Escape Act

It seems like these "Escape Act" victories are becoming more and more commonplace for the Mets. Each of their last three victories are games they could have just as easily lost if certain things had broken out in certain ways. Last night's game, for one, seemed like many before it in Turner Field, the one that came to me in particular was from 2005, wherein Braden Looper successfully became the first relief pitcher ever to blow two saves in one game, allowing the Braves to come back in the 9th and then again in the 10th innings to win. After Delgado butchered Omar Infante's popup with 2 outs, you could see the inevitable conclusion. Yunel Escobar nailed a ringing RBI single, and then came Larry, primed to jerk one out of the park and stick it to the Mets once again. You can change the bullpen all you want, but you can't stop that Friggin' Larry.

Or not. Larry hit it well, and if you were listening to Howie Rose's call, you might have had a heart attack, but Church flagged it down and the Mets had somehow managed to sweep the 2 game series in Atlanta, thereby officially giving them more wins in Turner Field after one month of the 2009 season than they managed in all of 2008. It was, for the most part, another disgusting victory for the Mets, a game that appeared to hinge more on luck and a few breaks than the actual skill of the team. Though Kenshin Kawakami gassed himself, throwing 113 pitches through 5 innings and allowing all sorts of men on base, as per usual the Mets managed to only have a 2-0 lead, more due to the tenacity of Livan Hernandez than anything else. By the 9th, it was 2-1 and the Mets once again managed to put runners on, which they likely would have stranded had Larry not actually done something helpful for the Mets for once in his life. With Reyes aboard, Murphy was sent up to bunt, which is already a dicey proposition, since we already established late last season that he's probably not a very good bunter. Murphy's bunt was, in fact, terrible, and it would have ended up with Reyes being thrown out at 2nd had Larry not thrown the ball into Center Field. That was the break the Mets needed. Two batters later, the 2-1 lead was 4-1, and it appeared the Mets were going to cruise.

By the end of the night, it appeared that had Larry not thrown that ball away and extended the rally, the Mets would have lost the game.

That's baseball, and that's how things break out sometimes, but sometimes, it's also better to be lucky than good, and what we've generally seen is that the truly good teams, the championship teams are good, but they also have a lot of good luck. Conversely, teams that don't do well have a lot of bad luck. The Mets tend to have a lot of bad luck, and it's screwed them the past two seasons.

So, back to New York, and what should be another Mets/Phillies love-fest for two nights. Should be interesting. I wonder what Ryan Howard will think when he hits one of his pop flies that usually sails out of Steroid Field II and it ends up being a fly ball out to medium-right field. I don't think Shane Victorino will be hitting any Home Runs the next two nights either, sorry, son.

It's very Francesa of me to say this, but I suppose it's the only thing to say at this point: Cannnn Johan Santana, uh, stop the powerful Philly bats and extend this, uh, little streak the Mets have going? Or, uh, will the Phillies come into New York and, uh, stick it to the Mets once again?

Another Wasn't Supposed To

If the Mets played like they did last night in Atlanta a little more often, maybe we wouldn't be in this mess.

That statement can be taken two ways, and both are correct.

1) If the Mets played like this every time they played in Atlanta, that is, to fall behind the Braves like they usually do, and then come back and pretty much overwhelm them by the end of the game, then, perhaps, the past 12 years of misery inflicted on us in that stupid ballpark might have turned out differently.

2) If the 2009 Mets played like this a little more often (and they have at least looked like they have some ability to come back the last two games), that is to say that if they fall down by 3 runs they don't fold up their tents, suck their thumbs and walk on home, maybe we would be in a bit better standing in this early going.

It seemed like, early on, this game had all the makings of just about every other game the Mets played in Turner Field, particularly last season. Remember, when the Mets played 9 games in Atlanta and won all of one? And they had to scrape and claw out a late comeback to do it? Just about every other time, the Mets fell behind early and never woke up. And after Maine slogged his way through a difficult 2nd inning, you figured this game was headed down the same path.

Maine continues to look uneven. He has started to show more instances of looking sharp in his last two outings, but he continues to run into that "Oliver Perez inning," where everything that can possibly go wrong, will. Last night, the 2nd was that such inning, where he starts missing spots, walking guys, getting that hangdog look on his face and making you think, "Come on, man, what are you doing!? Throw a strike! You're Killing Me!" Generally, there's an error mixed in there somewhere as well. And it happens once a game, and until Maine can eliminate that one bad inning from his games, he won't have fully retained his "Death Cab for John Maine" status.

