Treading Water

Let's just punt Saturday's game, shall we? After a long day of hooting and hollering, I returned home at around 6:30 and promptly fell asleep, in spite of a loud, obnoxious block party being held directly outside my window. I woke up some time later and instead of watching the game or even checking the score, my other half insisted we go out to dinner, not so much because she wanted to go out, but she wanted to get away from the party. So, what I ended up missing was the sort of game I hate the most, the game where the Mets fall hopelessly behind, but then start mounting some thinly-veiled comeback that ends up falling short, and so the only thing accomplished was making the game longer.

Sunday, then, was going to be Waterloo for the 2016 Mets. They have been, as I keep saying, teetering on the brink of 2012 but yet every time that perilous loss seems to be at hand, they end up fighting back and winning a game, and that's what happened on Sunday. Jacob deGrom was his usual brilliant self, and I know at the end of the season his numbers aren't really going to tell the story, but no need to sugarcoat: He's been the Mets best Pitcher to this point this season. He was once again on top of his game on Sunday, keeping the Tigers off the scoreboard, which was fortunate because the Mets did squat against Anibal Sanchez and his 6.06 ERA. Sanchez, whom we've seen plenty of in his days playing on the Fake Team, has been patently awful this season, to the point where he lost his job and only got it back thanks to someone else's injury (you know, sort of like Nate Eovaldi). So of course the Mets couldn't hit him.

Until Michael Conforto got a hold of one in the 7th and hit a Home Run out to left-center field, the kind of ball it seems like he hadn't hit in months. I know that the Mets have basically done just about everything possible to screw up Conforto, but after all this he's still here plugging away and he might actually be starting to find his swing again. He's looked reasonably good over the past several games and now he drove one out of the park, so that's a good sign. A better sign would be if he starts doing it on a more regular basis.

But, alas, the Tigers tied the game in the last of the 7th thanks to a pair of 60 foot singles, one of which, by Austin Romine, loaded the bases with 2 outs and knocked deGrom from the game, and the second, by Ian Kinsler, "drove in" the tying run. The situation seemed ripe for the Tigers to then get a long hit or a Grand Slam from Jose Iglesias, but Addison Reed came in and would have none of it, so instead Iglesias was kind enough to pop out.

In the last of the 8th, the Tigers again threatened, and in fact Casey McGehee, another ex-Marlin, probably did the most Marlins thing he's done in his life, skipping an 87-hop single to right with 2 on and 2 out, that somehow got past 4 Met Infielders and appeared primed to score the lead run. But, fortunately, the Mets were playing the Tigers and not the Marlins, and instead of the run scoring, the Tigers managed to run, or not run, themselves out of the inning when J.D. Martinez decided to not run and Justin Upton decided to keep running, so the Tigers had two men on 3rd base and instead of scoring the lead run, Martinez and Upton basically just had to take a bite out of 3rd base and cut their losses.

In the 9th, Francisco Rodriguez came in for the Tigers and promptly hit Alejandro De Aza to start the inning. Rodriguez, who left New York in abject shame, continues to do the job since he's closing games, but he seems to be making things as difficult as possible. Just like a Good Closer should. He came perilously close to blowing Saves on Friday and Saturday, and on Sunday the Mets finally got him when Neil Walker hit a 2-run Home Run to win the game, 3-1.

So, the Mets somehow managed to not get swept in Detroit, which was nice of them, and now they get to come home to play Arizona and San Diego. I have no idea what will happen to them from here. I don't even know what to say anymore.

The Burden

Watching Friday's Mets game in Detroit was just one of those games that gives you no hope for the remainder of this season. I know that they were playing a red-hot Tigers team, but they had Noah Syndergaard on the mound for them and generally that's been a winning proposition for them. But lately, the air has come out of Syndergaard a bit and yes, I think the issue is simply that he's starting to get gassed.

