Mets vs. Marlins Series Discussion
sorry rob, i got impatient and made my own. hope you won't mind. what a game! i left the room with the mets down 2-1 with 2 outs and nobody on in the top of the ninth, and came back to find we were winning 5-2! talk about clutch...single, single, walk, homer, and before you know it we are 2 games ahead of the phils! the phillies must be pissed because of not only our great comeback but they lost a tough game late too. and then our bullpen almost blew it! ayala almost wore out his welcome here in new york before he even settled in! letting up 2 in the bottom of the ninth after such a tremendous rally and stranding a guy on third was waaaaaaaaaay too close for comfort. but over-all, a good game. i am going to try something new, to try and get a gauge on what parts of the mets team is doing well and what parts aren't: game by game report cards. so here's this games...
Starting pitching- A. perez let up just 2 runs over 6 strong innings ins a hitters park, and could have gone longer had we not needed to pinch it. he's lowered his era to around 3.80 and is making his case for the mets to re-sign him this offseason. all mets starting pitchers other than pedro have an era below 4.00.
Bats- B. 5 runs isn't bad, but we only had 1 through the first 8 innings. we were certainly clutch in the 9th though, and with a lineup that has striggled with that that certainly counts for something. and we were getting hits, if not runs, the whole game. you never got the sense that the marlins were just shutting us out.
Relief pitching- C-. stokes had another strong outing, but ayala put a huge scare into us again by almost blowing the mets amazing comeback.
Met Magic
Thanks for stepping up. I had a busy day and night last night. I caught some of the game on SNY but missed the ninth inning after falling asleep. Just watched the final inning on MLB.tv.
Not perfect but they don't need to be. At the end of the day it's wins and losses that get counted in the run for the playoffs. Every win against a division team helps the Mets get stronger. And in this case it also helps remove one more team from contention in the playoff race.
The Mets looked lethargic for most of the game but the rally in the 9th really felt like those good old days when Met Magic was the rule rather than the exception. Ayala's shaky ninth does not surprise me. He seems to me to be a guy who can get it done 3 out of every 5 games. I think the Mets need to consider switching off between Ayala and Heilman in the closer role.
Oh and the Phillies lost, so we have a two game lead in the division. We can beat the Marlins the next two games. Let's do it.
Heilman Had His Shot
I would be more comfortable with dauner sanchez at closer than heilman. i would also prefer joe smith, who i think is the best arm in our bullpen, or brian stokes, who has an era of about 3.00. heilman and ayala are the 2 most losingest releif pitchers in the MLB! and ayala sports the NL's highest era for a releif pitcher. by that logic, they would be the worst candidates for the closer job in the league, let alone the mets. but when you're as desperate as we are, you just have to put in the pitchers that are having hte most success, like smith and stokes, in where it counts. put one of them as the closer and the other in a thight spot like 2 outs bases loaded, etc, rather than let ayala or heilman beat us again.
The Bull-sh*t blows it again!
How many times are Met fans gonna have to live through this nightmare that has become the Mets bullpen?!?!?! We can't win the division with this mess! Ayala and Stokes have been the only decent options and they've had their shaky outings. Today Feliciano gave up a hit, Sanchez bails him out then gives up a homerun to Jacobs. Then comes the bottom of the 9th and Heilman comes in walks Ramirez, somehow gets an out,throws one away,and almost botches an INTENTIONAL WALK....CAN HE THROW THE BALL AT ALL!!?!?!?!??!?! Met fans make one final plea for a dp and he finds a new way to blow it. He must have been thinking we gotta change it up we've given up too many game winning hits how about a game winning BB!!!!! Seriously Phillie fans are probably laughing their asses off. They beat the best team in baseball and the met bullpen can't get the Marlins out in the ninth. LISTEN UP GOOD OMAR, EITHER SEND THESE AMATUERS PACKING OR STAR LOOKING IN THE CLASSIFIEDS!!!
dorisa
http://www.fakeposters.com/uploads/dd2c8199b6dc987578150a0a6d75cda8.jpg
sorry, couldn't help myself.
1. Fire Feliciano
2. Put Sanchez on the DL to try to work on getting his speed back
3. Put Stokes in first every game and have him go as long as possible
4. Cortisone Wagner's forearm in his sleep
Walking off the feild
Bullpen walks in with a 3-2 lead, walk out with a 4-3 loss. and not only that, but heilman WALKED in the winning run! it is not usual that i can say i could have done a better job than an mlb player, but i could have pitched better in that situation than heilman did, because i could have thrown a strike. in a clutch situation, our bullpen, which is supposed to be designed for getting outs in clutch situations, is supposed to be able to not allow the runner to score. when the bases are loaded in a clutch situation where one run is all it takes to lose, the one thing you absolutely CANNOT do is walk the batter. duh. and when there is a 3-1 count, you have no choice other than to throw a strike. as a pro pitcher, no matter what type of pitch you throw, no matter it's speed or movement or what teh batter is expecting or where exactly the pitch goes, if you need to do the most basic of pitching functions, as in getting the ball over the plate, you should be able to do it without even thinking. just throw it over the plate! worst case scenario is he hits a homer, which is the same outcome it is if you throw a ball! digging himself into a 3-1 hole is dumb, but understandable. he did the one thing he absolutely could not do on the next pitch by walking him and losing the game. the bullpen needed to get out of a jam which they had gotten themselves into, and if they hadn't gotten out of it that's common. but walking in the winning run is in my mind the most humiliating way in which to lose possible and we turned a great outing by pelfrey into a loss AGAIN because our bullpen choked AGAIN. can't keep happening. make it 23. with that, here is our report card...
Starting Pitching- A-. not elite, but 2 runs over 6 innings should be plenty good enough against inferior marlins pitching. pelfrey turned in another great outing.
Lineup- C-. 3 runs isn't enough against a marlins team we are steadily better than, especially with how we've been batting of late. it should have been enough, bu we should have given ourselves more insurance than we did. the bats again looked lethargic late in the game.
Bullpen- F. can't give them anything else. another win turned into a loss. i have never seen a single bigger achilles heel to any pro-baseball team that i can remember. never has any team that i can remember been completely hobbled by the same part of their team over and over and over again. nothing can be done about it, and the rest of our team will need to step up big time if we are to have a chance at the playoffs.
good point
but i'd give the bullpen a negative 0 for their performance.
what? we need a little humor in times like this.
Heilman
Between him and Schoeneweis, I don't know who's the bigger trainwreck. I hold them both personally responsible for ruining what was probably my last game at Shea (last year, a Glavine/Smoltz game where we were up something like 6-3 late and they came in and started giving up 3-run bombs to no-name second basemen). They are the worst, I'm glad I wasn't listening/watching.
Winning The Series
A sweep would have been perfect. I'll take the series win though. The bullpen will continue to be the Achilles hell of the Mets for the rest of the season. We really need the offense to get in gear for September.
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