On the other side, the Mets continued to look like the Mets, and not hit. Javier Vazquez continued to mow them down until the 6th, when Beltran and then Wright hit a couple of out-of-nowhere, jarring HRs to somehow give the Mets the lead. Where had this been all season? Last year, the Mets thrived on a quick-strike offense that would put up a big inning and bury you, at least early on in the season. Lately, that seems to have eluded them. Last night, it returned, however spread over two innings as it might have been, but once the Mets were able to turn the ball over to Putz and Rodriguez, things seemed well in hand.

(Though, Putz officially earned his Met stripes by allowing a HR to beloved Larry, his 40th against the Mets, and I would guess his 2nd or 3rd that wasn't in a particularly damaging situation)

And thus, for the 2nd time in the last 3 games, the Mets managed to win a game that they normally tend to lose in some horrible, excruciating fashion. Once again, however, the question remains whether or not they can follow it up tonight with another good performance. Or will they just have another one of their idiot games where they get 13 hits and score 2 runs?

Regroup

Sunday's rainout should have been somewhat therapeutic for everyone, both players and fans alike.

Well, at least the players. The fans are their usual apoplectic selves.

For the Mets, I suppose, it's a good chance to stew and forget about Saturday's debacle in Philadelphia, which I mostly missed, having spent most of my afternoon in a meeting that went way too long and accomplished far too little, arriving home just in time to see Sean Green foul the whole thing up and Shane Victorino act like, well, Shane Victorino.

What I missed appeared to be a string of the somewhat predictable. Unlike Friday night, where the Mets bucked several disturbing trends, the Mets regressed to the normal sort of baseball they play. Perez was terrible early (That's not especially surprising, and it appears that either he or the team or both of them have conspired to create a knee injury to get him out of here for a while, which I'm sure nobody will argue with)and the Mets were in a hole. Ken Takahashi emerged from irrelevance and pitched a few very solid innings, allowing the Mets to battle back and tie, and then take the lead against Moyer and Scott Eyre, only to spit it back up in the bottom of the 6th behind Feliciano disturbingly allowing his 2nd HR to a lefty in 2 games (which I'm not quite so worried about. Consider the hitters, and consider where he gave them up), the Mets get a bunch of hits and leave a bunch of men on base, the game goes into Extra Innings where the Phillies eventually scrape out the winning run and have their little Pizza Party in the middle of the Steroid Field II infield.

Whoopty doo.

After Friday night's game had gone so well for the Mets, you sort of had to figure they had a game like this in them.

So, rather than trying to will their way through a rubber game behind Maine and whoever trustworthy they could run out there after that, the Mets are given a day to lick their wounds and figure out a plan as they fly into my favority city in the world, Good ol' Atlanty and Good ol' Turner Field, where we have so many fond memories. Clearly, Perez is going to be out of the rotation for a while, which is good, considering that his next start would have fallen on Thursday night, a game I have tickets for. With the rainout, now everyone is pushed back a day, so I'm going to end up with Pelfrey Thursday. Right now, I'm not sure what Perez needs, whether it's some time in Extended Spring training to work on being able to get a consistent delivery and retain some muscle memory, or if he just needs a lobotomy, but right now, the Mets have some serious decisions to make to fill this hole in the rotation. I've heard names bandied about from Niese to Takahashi to Figueroa and beyond.

I don't care who they bring up, so long as he can throw 6 innings and get people out. That's all that matters at this point.

Reversal of Fortunes

The Mets put forth one of their more inspired, energetic efforts in beating up on Chan Ho Park and the Phillies last night, and it was a departure from the kind of game that the Mets had been playing, both in general for 2009, and against the Phillies in past years.

I'm echoing the sentiments of Jason over at Faith and Fear, among other things, but last night was the kind of game that the Mets usually ended up losing to the Phillies last year, no matter where they were playing. Or the Phillies ended up making it much more close than it needed to be. Last year, the Mets would have charged out to the 5-0 lead, the Phillies would have chipped away to 5-3, the Mets might have extended to 6-3, then the bullpen would take over in the 6th, Chris Coste would have scored on Reyes' errant throw, Shane Victorino would have hit a 2-run single, Utley would have hit a 2-run homer, and then the Phillies would have won in the bottom of the 9th on a 2-out walk, a 60-foot single and another hit that was dunked inside a foul line, and then Shane Victorino would have yelled and squealed and run around waving his Homer Hankie. Sort of like any one of these three games from last season.

But Noooooooo! It didn't quite turn out that way this time. Rather than the Mets throwing the ball away, it was the Phillies who screwed it up, running themselves out of the 6th inning while the Mets made a trio of very scary looking throws around the infield. But when Reyes bobbled Rollins' grounder and fired in the relative direction of Wright, I'm sure all of us were having acid flashbacks of every stupid game in that ballpark where the Mets charged out to a big lead and the Phillies chipped away and came back. And the Phillies certainly had their opportunities in to make it close, but for the most part it was a trio of sterling efforts from Pedro Feliciano, J.J. Putz and Francisco Rodriguez that did what they were supposed to do, and squash the Phillies right where they were. Utley homered off Feliciano in the 7th, but other than that, it was Goodnight, Sweetheart.