It is a haul for a pitcher to come out and go full throttle 32-34 times in a season and to this point Syndergaard has not done this. It's easy to forget because of how good he looks at times, that he's still only 23 and will be 24 at the end of August, and this is, in fact, his first full season in the Majors. But coming off of the way he finished 2015 and the way he pitched for the first two months this season and, well, you change expectations. At some point, he went from being "pretty good," to "Legendary" and it's not unfounded. But he still has to prove stamina. This takes time. And going out there with a heavy innings load and a bone spur is proving to be more problematic than we want to think it is. In April and May, Syndergaard was basically sucking the will from his opponents and blowing them out of the box with regularity with his demon array of pitches (and Mjölnir). But then he started having issues with the bone spur, and he had some dead arm, and these things happen. The result, then, is that while it's not affecting Syndergaard's stuff, what's happening is that he's got what we in Metland like to call Leiteritis. The inability to put a hitter away and thereby running up one's pitch count by allowing absurd amounts of foul balls (not to be confused with its cousin, John Maine-itis, which is Leiteritis combined with abject misery and self-loathing). This is now what's happened to Syndergaard, as his season has unraveled into Leiteritis and outings where he gets two strikes on a hitter and then allows 5 foul balls, and it's the 5th inning and his pitch count is around 90.

It's alarming in the sense that you know something's not right, but then again he's still throwing in the upper 90s and he looks fine mechanically. I'm sure it's related to the workload and the bone spur and these are correctable problems, so I can't get too worked up about the long term. But given what happened to him on Friday night and the fact that the Mets offense is too overmatched to dig themselves out of holes, well, you can draw the conclusion from there.

This Game's Fun

I'd hemmed and hawed a lot over who to pick in the ALCS if only because it pitted a pair of teams that on paper were quite evenly matched. I had to dig a little deeper to arrive at the decision to pick the Red Sox, if only because they're a team built of real grinders, guys who peck and scrape and battle tooth and nail to the end. The Red Sox went out and proved this to a tee in their 6-game series win over the Tigers. Though the Tigers starting pitching proved every bit as good as they're written up to be, the Sox hitters ground them down and eventually forced tight games into the hands of the Tigers excessively shaky bullpen, and ultimately they found ways to prevail.

It was a different hero every day for the Red Sox, which is generally how the most successful teams do it. David Ortiz, who's made a career out of big hits in October, did it last Sunday night, hitting a spectacular game-tying Grand Slam in the 8th inning that sent Torii Hunter flying into the bullpen and setting the stage for Jarrod Saltalamacchia's winning hit in the 9th. In Detroit, the Sox beat Justin Verlander 1-0 on a Mike Napoli Home Run and in Game 5, they relied on their bullpen to carry home a 4-3 victory.

This set the stage for last night's Game 6, a real Major League ballgame that featured a little bit of everything; great pitching, clutch hitting, controversial plays, serious momentum swings and one huge, memorable moment, which was provided by Shane Victorino. I could tell it was that kind of game when it had hit the 3 hour mark in the top of the 7th inning. By this point, Max Scherzer had done just about everything he could to try to carry his team to a 7th game and a shot for Verlander (or, more appropriately, the exact opposite of the complete bed-shitting Clayton Kershaw did on Friday). His offense had done very little in support of him, save for a 2-run single from Victor Martinez. This was promptly followed by the rarely seen 4-4-2 Double Play, where Prince Fielder completely vapor-locked on an infield ground ball, allowing Pedroia to tag out Martinez and then throw home to get Fielder in a rundown, which he ended by pulling a Lucas Duda and belly-flopping not particularly close to 3rd Base. But, despite all that, the Tigers still had a 2-1 lead.

Unfortunately, Scherzer's weakness is that he's only been conditioned for 7 innings or so of work. Jim Leyland has never nursed him further. Plus the Red Sox, as is their wont, had made him throw an awful lot of pitches, and in pressure situations. So, after he walked Xander Bogaerts in the 7th, he was gone, and the game unraveled for the Tigers from there, culminating with Victorino's Grand Slam that ultimately won the game and sent the Red Sox on to the World Series. 

I'd mentioned at the beginning of the ALCS that the Red Sox were sort of unlikeable, and that I get why people don't like them. But I don't consider myself one of them. I'm not a great lover of Boston, and maybe the main reason I like the Red Sox is because of the common dislike of a particular team. But I didn't have a hard time pulling for them against Detroit, and I'm certainly going to be pulling for them in the World Series. They have a similar team to the Cardinals, built around unheralded pitching and hitters that bug the hell out of you. Hell, they've even made me admit appreciation for my main man Shane Victorino, who I've spent years trashing because of how many times he got clutch hits or made important plays when he played for Philly. The difference is, I like it a lot more when he's not doing it for the Phillies. When he hits a Grand Slam and pounds his chest around the bases for the Red Sox, it's OK. He's an emotional guy and that's always been his game, and that's absolutely a double-standard because I hate the Phillies.

