551 in a mad dash to earn himself a job next year. He's got three doubles and three triples in forty-nine at bats. In the "too little, too late" category we have Carlos Beltran, hitting .310/.394/.414 with one home run. David Wright has cooled off quite a bit from his otherworldly August, hitting just .298/.365/.386. The twenty-two year old's season stats are still a terrific .312/.392/.513 with twenty-one home runs, forty doubles, sixty-five walks and sixteen stolen bases in twenty-three tries. Mike Jacobs has hit decently in limited action, going .292/.320/.542 in twenty-four at bats.
Martinez has been the Mets best pitcher this month, just as he was in every other month aside from August. He's put up a 1.96 ERA and struck out nineteen batters in twenty-three innings while walking just six and he has not allowed a home run. Also having a good month is Tom Glavine, who has a 2.53 ERA in twenty-one and one-third innings, striking out fourteen and walking seven. That quality pitching has been enough to earn Glavine an 0-2 record this month, which gives you some idea which half of the Mets' team might be responsible for their demise. Jae Seo has faltered a bit in September, posting a 3.60 ERA in twenty innings. He's struck out sixteen and walked just three, but he's also allowed twenty-three hits, two of which were home runs. No other pitcher who's started a game for the Mets this month has an ERA lower than Victor Zambrano's 4.50, and no other pitcher who didn't get booted to the bullpen has an ERA lower than Steve Trachsel's 5.84. It has not been a good month for Kris Benson (0-2, 6.00, 7:8 K:BB).
So the Mets stand at 72-76, the consequence of which is that they still have to play fourteen more games. After tomorrow's series finale with the Braves--Glavine (10-13, 3.88) vs. John Thomson (3-4, 4.76)--they'll play three each against the Marlins, Nationals and Phillies before finishing the season with four at home against the Colorado Rockies. They've already won one more game than they did last year, but finishing anywhere but last place might be a struggle at this point. ¶ joe | 8:00 PM |
