Bailing Out The Bullpen

So, it's come to this. The Mets have now been turned into a team that will only win if someone can come up with a big hit to bail out the bullpen. Either that or the team scores 12 runs, but something tells me that's not happening too often.

The whole Closer-By-Committee thing was pretty bad in the first place, but after 3 games of having it in action, it's pretty clear how ridiculous and potentially embarrassing it really is. Tuesday, Aaron Heilman couldn't do it, but Scott Schoeneweis yanked his ass out of the fire. Wednesday, the Mets apparently did their bullpen a favor by not scoring enough runs to create a save situation (although Eddie Kunz allowed his 1st HR as a pro, thereby making a daunting 1-run deficit an insurmountable 2-run deficit). Yesterday, it was Tuesday in reverse. Schoeneweis came in and got one of the three necessary outs before Dirty Carrots Gerut struck. So, Heilman came in to clean up the mess. But, miracle of miracles, the game was only tied, and so when David Wright came up and hit his first-ever Walk-Off HR, he not only won a game that the Mets once again tried their damnedest to lose, he also saved his bullpen from another day of getting ripped a new asshole.

But let's be honest. The boxscore says that the winning pitcher was Aaron Heilman. But I think David Wright should get the win for yesterday's game. Aaron Heilman didn't do anything particularly special other than his job for two batters. Why should he be the one rewarded with a win? I say give the win to Wright. He's the one who actually stepped up and did something, getting what is, for the Mets, an ultra-rare clutch, run-scoring, 2-out hit.

I'm sure Red Foley, wherever he is, would agree with me.

Dirty Carrots and Dirty Diapers

I tried really hard to stay positive at last night's game. At the outset, I heard El Guapo say something to me about Dirty Carrots. At least, I thought he was talking about Dirty Carrots. Turns out, he was talking about Jody Gerut, who somehow has come back after years of injury and inconsistency and found a spot in the Padres outfield. Apparently I've just gone deaf.

Gerut then stepped into the batters box and promptly whacked the first pitch of the game over the fence.

"Stupid Dirty Carrots," was all I could say in response.

Even after Gerut's blast, I stayed positive. Even after Brian Giles teed off and hit the ball halfway up the scoreboard, I said the Mets were still in it.

They were never really in it. Even when they were in it, and the game was tied, they weren't really in it.

The game, for the most part, was one of those forgettable, sleepy midweek affairs that seem to make up a large chunk of the games I attend. Those weekday nights where nothing exceptional happens during the game, and the Mets usually put forth an uninspired effort and lose the game.

If there was but one positive, and there would only be one positive out of a game like this, it would be Daniel Murphy, who seemed to be the only guy playing with some kind of urgency, pinging a triple down the first base line in the 1st, laying down a nifty bunt and nearly beating it out in the 3rd, driving home the tying run in the 5th, and coming up with a couple of nice defensive plays in left. Is there anything this guy can't do?

Well, yes.

He can't will his team to victory. Despite outhitting the lowly Padres 9-6 (and 9-4 after the first 3 batters of the game), the Mets could do very little to make those hits count. Wright fell asleep on the bases in the 5th, bungled a grounder that could have ended the inning in the 7th, Delgado and Beltran have stopped hitting, and that all added up to a mostly forgettable 4-2 loss that was punctuated by, of all things, El Guapo and I being subjected to a woman changing her baby's dirty diaper in plain sight, 2 rows in front of us in the 9th inning. That pretty much served as the perfect capper to a perfect stinker of a ballgame.

"All Train Compartments Smell Vaguely of Shit..."

One game into the experiment, and I already don't like this closer by committee business.

I suppose it's the Mets only true option for the next couple of weeks, with Wagner on the DL. That's one thing in and of itself. But considering what happened the last time the Mets went into a game, and Wagner wasn't available, and the Mets had to cobble together the 9th inning with a random hodgepodge of the seedy underbelly of their bullpen, we have very good reason to be frightened.

Tonight, the Mets were able to stop the bleeding by shoving some heavy towels at a wound that was beginning to gush. Two weeks ago, they weren't so lucky. Those towels are only effective some of the time. Lord only knows what these next two weeks will hold.