That should illustrate the difference between these two teams. A friend said to me after Saturday's game ended that "The Cards look like a team of quiet professionals. The Red Sox look like a team of destiny." The Cardinals seem to have taken on the feel of a particular team I don't like very much, and given that I didn't like the Cardinals much to begin with, it makes me like them even less. The Red Sox play the same kind of game, but you can see them enjoying it. I'm sure that if the Cardinals spent so much time bitching and moaning about the Dodgers, someone will chime in about the bunch of ragamuffins on the Red Sox. Maybe. One of the problems these holier-than-thou teams have is an inability to keep their mouths shut. Sometimes it can backfire. It didn't happen to the Cardinals in the NLCS. But the Red Sox have proven they're a better, headier team than the Dodgers. This will be a really interesting World Series to watch. It's probably going to come down to whatever team blinks first on any given night. But I don't think much guesswork is involved when it comes to who I'm picking: Sox in 7.

The Other Half of the Deal

I sort of backdoored my way into an NLCS prediction yesterday, although while I said I pick the Dodgers to beat the Cardinals, I didn't say how many games. It's too close to call I suppose. And since I made an impromptu prediction I suppose I have to follow that up by saying a few words about the impending ALCS between the Detroit Tigers and the Boston Red Sox, a pair of old school teams built around the power of the big names.

Many Baseball fans tend to dislike the Red Sox, particularly after they won World Series Championships in 2004. It's perfectly reasonable; winning two titles after 86 years of not winning much of anything (and losing in spectacular ways), many frontrunning fans came out of the woodwork and Red Sox Nation sort of exploded into this big, really annoying "thing," sort of like the "thing" that makes me hate teams like the Green Bay Doublechecks, the 0-6 Dancing Victor Cruzs and another team that plays in the northern reaches of New York City, where the fans think their shit don't stink and it's somehow their God-Given right to win every time. That being said, because I'm not living in Boston rooting for another team, and because what the Red Sox did to that New York team in 2004 is, perhaps, one of the greatest things I've ever witnessed in Baseball, I will always have a soft spot for the Red Sox. The Tigers and the Mets have no particular rivalry although had things broken one way or another 7 years ago, maybe that would be different. But their paths never crossed in anything beyond some interleague games here and there and so my feelings towards them are somewhat indifferent, although I like their roster very much.

The Tigers coasted through the season behind the exploits of Miguel Cabrera and Prince Fielder, and rode outstanding starting pitching to their 3rd straight Division title. Their offense was good enough to cover up a really suspect bullpen although they kind of tailed off towards the end of the season when Cabrera got hurt. Then, they barely survived the ALDS against Oakland. After Jim Leyland stupidly left Anibal Sanchez out to drown in Game 3, the Tigers appeared headed for a colossal upset. But the series turned on Victor Martinez' Maier-like Home Run late in Game 4, and last night back in Oakland, they laid down the hammer in the name of Justin Verlander to stop the A's in their tracks. The Red Sox kind of bulldozed their way through the AL East and through their Division Series with the Rays. They have the pop in their lineup behind David Ortiz and Mike Napoli, but their greater strength is the fact that the majority of their lineup just grinds pitchers up. Ellsbury, my man Victorino and Dustin Pedroia at the top of the lineup are 3 guys who waste pitches like they mean it and ensure that by the 5th inning of every game a) the Starting Pitcher is totally taxed and b) the game is no less than 2 hours long. This creates problems for Detroit, whose bullpen is not as bad as the 2008 Mets, but perhaps a tick below the 2013 Mets, if that's a good reference point.

I was somewhat torn on who to pick in this series, if only because Detroit can fall back on the "good pitching beats good hitting" adage, and they certainly boast the better starters. Also, the Tigers have more to prove, because they made it through to the World Series last year only to get swept and embarrassed by the Giants. Everything from here on out is Gravy for the Red Sox. They didn't have a Postseason to get embarrassed in last year because they were an embarrassment from Day 1, right on the heels of a catastrophic collapse in 2011. But John Farrell and a few new faces (like my man Victorino) changed the culture and made the Sox winners again. They may not have the pure firepower that the Tigers have, but they're a more complete team, and sometimes the whole can be greater than the sum of the parts. I say Sox in 7.

Drip, Drip, Drip...

