A Delicate Balance

I've been mostly absent this week for various reasons, and I haven't actually seen any of this week's games. I did have a chance to turn on the Mets game on the radio yesterday afternoon, however by then it was already the 3rd inning and the game was completely out of hand.

It took me a few minutes to realize that Nelson Figueroa hadn't actually started the game.

The disturbing trend du jour with the Mets now is the failure of Oliver Perez to build on his success of last season and continue to drive his career forward.

My completely insane co-worker (who insisted I refer to him as such) called following the game screaming that the Mets should deal Oliver Perez and Omar Minaya to Pittsburgh for Xavier Nady. He then wondered if it was possible to make an awful team even worse. He figured that Minaya ought to be able to screw up the Pirates even moreso than they already are.

Other people laugh these bad outings off and say that Ollie is bound to throw up a stinker every so often.

This is now 4 in a row, and 3 out of 4 where he's just lost it completely without any real warning.

The truth lies somewhere in between. Perez at least seems somewhat cognisant of his responsibility to the club, and at least he's figured out that outings like yesterday, and the one against Milwaukee, and the one in Washington really aren't acceptable anymore. He already had his one shot at a major breakout in 2005, and he did a pretty good job of unraveling to the point where he was in the Minor leagues in 2006. Wagner called him out after yesterday's game, and from what I'm able to glean from this article, Perez did accept it. We know he's inconsistent, but it's beginning to get to the point where it's more than just hoping he's got the right arm slot tonight. We're starting to get to the point where it may be time to admit that Perez is just not that good, and that those two good seasons he's had were more flukish instances of him being able to put a solid string of starts together rather than the true talent bubbling to the surface. Pitchers like Steve Trachsel and Willie Blair managed to parlay seasons like this into millions of dollars.

It's not as though Perez is working with an ERA over 6. His numbers aren't totally horrible. But last year, there were points where he was absolutely the guy you wanted on the mound in a big game. He's not inspiring that confidence in anyone this season.

Yo-Yo

Today's header isn't some sort of thinly veiled reference to Derek Bell.

No, it's about the travails of the 2008 Mets.

I went to Friday night's game against the Atlanta Braves, for some reason. I say for some reason, because by the end of the night, I found myself having the beginnings of a nervous breakdown because I should have been able to find something better to do with myself for 3 hours and 6 minutes that evening, rather than subject myself to the epic crapfest the Mets put forth.

I should have turned back when I got to Grand Central at around 5:45, and while waiting on the 7 train platform, there was an announcement that there was no Express service into Queens.

I continued.

I should have turned back when I got to Shea, walked up to the ticket booth by Gate E and found that the Upper Reserve was, for some reason, completely sold out.

I ponied up for the Mezzanine and continued.

I knew it was a bad idea.

The seemed just about indistinguishable from several I'd attended over the course of the 2007 season. The Mets didn't hit, they only scored when Jair Jurrjens lost the plate in the 3rd inning, and then pretty much went into the tank after that. Pelfrey had his own issues with the strike zone, coughed up the 3-1 lead in the 5th, and let the game slip away in the 6th, giving up a Home Run to Kelly Johnson, another one of those annoying little middle infielders who always seems to kill the Mets.

The atmosphere around Shea was Murderous at best. Between the normal animosity focused towards Atlanta, there was a good deal of antipathy towards the Mets as well. It was spreading, as noted by Jason at Faith and Fear over the weekend. The introductions of the starting lineup were greeted with applause that was lukewarm. Booing was frequent. The Mets managed 2 hits against a pitcher who seemed all too happy to hand the game over to them. By the end of the 8th inning, just about the entire crowd got up and left. The 9th seemed like mere formality.

Sitting in the Mezzanine, the fans seemed to range from apoplectic to half asleep. Of course, I was sitting about 8 rows behind some Napoleon Dynamite jerkoff in a Chipper Jones shirt who kept squealing and maniacally clapping and doing a solo tomahawk chop throughout the game. Some people yelled at him. I just wanted to throw peanuts at him. By the end of the game, nobody had the energy anymore. There was also a guy sitting in front of me with his girlfriend. She kept making him get up and go stand on line for food. He missed about 2 innings before returning with an order of french fries, which he then proceeded to start to feed to her before she whined that there was no ketchup, which he went back for, and took another half inning,then he disappeared for another 3 innings getting sausages and beer while she sat and sent text messages. He might have seen about 3 innings worth of the game. Something tells me he ended up getting the better end of the bargain.

I knew I was a little off when, following Pelfrey's pathetic departure in the 6th, I was almost delighted to see Scott Schoeneweis trotting in from the Bullpen. That was the warning sign. By the 9th inning, I began to wonder what the hell I was doing. Why had I gone? Why wasn't I somewhere else getting drunk, or trying to pick up a nice Jewish girl somewhere? What posessed me to go to this game? Walking down the ramps after the game, everything began spinning. I think I blacked out. Next thing I knew, I was sitting in the last car of a speeding 7 train, listening to the dulcet tones of Sarge (one of the folks who occupies UR1 most nights, I know that's not his name, but it seems to suit him well enough) absolutely BELLOWING about how the Mets suck and the Rangers suck. Then he started talking about the Pennsylvania primary.

"That's it," I realized. "I've died. The Mets have actually killed me. And this is Hell."

So, just when I was feeling my worst, the Mets managed to go out and win on Saturday and Sunday. How they managed that, I'm not quite sure. They bunched their hits when they needed them, all in the 3rd inning on Saturday, and on Sunday, Carlos Delgado, who was lustily booed during his cameo appearance on Friday, hit 2 HRs and permeated good feelings all around despite the fact that he didn't take a curtain call. I'm with Steve Somers on this one: Let Delgado not come out for a curtain call many more times over the course of this season. Beware, though. There was a stretch last season where he went on a little power streak, and people thought the real Delgado was going to show up, and it didn't happen. Take the HRs when you can. Who knows when they'll come again.