Simple logic would dictate that one of these guys, someone out of the Smith, Schoeneweis, Heilman, Sanchez, Feliciano, Kunz, Chico, Harpo, Zeppo bunch ought to catch the hot hand and emerge as the replacement for Wagner, but, really, can you trust any of these guys to do so? I laid it all out before the season began: This bullpen was already a spotty bunch of guys who might get the job done, but they also were going to make us all insane before the season was over. Wagner was the sure thing, but I laid this shot out as well: He's aging and he's tempestuous. And now he's hurt.

So, the first shot went to Heilman. And Heilman did his very best to show us that he wasn't anywhere close to worthy of the task. True, he wasn't helped by Beltran pulling up on Luis Rodriguez's single, but he didn't help himself by walking Nick (Don't call me Todd) Hundley and helped himself even less by laying the ball on a tee for Gerut to hit it out. Fortunately, the Mets still had the lead, and Manuel was able to mercifully remove Heilman from the game and let Smith and Schoeneweis finish the job.

Yeah, this closer by committee thing looks great already. 3 guys to get through 1 inning. I love it. What's tonight's combo going to be? Sanchez, Smith and Kunz? Franco, Sisk and Guetterman? Henry, DiPoto and Donne Wall? I have a bad feeling about this. Wagner might have been erratic and he certainly blew more than his share of saves this season. But, at the very least, he gave us some semblance of stability at the end of a game, after navigating through some scary innings. Now, these guys have to finish off games? I don't like where this is going.

I hope Pedro has a 7.2 inning effort in him tonight.

(Props if you're able to catch the reference I dropped with today's header. There's a link to a previous post in here that should make it a dead giveaway.)

Kid's Allright

It's very easy to attack the Mets and Omar Minaya for their inactivity during the rush to the Trading Deadline last Thursday, particularly considering how little the Dodgers gave up to land Manny Ramirez, who, let's face it, is the ultimate rent-a-player with his impending Free Agent Payday this offseason.

With the Mets languishing without a bonafide corner outfielder and a bullpen that appears more frightening than the latest Will Ferrell movie, Omar is certainly taking it on the chin right now. This is a double-edged sword. Yes, Omar wants to keep his prospects with the team. There's a general unwillingness to deal guys like Fernando Martinez, Mike Carp, Eddie Kunz and Jonathon Niese within the organization. Omar was adamant. Martinez wasn't going anywhere, for Ibanez, Bay, Nady or Manny, and that was the guy everyone wanted. So, in the end, no deal was done.

What it means is, basically, the Mets are going to go to war with kids over the next two months. Fans who were screaming for the team to get younger, you're getting your wish. Expect guys like Kunz, Niese, Nick Evans and Daniel Murphy to see a lot of burn for the Mets down the stretch. This is how it's going to be. It's counterproductive, as fans, to continue to whine and complain that the Mets could have had Manny for a pair of prospects when that was basically going against everything the club is trying to do, and everything we've been calling for the club to do. In fact, if things had broken one way or another in June, the Mets could easily be playing out the string as a 4th place team with these guys, and nobody would be complaining (except for the fact that this team that was supposed to contend would be out of it).

This division is a 3-team race, and it's 3 teams that are full of holes and lacking in consistency. Two of them made deals to bring in...middling pitchers.

So, why not Eddie Kunz? Why not Daniel Murphy? Why not Jonathon Niese? I've always been a big proponent of youth; these kids aren't going to be any worse than some of the guys we've been trotting out there to this point. Let them show us something. It's better than more games with Schoeneweis or Heilman or whoever spitting it up, or Endy Chavez looking overmatched in a key at bat.

Neutral

With my show having opened this weekend, my weekend was, predictably, tied up and I didn't get to see much. That being said, I see I missed absolutely nothing, short of the Mets flipping the calendar and instead of flipping to August, they flipped to June. The problems that plagued the Mets throughout the early period of this season seem to have returned en masse. The situational hitting vanished, the bullpen repeatedly shit the bed, and Ho-Jo stood there in his sunglasses and looked sharp.

San Diego is coming in this week, featuring the same pu-pu platter of pitchers that the Mets were unable to beat earlier this season. I'll be in attendance on Wednesday night. This series ought to be a good barometer of just how far, if at all, the Mets have come.

I'd write more, but, in all honesty, I'm dead ass tired and in need of a nap, and besides, haven't I made enough snide remarks and stabbing jokes at the Mets expense for one season?