What a difference. The Mets actually being able to go into Philadelphia, get a lead and hang onto it through the late innings. What a novel idea!

I'd have to imagine the Mets were also helped, both by the sight of their primary nemesis, but also just getting out of New York for a while, away from the negativity from the press and the fans, and just go out and play their game. It seems like a trend that the Mets have been a very solid road team over the past few years, and I think it has a lot to do with the chemistry within the team. No, I'm not in the clubhouse, and all I can do is formulate a cockamamie theory based on the way the team plays, but I've never felt that chemistry was a problem with this particular group. Sealing the deal has been an issue, but not chemistry. And I think this manifests itself particularly when they go on the road. The team looked loose and relaxed, they're playing in a ballpark where the ball flies out instead of getting swallowed up in the outfield, Murphy bangs out a 2-run HR in the top of the 1st and by the 3rd inning it's 5-0, and we're on our way. True, one win doesn't fix all the problems. The Mets didn't score after the 5th inning, which is a problem they continue to have, that of adding on late in the game. But when the guys in the back end of the bullpen can come in and be counted on to get the necessary outs to stop the other team, that particular pressure won't be there anymore. Last year, the Mets offense was clearly pressured to continue to add on because you had no idea how the bullpen would be able to manage the final few innings. But I think we're going to find that, more often than not, this Feliciano/Parnell/Green to Putz to Rodriguez lineup is going to not only do their job, but relax the guys on the offense. They haven't had much of a chance to do it yet this year, but these things have a tendency to turn, and when the Mets can go into Philadelphia and win against the Phillies using this particular formula, it's a start. There's a lot more to do, but it's a start.

Of course, Oliver Perez could go out there today (in the Biggest Game in the Nation) and screw all of this up with another bad outing. We'll see.

The Reminder

The Mets don't exactly appear to be burning into Philadelphia like a house afire for this weekend's series. That's not to say that the Phillies have looked great either, but given the way last year turned out for them, they can be excused, just a little bit. It's the Mets who are really looking bad.

With a fan base that's disillusioned and ready to abandon the team, a pitching staff that can't keep its head on straight, a star 3rd Baseman whos swing is so cocked-up it's affecting his entire game and a bunch of players who immediately go into convulsions when a runner gets to 3rd base, the Mets aren't exactly striking fear into anyone's hearts.

Certainly not, you would think, into the hearts of the defending World Series Champions.

I really don't know how this weekend will turn out. Nobody's going to get swept, I'm pretty sure of that, but as a Mets fan, you can't feel especially confident. If the unthinkable happens, there's going to be some heads rolling when the team gets to Atlanta on Monday.

These Mets/Phillies series have taken on a life of their own the last couple of seasons. This year should prove to be no different. The Mets beat the Phillies 11 out of 18 last year, and at times really looked like they owned the Phillies. That 11 could have been 13 or 14 if their bullpen wasn't so bad. But when it came down to it, the Mets didn't play the Phillies all the time, and what they were able to get up for against them, they couldn't against other teams. The Phillies rose to the occasion when they absolutely had to, and rode that particular momentum to a World Championship. This will stick in my throat forever. The Mets clearly lacked the character and resiliency the Phillies had in them. But, the Phillies had one glaring problem: They couldn't beat the Mets. Not only that, the Mets really owned their best pitcher, Cole Hamels, knocking him around real good on two occasions.

Clearly, the Mets are in the Phillies heads. Any normal World Champion would be focusing on themselves, not kicking their nearest rival when they were already down. I heard Howie Rose on WFAN last night with Steve Somers, and he mentioned something about the Cole Hamels "Choker" comments. Whether or not it was something that Hamels was goaded into saying, he still took the bait and said it. Rose says that there are two things that a professional athlete can never stand being called. One of them is "Quitter." The other is "Choker."

Lately, the Mets have been accused of both.

Whether or not these things can really fire up a team is debateable. Over the first 21 games this season, the Mets haven't responded to Hamels' comments like a team that's playing angry. They don't look particularly fearsome right now. But now, they're going to be face to face with this team that keeps poking and jibing them, as if to try to get some sort of reaction out of them. This, in front of you tonight, is the team that went to the place you were supposed to go, got there, and stood and pointed and laughed at you. But this team is internally fragile. Even in winning, they're too quick to point out your faults. They have to rely on a voice from the past to psych themselves up. They, themselves, aren't off to such a hot start.

But there they are, right in front of you now. I don't think you need any more motivation.