There's no shame in getting swept by the Detroit Tigers. They currently sit as not only the defending American League Champions, but they have to be considered the odds-on favorite to repeat and go back to the World Series. Their lineup relentless, they didn't pound the Mets into submission (unless Miguel Cabrera was involved) so much as they just sort of station-to-stationed them to death. After their unsurprising beating of Daisuke Matsuzaka on Friday night, they combined for 33 hits in the two games on Saturday and Sunday, 29 of which were singles. What this proved is that even the most sedentary of teams can beat you, particularly if they string enough hits together.

Their 3-0 victory over Matt Harvey on Saturday was a good enough example of this. The Tigers banged out 15 hits. There was a double from Andy Dirks and a double from the pitcher Max Scherzer, and 13 singles. Matt Harvey managed to Houdini his way out of allowing more than 2 runs, but the Tigers tacked on another run late and, offensively, the Mets had no answer for Scherzer or the suddenly revitalized Tigers bullpen.

Sunday was, perhaps, an even better example of just how difficult the Tigers are. I was making a very rare Sunday appearance at Citi Field. I probably wouldn't have gone to this game, but if you can believe it, this was actually one of the games I selected as part of my 15-game plan. For whatever reason, I picked this game, probably because I was plotting on being free that day, or because I wanted to see the Tigers, or because I thought they might have something interesting going on (besides a Tom Seaver Bobblehead giveaway). Nothing particularly special came to pass, so for all intents and purposes, I was there simply because I had the tickets. I was somewhat hopeful that the Mets, who would be sending one of their hotter hands in Dillon Gee to the mound, might be able to salvage this game and avoid being swept. For a spell, it looked like it might happen. Though Miguel Cabrera struck for a monumental 2nd deck Home Run that disappeared into the Acela Club, Gee settled down and allowed the Tigers little more than a bunch of singles after that. Meanwhile, the Mets struck back, and actually took a lead for the first time all weekend when Travis d'Arnaud hit his 1st Major League Home Run (and even earned himself a curtain call) in the 4th inning. But Andy Dirks snatched that lead back 2 innings later with a Home Run of his own.

The two Home Runs from Cabrera and Dirks aided the Tigers to a 4-3 lead, but they also were the only two extra-base Hits the Tigers would generate on this afternoon. Going into the 9th inning, they'd managed 11 hits, but only 4 runs and the Mets certainly had to feel like they had a puncher's chance in the bottom of the 9th.

Then, the Tigers started getting singles. And more singles. And more singles. And more singles....And even more singles. Tigers kept moving station to station around the bases until they reached home. It was like some sort of demented water torture, watching these dunkers drop in or sneak through the infield and baserunners trotting slowly from base to base. The runs mounted up. LaTroy Hawkins couldn't stop it, and by time he mercifully departed, the damage was done and a 4-3 deficit had become an 6-3 deficit. Scott Atchison came in and was probably even worse, allowing a few more hits and garnished the shit stew with a couple of wild pitches, and by time the inning was done, 11 men had come to bat, 7 had hit singles, 1 had walked and 7 runs had scored. 4-3 had turned into 11-3 and a good game had gotten real ugly.

The point is, the Tigers can do it to you quickly, or they can do it to you slowly. But somehow, it appears, they're going to do it to you, and the best you can hope for is that it just remains respectable. The Mets were only vaguely successful in this endeavor. Fortunately, the Mets only have to face the Tigers once every few years, so it's not of such alarming concern.

Not Much to Talk About

I didn't write anything yesterday about Wednesday's game because, for one, it ended terribly and two, I had it on the radio in the midst of what was a particularly busy day in the office, so anything I had to say would not have been particularly well-informed. This hasn't stopped me in the past, but hey, it's my blog and I do as I please.

It was another game where I lost track of time and didn't put the game on until the 2nd inning. Not that I'd missed much, but I did hear Josh Satin's Home Run, particularly because Josh Lewin's guttural screaming clued me in. The rest of the game was a blur; the kind of weekday afternoon game that kind of just happened and then I'd prick up my ears in time to hear Howie Rose say "Put it in the Books" or something desultory if the Mets lost. Then I was in another office in a meeting for a while, and when I came back, I heard Josh talking about guys getting ejected and the Braves leading 4-1 in the 10th inning. A colleague was sitting at another desk in my office. The following discussion ensued:

Me: 4-1?! What the fuck happened?

Colleague: What? I wasn't listening.

It was that kind of afternoon.

