Sunday, September 16, 2007
Wake Me Up When September Ends
The Mets' play against the Phillies recently has been nothing short of embarrassing. The bullpen has been awful. The defense has been sloppy. The offense has been shut down by some very ordinary pitchers. Thinking rationally, it is obvious that the Mets are not this bad and the Phillies are not this good. But right now I would rather these two teams didn't meet in the NLCS.
The bullpen, which so spectacularly failed the Mets a couple weeks back in Philadelphia, took the loss in all three of this weekend's games. On Friday and Saturday, the Mets got excellent starting pitching, including six brilliant innings from Pedro Martinez on Saturday. But the bullpen wasted little time in giving those games away and when the Mets overcame a poor start from Oliver Perez on Sunday to put tie the game at five, the bullpen blew that, too. Altogether, Met relievers pitched 8.2 innings in this series, allowing ten runs (eight earned) on six hits, eight walks and two home runs. Last year the Mets' bullpen was among the best in the game. This year many of the names are the same, but the results have been very different. The starting rotation is better this year than last year, perhaps a lot better by the time October rolls around. But if the 'pen continues to perform as they have recently, that may not matter. And if Guillermo Mota makes the postseason roster, someone should probably be fired.
The defense, another apparent strength of this team, completely let them down in this series. Three unearned runs were scored and a total of eight errors committed, including six in Sunday's debacle of a game. Errors by people like Paul Lo Duca, Shawn Green and Jeff Conine aren't surprising. But Jose Reyes's two errors on Sunday just seemed like a continuation of the overall decline in his game. Even if he hadn't been charged with an error in a long time, he hasn't looked nearly as sharp lately as he did early in the season. This is also true offensively, where the line drives and walks of the first half have been replaced by a lot of pop flies. The Mets have been beating teams other than the Phillies pretty often lately, but if that's going to keep up for another month and a half, Reyes needs to get back on track.
Offensively, this series closely resembled the one in Philadelphia with the Mets' bats being held in check by pitchers they should really have pounded. They finally got to Adam Eaton on Sunday, but eleven runs in three games is pretty sad against the Phillies' staff. David Wright did hit his thirtieth home run of the season to become the third 30/30 man in Mets' history, but that was the only real offensive highlight. The lineup just has a black hole in the sixth and seventh spot right now with Shawn Green and Paul Lo Duca back-to-back most days. When Conine plays first, things don't get any better. These spots went one for twenty with three walks in this series. Carlos Delgado's return doesn't appear to be imminent, but all indications are that Ramon Castro is healthy enough to play. Hopefully he'll be back on the roster and in the lineup very soon.
The Mets (83-65) now lead the division by just 3.5 games, but their schedule is about to get a lot easier. They don't have a day off for the rest of the month, but they only have one day on which they play a team other than the Marlins (65-84) or the Nationals (66-83) and that one day will see them take on the Cardinals (70-78). The Mets are 20-9 against these teams so far this year. The leisurely stroll to October begins Monday in Washington. The Mets will send Brian Lawrence (1-2, 6.31), John Maine (14-9, 3.72) and Mike Pelfrey (2-7, 5.23) to the mound against Tim Redding (3-5, 3.45), Joel Hanrahan (4-3, 5.83) and Matt Chico (5-8, 4.61). ¶ joe | 11:55 PM |
The Mets' play against the Phillies recently has been nothing short of embarrassing. The bullpen has been awful. The defense has been sloppy. The offense has been shut down by some very ordinary pitchers. Thinking rationally, it is obvious that the Mets are not this bad and the Phillies are not this good. But right now I would rather these two teams didn't meet in the NLCS.
The bullpen, which so spectacularly failed the Mets a couple weeks back in Philadelphia, took the loss in all three of this weekend's games. On Friday and Saturday, the Mets got excellent starting pitching, including six brilliant innings from Pedro Martinez on Saturday. But the bullpen wasted little time in giving those games away and when the Mets overcame a poor start from Oliver Perez on Sunday to put tie the game at five, the bullpen blew that, too. Altogether, Met relievers pitched 8.2 innings in this series, allowing ten runs (eight earned) on six hits, eight walks and two home runs. Last year the Mets' bullpen was among the best in the game. This year many of the names are the same, but the results have been very different. The starting rotation is better this year than last year, perhaps a lot better by the time October rolls around. But if the 'pen continues to perform as they have recently, that may not matter. And if Guillermo Mota makes the postseason roster, someone should probably be fired.
The defense, another apparent strength of this team, completely let them down in this series. Three unearned runs were scored and a total of eight errors committed, including six in Sunday's debacle of a game. Errors by people like Paul Lo Duca, Shawn Green and Jeff Conine aren't surprising. But Jose Reyes's two errors on Sunday just seemed like a continuation of the overall decline in his game. Even if he hadn't been charged with an error in a long time, he hasn't looked nearly as sharp lately as he did early in the season. This is also true offensively, where the line drives and walks of the first half have been replaced by a lot of pop flies. The Mets have been beating teams other than the Phillies pretty often lately, but if that's going to keep up for another month and a half, Reyes needs to get back on track.
Offensively, this series closely resembled the one in Philadelphia with the Mets' bats being held in check by pitchers they should really have pounded. They finally got to Adam Eaton on Sunday, but eleven runs in three games is pretty sad against the Phillies' staff. David Wright did hit his thirtieth home run of the season to become the third 30/30 man in Mets' history, but that was the only real offensive highlight. The lineup just has a black hole in the sixth and seventh spot right now with Shawn Green and Paul Lo Duca back-to-back most days. When Conine plays first, things don't get any better. These spots went one for twenty with three walks in this series. Carlos Delgado's return doesn't appear to be imminent, but all indications are that Ramon Castro is healthy enough to play. Hopefully he'll be back on the roster and in the lineup very soon.
The Mets (83-65) now lead the division by just 3.5 games, but their schedule is about to get a lot easier. They don't have a day off for the rest of the month, but they only have one day on which they play a team other than the Marlins (65-84) or the Nationals (66-83) and that one day will see them take on the Cardinals (70-78). The Mets are 20-9 against these teams so far this year. The leisurely stroll to October begins Monday in Washington. The Mets will send Brian Lawrence (1-2, 6.31), John Maine (14-9, 3.72) and Mike Pelfrey (2-7, 5.23) to the mound against Tim Redding (3-5, 3.45), Joel Hanrahan (4-3, 5.83) and Matt Chico (5-8, 4.61). ¶ joe | 11:55 PM |
