Monday, July 16, 2007
If Rickey was the hitting coach, they'd have won all four
The second half of the season began with a bang for the Mets as hitting coach Rick Down was fired and Rickey Henderson was hired to replace him. The Greatest Of All Time has already done some occasional coaching for the Mets, working with Jose Reyes in particular in Spring Training. Reyes is having his most Rickeyesque season yet, with his OBP a career high .389, so I can't wait to see what Rickey can do with the rest of the team.
This move paid immediate dividends, as the first two Met hitters of the second half, Reyes and Ruben Gotay, homered. Then it turned out Rickey was to be the first base coach and Howard Johnson the hitting coach and the Mets only scored twelve more runs the rest of the weekend. That was enough to win a barely acceptable three of four from the worst team in the NL thanks to three good starting pitching performances.
Orlando Hernandez and the recently disabled Oliver Perez each pitched six innings and allowed two runs. El Duque earned a narrow 3-2 win on Thursday while Perez was the beneficiary of a veritable offensive explosion as the Mets put five big runs on the board on Sunday. The best performance of the weekend came from Tom Glavine who allowed just one run on two hits with five strikeouts in eight innings on Saturday. This was barely enough to earn his 298th career wins as the Mets pushed across their second and final run of the night in the bottom of the eighth.
In spite of the presence of Rickey, the Mets' offense in this series closely resembled the one that got Rick Down fired. Overall, the team hit a decent .273/.367/.422 for the series. But with runners in scoring position, they hit just .216/.310/.270. On Saturday night they had eleven hits and two walks but scored just two runs. Entering Sunday, the team was hitting .250/.340/.378 with RISP for the season, compared to .268/.333/.419 overall. The National League as a whole was hitting .260/.350/.406 with RISP, .261/.329/.412 overall. There's little reason to believe the Mets' lack of clutchness is anything more that just bad luck. The Mets' fortunes with RISP should begin to even out and their numbers in these situations will more closely resemble their overall numbers, as is the case with the rest of the league. But right now it is awfully frustrating to see the Mets get a runner to third base with nobody out and strand him time and time again.
There was some good offensive news as both Lastings Milledge and Roben Gotay started all four games of this series and each hit well. Milledge had four hits including a double and a home run and either scored or drove in the winning run in each Met win. Gotay had six hits including a double and a home run. Really, every Mets starter had a decent series with the bat aside from Paul Lo Duca and Carlos Beltran, who combined for just three singles. Beltran did draw five walks in the series. Ramon Castro started Sunday's game and was on base more that Lo Duca in the three other games combined, hitting a double and a single and drawing a walk.
Things get a bit tougher from here as the Mets (51-40) take their 1.5-game division lead to San Diego (50-40), home of the best pitching staff in the NL. Jorge Sosa (7-3, 3.92), El Duque (5-4, 3.20) and John Maine (10-5, 2.91) will start the three games for the Mets. David Wells (4-5, 4.31), Jake Peavy (9-3, 2.19) and Greg Maddux (7-7, 4.35) will go for the Padres. ¶ joe | 12:11 AM |
The second half of the season began with a bang for the Mets as hitting coach Rick Down was fired and Rickey Henderson was hired to replace him. The Greatest Of All Time has already done some occasional coaching for the Mets, working with Jose Reyes in particular in Spring Training. Reyes is having his most Rickeyesque season yet, with his OBP a career high .389, so I can't wait to see what Rickey can do with the rest of the team.
This move paid immediate dividends, as the first two Met hitters of the second half, Reyes and Ruben Gotay, homered. Then it turned out Rickey was to be the first base coach and Howard Johnson the hitting coach and the Mets only scored twelve more runs the rest of the weekend. That was enough to win a barely acceptable three of four from the worst team in the NL thanks to three good starting pitching performances.
Orlando Hernandez and the recently disabled Oliver Perez each pitched six innings and allowed two runs. El Duque earned a narrow 3-2 win on Thursday while Perez was the beneficiary of a veritable offensive explosion as the Mets put five big runs on the board on Sunday. The best performance of the weekend came from Tom Glavine who allowed just one run on two hits with five strikeouts in eight innings on Saturday. This was barely enough to earn his 298th career wins as the Mets pushed across their second and final run of the night in the bottom of the eighth.
In spite of the presence of Rickey, the Mets' offense in this series closely resembled the one that got Rick Down fired. Overall, the team hit a decent .273/.367/.422 for the series. But with runners in scoring position, they hit just .216/.310/.270. On Saturday night they had eleven hits and two walks but scored just two runs. Entering Sunday, the team was hitting .250/.340/.378 with RISP for the season, compared to .268/.333/.419 overall. The National League as a whole was hitting .260/.350/.406 with RISP, .261/.329/.412 overall. There's little reason to believe the Mets' lack of clutchness is anything more that just bad luck. The Mets' fortunes with RISP should begin to even out and their numbers in these situations will more closely resemble their overall numbers, as is the case with the rest of the league. But right now it is awfully frustrating to see the Mets get a runner to third base with nobody out and strand him time and time again.
There was some good offensive news as both Lastings Milledge and Roben Gotay started all four games of this series and each hit well. Milledge had four hits including a double and a home run and either scored or drove in the winning run in each Met win. Gotay had six hits including a double and a home run. Really, every Mets starter had a decent series with the bat aside from Paul Lo Duca and Carlos Beltran, who combined for just three singles. Beltran did draw five walks in the series. Ramon Castro started Sunday's game and was on base more that Lo Duca in the three other games combined, hitting a double and a single and drawing a walk.
Things get a bit tougher from here as the Mets (51-40) take their 1.5-game division lead to San Diego (50-40), home of the best pitching staff in the NL. Jorge Sosa (7-3, 3.92), El Duque (5-4, 3.20) and John Maine (10-5, 2.91) will start the three games for the Mets. David Wells (4-5, 4.31), Jake Peavy (9-3, 2.19) and Greg Maddux (7-7, 4.35) will go for the Padres. ¶ joe | 12:11 AM |