Just as well, I suppose, since it was certainly the kind of game not worth remembering.

Fortunately, the Mets made an addition on Thursday as bit of a smokescreen to make us all forget about Wednesday's mess. Daisuke Matsuzaka, who had been lost in the shuffle for a couple of years after his flashy career in Japan and misanthropic few years in Boston, was brought in, presumably just to eat some innings and prevent any more Carlos Torres starts. Matsuzaka will get thrown right into the fire and face the Detroit Tigers, who have been a bit like the AL's version of the Dodgers tonight, so we'll get a good idea of what, if anything, he's got left very quickly.

To call this a stopgap move is probably the understatement of the year. Matsuzaka hasn't pitched in the Major Leagues this season, and hasn't pitched effectively since 2008, which, by the way, was the last time he pitched a full season in the Majors (and only his second since jumping from Japan to America). A phenom in Japan as a teenager, Matsuzaka has probably reached the end of his useful rope, so I can't say I think he'll be around much more than the 6 weeks remaining in this season (the early results are not encouraging, he's given up 5 runs in 2 innings, including a rocket of a Home Run to Miguel Cabrera). But, playing out the string, with several of their young pitchers on innings limits and others likely not to reach the Major Leagues this season, he probably is the best option out there, particularly since it's costing the Mets very little and they have no particular obligation to him beyond this season.

Of Course It Happened That Way

Of Course. I picked the Tigers to win the World Series in 7 games, and the World Series ends up being a 4-game washout by the San Francisco Giants.

Really, looking back on this blur of a series, I should have known better. Perhaps I was mollified at how easily the Tigers dispatched the hated Yankees, while the Giants battled tooth and nail to beat the Cardinals, but this seems to be how it happens in the World Series. Usually, the team that coasted in hits a wall, and the team that has a crucible ends up catching fire. This seems to have happened in '06, '07, '09, '10 and last year, too. The Tigers, who appeared loaded from top to bottom, a team primed for just this kind of situation, could only watch as their bats collectively went ice cold, while the Giants, the team built to scrape out victories, did just that every time out, winning twice via shutout and once in a 10-inning, 1-run effort.

The Tigers, certainly, must ache quite a bit, but they fell victim to both of the adages I mentioned last week. Good pitching beats good hitting, and you can't win if you don't hit. Detroit pitched admirably well, outside of the one guy you figured would be great in Game 1, and when you allow 2, 2 and 4 runs in 3 straight games, you figure you ought to win some of them. But the Tigers offense barely made a peep, scoring a combined 3 runs over those 3 games, all of them coming in Game 4, all of them coming via the Home Run. The end result was a slow fade into the off-season, with poor Phil Coke, who had saved the Tigers multiple times against the Yankees, saddled with the loss.

But give credit to the Giants. They built themselves to win with their pitching and defense, something that worked for them in 2010, and worked for them again this year. They rode their pitching all year long, and rode it right through the postseason. Their pitching was so deep that Tim Lincecum, perhaps their best pitcher in spite of a poor season, got moved to the bullpen where he turned into a Mariano Rivera-esque hammer that stopped the Tigers dead in their tracks multiple times, eating up middle innings and providing a bridge to Sergio Romo, who simply caught fire at the right time. Ultimately, the Giants made all the right moves at all the right times.

Offensively, though the Giants didn't have the firepower of the Tigers, they constantly got the key hit. Whether it was Pablo Sandoval turning into Albert Pujols in the first game, or Gregor Blanco's bunt staying fair, or Hunter Pence creating havoc on the bases, or Marco Scutaro resurrecting his career, every time the Giants needed a break, they managed to create one.

Nobody seemed to embody the pluck of the Giants quite like former Met Angel Pagan. Not a star, and sometimes appearing only passable as a Major Leaguer, Pagan was basically handed to the Giants in a deal that netted the Mets the useless Andres Torres. Pagan, meanwhile, found himself rescued from Met Hell and had a fine season, played solid defense, and came up with one of the Giants biggest hits of the season, a leadoff Home Run off Chris Carpenter in Game 2 of the NLCS that spurred the Giants on to a victory. In the World Series, Pagan didn't do anything to grab a headline. But he came up with a clutch stolen base late in Game 2, and scored an important insurance run in a 2-0 victory. Now, he's a World Series Champion. He and the rest of the Giants all earned it.

