Fight Test

I'm trying hard to figure out what to say about the fact that tonight I'll be sitting the "fabled" right-field bleachers in Yankee Stadium, aka the worst place in the universe, to watch the Mets—at the lowest point of their season thus far—take on the Yankees at their strongest.

Don't pray for me; pray for the Mets. But while you're at it if you can slip in a bit about my physical safety, that'd be nice.

Kumtonk Wa Whe Whe Hershiser

If the title of today's post means anything to you, by the way, that means you're either a huge Charlie Sheen fan or a dedicated reader of the Times' Bats blog.

Speaking of the Bats blog, a couple weeks ago Ben Shpigel dropped this note in a post on Mets injuries:

Scott Schoeneweis has pitched the entire season with a severed tendon behind his left knee, near the hamstring, which, he said reluctantly, has weakened his push-off leg. Schoeneweis was loath to offer the injury as an excuse for his 5.66 earned run average and 18 walks in 20 2/3 innings, but he said that he is working on developing a more comfortable motion.

This is interesting, and actually worth looking at more closely (sorry for the bulk-quoting, Ben):

"When I go to push off and my arm's not where it's supposed to be, then my velocity's not where it's supposed to be, and neither is my location or movement," Schoeneweis said. "I'm trying to throw like I used to throw, but I have this weakness and instability in the back of my knee."

He might be "loath" to offer it as an excuse, but doesn't it sound awfully like a pretty good reason? What happened is he hyperextended the tendon while running in Toronto when his foot landed in the cutout grass above a sprinkler. He kept pitching despite the injury, and then this spring he severed it completely when his spike got caught in the grass while doing fielding practice.

"I don't get sick, I get cancer. I don't get normal arm soreness, I slip while running and snap tendons," Schoeneweis said. "That's how it works for me."

He's either got an excellent sense of gallows humor or he's one self-pitying muthashutyomouth. Either way, that's a guy after my own heart. Even though he sucks. (The part about cancer isn't actually a joke, though; turns out he battled testicular cancer while playing Cape Cod summer league at age 19.) I don't know why I bring all this up. I guess it's never enough for me to say "this guy's terrible." I want to know why he's terrible. I mean, unless it's obvious. 

Looking Down The Barrel Of A Gun

Well, the road trip is just off to a fabulous start right now, and it's a couple of losses short of officially being a full-scale debacle. It appeared that the brief power surge that the Mets showed in Detroit was just a mirage. The Mets have looked simply impotent at the plate in all 3 games of an embarrassing sweep at the hands of the Dodgers, who hadn't been hitting much either, and even more alarming was how easily the Mets were handled by Dodger relievers like Broxton, Billingsley and Saito. It seems as though the Mets will score early, run with a lead for a little while, and then simply implode in the middle innings, and then just go into "Operation Shutdown" from the 7th inning on. And on the other side, the Mets pitching has been turning manageable games into hopeless deficits. And nobody's been immune. El Duque had a rare bad outing on Monday. Maine was only middling on Tuesday. Even on Wednesday, Sosa, who as El Guapo mentioned has amazingly become the stopper, fell victim to the dinking and dunking and blooping and blasting of these annoying, aging Dodger hitters (especially Furcal, who I just hate more and more with each passing game).

But, clearly, the offense has been the main culprit; it's ridiculous to try to sugarcoat things (the ol' Bob Murphy treatment, "Delgado may not have any hits this month, but he's a heck of a good ballplayer," would be a trademark of this) and say that the Mets have had good at-bats. It bothers me when you hear someone say, "Boy, LoDuca's really had a lot of good at bats," after he's had 3-straght 10 pitch at bats where he worked the count and fouled off 6 pitches before grounding to short, and then he popped out his last at bat. Point being, what good is a bunch of "good at-bats" when you're 0 for 4? Delgado didn't hit for 6 weeks and got moved down in the order, where he stayed for 2 games in which he happened to hit well, and then promptly got moved back (yes, this was a side effect of Green and Alou's injuries), but he then went right back into no-mans land. Reyes's swing is totally out of whack, and when he gets on, nobody can seem to hit behind him.

Again, it's frustrating, and perhaps I'm echoing El Guapo's sentiments, but I wonder how much Willie may be outfoxing himself by trying to re-invent the wheel and experiment with guys like Wright, Green and Gomez in the 2-hole when LoDuca proved himself the perfect #2 guy last season. Then again, if Reyes leads off and gets on, and LoDuca works a count and allows Reyes to steal, then grounds out and moves Reyes to 3rd, it doesn't matter much when Beltran subsequently strikes out, another all-too-frequent occurence.

I don't know if a team meeting is needed, or Willie needs to get thrown out of a game, or they need a Bench-Clearing Brawl, or someone needs to flip over the clubhouse spread after the game, but there needs to be a jolt. It's to the Mets benefit that the rest of the division has been equally as impotent at times (though it's somewhat alarming that Philly has been able to move to within 2 games of the Mets), but this lead will evaporate if things don't turn around soon. And as we keep saying and we keep hearing, this ain't an easy stretch we're in. It's a cross-country flight home for 3 in the Bronx, and all of a sudden, after the Mets have ruled New York Baseball for much of the Spring, the Yankees are red hot, and ready to whip out that classy gentleman Clemens on Friday, and follow it up with Clippard on Saturday and Wang on Sunday, and if the Mets can't start to punch more than 3 runs per game across the plate, this is going to be a very long, humiliating weekend, and an even more humiliating end to what's shaping up to be the anti-West Coast road trip that was the springboard for the Mets last season.