I don't know what else to say other than this team is basically a Yo-Yo. They're up, they're down, you don't know who's going to screw up one day and who'll be good the next. I can't figure it out, and right now, I'm not so sure I want to. They lose a few and people are jumping out of windows. They win a couple and now they're the best.

Such is life as a Baseball fan in New York.

La Dee Da!

Below is a dramatization of what the Mets are prompting me to do:
Every day it's something else with this team. I'm beginning to wonder whether or not this is really worth it.

I'll Do It Myself!

I guess Johan Santana decided to take the offensive struggles of the Mets into his own hands last night.

In addition to his normal sterling pitching performance, Santana also helped himself at the plate, hitting a pair of doubles, bringing his season total to 3.

That also being the sum total of hits he has this season.

It was just about imperative that he try to help himself out, given that his team didn't generate much offense of their own. The 7 run outburst is certainly nice, and I'll take it, but the Mets managed to plate their runs in the following fashion:

1) RBI groundout by Delgado
2) Slow roller to short that Castillo miraculously beat out
3) 70 foot roller to 3rd that Zimmerman threw away
4) Roller in the Bermuda Triangle between P-1B and 2B that Pagan beat out
5) RBI groundout by Schneider

Ryan Church's 2-run single in the 9th was the only solid hit the Mets managed with runners on base. And had Willie not finally come to his senses and flipped Church and Delgado in the lineup, even that might not have happened.

It's true that playing the Nationals seems to bring the Mets out of whatever funk they've fallen into so far this season. But after tonight, the Mets don't play Washington again until May 12th, and after that, a 4-game series at Shea, these teams don't cross again until August 12th. It's good that the Mets have been able to smash the flea with a sledgehammer, but that can only count for so much. As always, I'll take the victory. But don't think that I'm satisfied with the way it played out. The same culprits are making the same stupid mistakes, and most of the Met runs scored by virtue of luck and the fact that the Nationals are the Nationals.

Ollie tonight, in Nationals Park, which I really like. The grey brick behind the plate and the sharp outfield corner in CF are a nice touch.

Never Happened

I actually forgot that the Mets were playing a day game today until around 5pm, when my infamous co-worker called and asked if I had the game on.

I immediately turned the game on and realized I hadn't missed much. Or, rather, I hadn't missed anything that I hadn't already seen out of the Mets.

Then, about 10 or so minutes after I put the game on, Ronny Cedeño hit his grand slam and that was pretty much that.

With the extent of the Mets/Cubs games in Chicago coming and going within the span of 24 hours, I fully expect to have no memory whatsoever of the Mets at Wrigley Field this season. It's probably better that way, given how things have turned out.

I suppose the brunt of the blame will focus on the pitching, specifically the Bullpen, and while they haven't been very good, or very consistent at all over the first few weeks of the season (Heilman and Sosa repeatedly victimized over the past few days), it's too easy to heap all the blame on them.

Look at it this way: Aaron Heilman came into Monday night's game with the Mets trailing 2-1 in the 8th. Aided by a Jose Reyes error and some long hits, a 2-1 deficit turned into a 7-1 deficit, the runs unearned. Unearned, yes, but given up nonetheless.

Going further, however, is the fact that had Heilman pitched well, and held the Cubs, then the Mets would have lost the game 2-1, rather than 7-1. Heilman and Sosa wouldn't have magically taken the Cubs runs off the board.

The pitching can do what they can, and whether they do it or not, it doesn't make much of a difference if the Mets could only muster 2 runs over 2 games. If the bullpen does right itself, and start to pitch with some authority, it'll certainly be nice, but will it matter if nobody not named David Wright hits?

Carlos Beltran languishes with a .215 average and 1 HR. Carlos Delgado is barely off the interstate at .208, 1 HR. These are major players in the Mets offense, and for them to not be hitting creates a lot of problems and a lot of pressure on the rest of the team. It's an awful lot like last year. The Mets seem to win when they have a spark, like a bigtime outing from Santana or a 4-hit game from Wright or Reyes. But these guys can't and won't carry the load day after day, and it's not realistic to expect them to do so. More disconcerting is that there's still no anger or chip on the shoulder, especially on the day after they got their heads handed to them. We expected there to be some kind of difference, especially after basically the same team muddled through most of last season, and after the air of confidence and cockiness had seemed to return during Spring Training.

I know Beltran is a streak hitter, and he could right himself and put together one of those weeks where he hits .485 with 5 HR and 16 RBI and everything would be better. I'm less sure about Delgado, to the point where perhaps Moises Alou or Angel Pagan should be taking First Base lessons.

I keep saying this, but especially after the way last season went (and I'm not going to refer to "The Collapse" specifically anymore, and neither should anybody else, because the Mets were lousy all season, and everyone knows this as truth), it's really really easy to panic even though it's only April. But they're not playing consistently good baseball. Sure, they won 5 games in a row last week, but that could just as easily have happened by accident. It's a step up from last year, however, when they didn't manage 5 wins in a row until September, but what's that saying? They're the same team now that they were then? I don't see much of a difference.

Yes, yes, it's very early to panic. But this season, right now, looks like it has all the potential to get real ugly real quick. But so I don't sound too pessimistic and upset the optimists out there, I will say that last year, at this time, the Mets looked like a World Series team, and that pretty much fell apart starting in June. These things can turn around.

At least, I think they can...