So, thus begins about 5 Baseball free months, kicked off by a major Hurricane hitting the New York area. Nobody has mentioned anything, probably because nobody's there, but I believe Citi Field is in the middle of a flood zone, which seems fitting since the 2012 season ended with them all wet. But I digress. It won't be long until we're convening there once again on April 1, 2013 for Opening Day. Until then, stay dry, all.

The Old Guard

The Giants 9-0 victory in Game 7 of the NLCS accomplished a few good things. For one, they finally stopped the Cardinals, who appeared to be like a swarm of moths come to eat away at a sweater, constantly a nuisance, refusing to go away. The Cardinals had ceased to be a charming little story of a team that kept coming back, and instead turned into the annoying bunch of David Ecstein-types who you just wished would die. They turned the Nationals into a carcass in the Division Series, and when they took a 3-1 lead over San Francisco, they seemed primed for another deep October run. But these Giants had some comeback-ability of their own. They'd already had their crucible, falling behind 0-2 to the Reds before storming back to win 3 in Cincinnati. So, what happened? They gave the Cardinals a taste of their own medicine, winning the final 3 games of the NLCS by a combined score of 20-1. They appear to be this year's version of the 2011 Cardinals, only with better pitching and a group of players that have already tasted a World Series Championship just 2 years ago. That it's them, and not the Cardinals, who I've long since grown sick of, is a good thing. That they kicked the Cardinals in the nuts the way they did is even better. The best part, perhaps, is that we won't have to be subjected to hours of stories about how the Cardinals did it without the Great Pujols or the Genius LaRussa for the next week. Instead, we'll have the image of Marco Scutaro, arms outstretched, basking in a San Francisco Monsoon as if he were Andy DuFresne just escaped from Shawshank.

On the other side, the Detroit Tigers, who did a pretty good nut-kicking job of their own, sweeping the Yankees and pretty much embarrassing them in the process. That in and of itself is good enough of a story for me.

I  haven't read much in the way of an "experts" comparison of these two teams, but from what I can gather, they seem to be pretty evenly matched. I would not expect a short series between these two teams, unless one of them has a complete meltdown, which I don't foresee. I see the starting pitching as mostly even. This seems a bit odd, considering the Giants have basically built their team around their great starters, but think about it this way: San Francisco will start Barry Zito in Game 1, and then again in Game 5. Their best pitcher, Matt Cain, won't pitch until Game 4. In between, they'll be throwing Madison Bumgarner in Game 2, and Ryan Vogelsong in Game 3. Tim Lincecum won't start at all, but is a great wildcard out of the bullpen. The Tigers open with their hammer, Justin Verlander, who's been all but unhittable this postseason. Doug Fister and Anibal Sanchez, both of whom acquitted themselves quite well in the postseason, throw games 2 and 3, and the wildly underrated Max Scherzer pitches game 4. These names don't have the luster of the Giants' staff, but they're no slouches either. I give the Giants an edge in the bullpen, however, since they have guys who do nothing but get outs, and the Tigers sort of have a pu-pu platter and a closer who basically had to be taken apart and put back together on the fly in the ALCS. Should a game remain low-scoring into the late innings, and fall to relief pitchers, the Giants have an advantage.

But it's only so much of an advantage, because one thing the Tigers have that the Giants don't are blinding sluggers who can hit the ball out of any ballpark at any moment. Prince Fielder has made a career out of it, and preceding him in the lineup is some guy who won a freaking Triple Crown. Delmon Young has also been red hot, and guys like Omar Infante and Jhonny Peralta are solid veterans who get the job done more often than not. The Giants, in order to win, tend to have to peck and scrape and claw and get a few breaks to score loads of runs. Buster Posey is great, but he can't match the production level of Cabrera or Fielder, and the rest of their lineup is mosty comprised of scrappers like Hunter Pence, Marco Scutaro and old friend Angel Pagan. Pablo Sandoval is also a nice bopper, but when he's not hitting, he can drag the whole team down with him.