Gimme Fiction

With the Mets now deeply lost in the dark forest, as Keith would put it, I'm left looking for a foothold, a sense of meaning, a way out, something. I was thinking about this the other day: those who root for a perenially losing team feel the misery as a dull, constant ache. Think back a couple years ago. It wasn't anger you were feeling as much as a thudding depression. Now the situation is different. Glancing away from the sad Cavs loss-in-progress over to the other bar TV in time to see Maine give up his third home run in a row, this time to the opposing pitcher (who flipped his bat like Bonds, the little asshole), that searing shot of fire in the chest is nothing other than the anger of the arrogant brought low.

What. The. Fuck. are they doing losing like this, over and freaking over? This is not what this team is supposed to be doing.

You know something? It's an ugly feeling. I'm not proud of it, the fact that I now assume that they're supposed to beat the stuffing out of everyone. That those magical rallies, miracle catches, and crowd-stunning drag bunts are a Met fan's birthright. I mean, who the hell are we, Yankee fans circa '97-'01? Bellowing from our high and mighty perch, we demand our wins. On the other hand, with this team and, ahem, payroll, why shouldn't they be winning, and why shouldn't we expect it? It's just that big supposed to that leaves me feeling uncomfortable, on shaky karmic ground.

So I'll ask: are we being punished for something? Because what's rational about this slump? It isn't entirely the injuries, although personally I think a healthy Moises Alou would count for a lot right now. Still, nobody is hitting with runners in scoring position, and the starting pitchers have all been bitten by the same mystery bug ... except one. Jorge Sosa, who is now one of the most improbable "stoppers" imaginable, and yet there you have it. He's the stopper, the guy set to salvage the team's pride and divisional standing before they limp home to take on the suddenly resurgent Yankees. No pressure, though.

So in trying to do my part, I dug up this photo I think I stole from Deadspin a while ago and have been sitting on, waiting for a time to use it. I can't say why, but I really think it might have some serious hex-breaking capacity. We'll see:

Go West

"And it feels like I've got something to prove

But in some ways it's just something to do
The state-line highway sign says,
'You have gone west, young man.' "

-Liz Phair

That photo was taken the last time the Mets set foot in Chavez Ravine, that grand dame of a ballpark out in the rolling hills of Los Angeles, rolling in like a runaway freight train and simply beating the Dodgers into submission, pushing them down and eventually knocking them off the dance floor in a 3-game sweep in last season's NLDS.

And during the 2006 regular season, the Mets stumbled into LA having gone 3-3 on a homestand, and lost 2 of 3 to a Giants team that they were clearly better than, capping off a showing in May that was certainly dramatic, but not quite overwhelming. But during their visit to LA, they would begin to hit, and win 2 of 3 from the Dodgers, kicking off a road trip that would see them go 9-1 and cement themselves as the team to beat in the National League.

So much has changed, and yet things seem to be oh-so-similar right now. And perhaps Ms. Phair is on to something when she says "something to prove."

Last season, the Mets had something to prove when they came into LA in June: They had to prove that their strong start was for real, and they could maintain playing well throughout the season, especially on the road.

This season, the Mets have yet another thing to prove: They have to prove that they can overcome injuries and inconsistency, and re-assert themselves as a team that can dominate.

The Dodgers are a prickly bunch in their own right. It seems that Grady Little is still their manager, which won't bode well for them in the long run, but their nucleus of Garciaparra, Kent and Luis Gonzalez, while on par with the Giants for longevity, has held together, and younger players like Russell Martin and Wilson Betemit have also played well.


Monday, El Duque and Randy Wolf square off, and this right away answers the question of "What the hell happened to Randy Wolf?" Randy Wolf for 8 seasons hurled for the Phillies (and was the subject of the dopey "Wolf Pack" in the 700 level at Veterans Stadium) was one of those pitchers who always pissed me off. He had spotty success (3.20 ERA in 2002, 16 wins in '03), and was the kind of pitcher that someone in your fantasy baseball league would always vastly overrate because he was young and he had good stuff (Call it the Jeff Weaver Corollary). Then he started getting hurt all the time, and then he disappeared completely. Now, he's re-surfaced with the Dodgers where it appears he is a #3-#4 starter at best.


Tuesday, a matchup of 2 guys who figured heavily in the NLDS last season, John Maine and Hong-Chih Kuo. We all know about Maine. But remember that it was Kuo who was supposed to be the "Wildcard" for the Dodgers last October; that young guy who befuddled the Mets in a September start, and who was supposedly going to baffle the Mets again in Game 2 of the NLDS. Didn't happen. Endy bunted, Reyes hit, Glavine did the baffling and Kuo barely lasted 5 innings.


In the finale on Wednesday, it's Jorge Sosa and Brad Penny (Bad Penny, if you ask Turk Wendell), whom the Mets have always handled. Even when Penny finally put it all together last season, the Mets knocked him around for 7 runs at Shea in September, and when Grady made the puzzling move of bringing Penny in in relief in Game 1 of the NLDS, Penny promptly walked Reyes to lead off the 7th inning, leading to a 2-run rally that would win the game for the Mets. Penny is again off to a strong start. But will it matter against a team that has always pounded him?

Settle in, folks! These are three 10:10pm start times, so get ready for some late night action! Whether this will translate into late night fun, we shall see...

Finally, one note left out from yesterday's post: It seems that SNY has thrown a little bit of mud in my face. Upon returning home on Saturday, I clicked on SNY looking to see some highlights from that afternoon's game. But what did I find? A Mets Classic game, from Tuesday, April 24th. The Endy Chavez Bunt game that I immediately had awarded the title of "Instant Lost Classic" had earned the right of an SNY Mets Classic. I stand corrected. They have shut me up.