So, given these comparisons, one might be inclined to throw out the "Good Pitching beats Good Hitting" adage that proves itself true all too often in the Postseason. That's fair, but it's not always true. Good Pitching does beat Good Hitting, but Bad Hitting can often undercut Good Pitching. I felt somewhat inclined to pick the Giants, if only because they have the Home Field advantage and the 7th game would be in their Home Park, but I just have a feeling about this Tigers team. They were laying in the weeds all season and caught fire at the right moment. They were helped by the fact that the Yankees stopped hitting completely, but their starting pitching had a lot to do with that also. I also have a feeling that somewhere in this series, Bruce Bochy is going to make some kind of weird decision with his starting pitching that might bite him in the ass. I flipped back and forth on this for a while, but I don't see this series being short. It's going 6 at least, and probably 7 games, and ultimately I think the Tigers are going to come out on top. So, that's what I'm going with. Tigers in 7. Figure they split the first two in San Francisco, Detroit wins 2 of 3 in Detroit over the weekend, San Francisco wins Game 6, Detroit wins Game 7, probably under the circumstances of Lincecum early and Scherzer on short rest, or something to that effect. Either way, it'll be a good series to watch, and completely stress-free for the Mets fan.

FREEDOM!!!

Watching the Yankees in the playoffs while the Mets sit at home is an exercise in restraint, mostly. Generally, I have to deal with all sorts of jeers and snibes and whatnot. And every time the Yankees stumble, or I say something derogatory (which happens often) about the wonderful Yankees, I'm generally lambasted with taunts of all kinds, calling me bitter, or jealous, or a hater, and that's about it, since Yankee fans are generally neither humorous nor imaginative with their insults. This year, I've just kept quiet. I know most of my Yankee fan friends are waiting for me to say something, waiting to let their frustrations out, but I've decided not to give anyone the satisfaction.

This year, I'd decided to simply ignore the Yankees in the hopes that they would eventually go away. I hadn't watched much of any of their playoff games. An inning here or there, at best. I saw virtually none of their series against Baltimore, therefore I wasn't subjecting myself to Raul Ibanez pulling wins out of his ass. But if they were able to squeak by Baltimore, a spunky, but lesser opponent, how would they fare against a powerful opponent like Detroit, who could hit and pitch, and may have been peaking.

Well, the result was that the Tigers humiliated the Yankees, sweeping them in 4 games where the Yankees scored in only three out of 36 innings and never once led in any of the 4 games. Still, I kept to my strategy, only breaking it to watch the final outs of the 2nd and 3rd games, and the 9th inning of this afternoon's finale. Each time, ex-Yankee Phil Coke came in and slammed the door, and celebrated by screaming and stomping around the mound in celebration. Today, he took his glove and fired it to the ground, perhaps the best glove toss since Jesse Orosco. So Schadenfreude reigns for the Mets fan tonight. It's now safe for me to open my mouth and come out of hiding. The Yankees are gone, and Baseball is Free.

The Yankee fan, of course, would probably complain that they had no chance after beautiful Derek Jeter got hurt, and A-Rod spending more time picking up women than hitting the baseball, but the fact is that when the entire Yankee team went in the tank offensively, credit has to be given instead to the Detroit Tiger pitching staff. Tiger starting pitchers allowed 2 runs in total, the other 4 runs the Yankees scored came off of Jose Valverde. The Yankees hit a miserable .157 for the series and Tiger pitchers threw to an 0.66 ERA in this washout. It doesn't matter what team you are. When you hit like that in a postseason series, you deserve to get swept. It's the Mets fan's good fortune that it happened to the Yankees this year.

Odds & Sods

With a forgettable week for the Mets in the books, we look back with some observations and odd notes I have mused about over the past few days while incapacitated and unable to express these thoughts in this forum.

• This team as a whole is suffering from a serious case of the Blahniks. The balance between the struggling offense and the starting pitching is starting to become dangerously magnified, to the point where it's becoming too much to expect the pitchers to be perfect every time out. The poor outings from Perez and Glavine over the weekend are too much to overcome (although Glavine really had a once-a-year meltdown on Sunday), and right now, the team isn't hitting enough to come back from 6 run deficits.
  

• Nothing rankles me more than losing to the Phillies. Not only because they are the Mets closest rival, but there are some mitigating circumstances that makes me hate them even more. I fear that they may fire their sleepy manager, Charlie Manuel and hire someone who might actually be able to manage that team. But this week was simply unacceptable. Tuesday's extra-inning affair was simply one of those "shit happens" games that will occur a few times a season. Fine. but the losses on Wednesday and Thursday are the ones that really rankle me. Wednesday was the beginning of this carnage. It was bad enough that Heilman basically pulled a Doug Sisk; got himself into a jam, then nearly got out of it before hanging one to Rollins that he simply blasted out for a 3-run HR that changed the game, but then seeing Endy swing out of his shoes before hitting a shot right at Rollins who started a DP that would have happened even if Endy hadn't pulled his hammie coming up the line. That Endy hit into the DP was enough. But Endy getting hurt and landing on the DL at the same time was like pouring salt on an open wound. Head-shaking moment.

• Wednesday was bad enough. Thursday night's affair was so bad that it literally threw me over the edge. You could do a study about my reaction to that game and call it "The Evils of drinking heavily combined with Scott Schoeneweis." I had been busy most of the evening, but I had returned to my office and switched on the game in the bottom of the 9th. Wagner had already blown the save, giving up the game-tying HR to that fine, upstanding gent Pat Burrell. I'd missed the great offensive explosion: 3 HRs in the 6th inning that produced a grand total of...3 runs. The Mets went down in the 9th, with the great #2 hitter Ben Johnson leaving 2 runners on base. Schoeneweis came in. And already knowing that this was a dead ballgame, I began drinking. And drinking some more. And the runs began scoring for Philly. And I switched the game off, and continued to drink. And then, the text messages to El Guapo began...
• "Schoeneweis makes me want to gouge my eyes out"
• "This is Hell's worst misery. What the fuck is going on here?!"
  
• "We are going nowhere. And the bitch of it is this is a better team! THIS IS MADNESS! WHAT THE FUCK!"
• "I love bullpens!"

And so on, and so forth. El Guapo didn't respond, and, really, how could he have? What was left to say?

• And the weekend proved to be no better. A colleague called me on Friday and said to me, "You may as well give the Tigers 3 straight wins, because the Mets ain't doing anything this weekend. The Tigers have to be licking their chops right now." And for the most part, he was right. The only saving grace was Sosa's absolute brilliance on Friday night, shutting down and shutting out the potent Tiger lineup through 8 innings, keeping the game out of the hands of people like Heilman and Schoeneweis, bridging the game to Wagner for the 9th. Still not much offense, but a win is a win. And thank God for that.

• Back to the grind for Saturday and Sunday, as the Mets at least showed some life on offense, but most of their scoring was done after both games were completely out of hand. Kudos to Gomez for his first Major League HR on Sunday, and to Wright for HRing in all 3 games in Detroit. But is it a sign that the Mets bats are actually waking up? Or will it simply be a mirage? Green is due back on Monday, which helps, and I would guess Johnson or Ledee are the most likely candidates to be sent down. With Alou still about a week or so away, it appears that Carlos Gomez will stick around for at least a little while longer (especially given that he is infinitely more valuable even off the bench than the Ledee/Newhan/Johnson types), and probably start until Alou returns.
  

But all was not lost. Some good things did happen during the week.

• Newhan was finally cut, sent down to AAA after Chavez's injury because the Mets needed a real Outfielder in his stead. Although, given that he was replaced on the roster by the equally fearsome bat of Ricky Ledee, I'm not sure if this is necessarily a season-changing move by the club.
  

• Wright appears to be rolling now, having hit HRs in 4 straight games. Of course, since he is the only Met producing consistently on the offensive side, all the HRs in the world may not be enough to save the Mets hide right now.

• Schoeneweis was used in all 3 games in the Philly series (and pitching with his severed hamstring tendon which is unfortunately not a severed head tendon) and was therefore burned out and not used in any of the games in Detroit.

• The last episode of The Sopranos is tonight. Here's my prediction. Paulie Walnuts rats out Tony's whereabouts to Phil Leotardo. They both gang up to go after Tony. They find him, and Phil fires a bullet at him. But just as the bullet is about to strike Tony square in the forehead, Endy Chavez comes leaping in out of nowhere to catch the bullet, and fires it right back at Phil and Paulie, piercing through both of their chests and killing them instantly. And Tony gets on his horse and rides off into the sunset.
  

This is a real guillotine stretch for the Mets, with 6 straight series against teams that made the Postseason last year, including both of the Mets playoff opponents from '06. And as such, it's a pretty bad time to suffer a teamwide power outage. Hopefully, the team can put this week behind it as we move on to La-La Land, and then back home to Chicken Sacrifice Stadium, before matchups against Minnesota, Oakland and the MF Cardinals (and then off to Philly for 3). Hopefully, Maine, Sosa and El Duque can continue on strong and Perez and Glavine get back to basics. Hopefully Delgado, Beltran and Reyes can catch fire all together and put a hurting on these teams.

Hopefully...