I'm usually an optimist, but I have no happy thoughts about the mets right now. things are not looking good. remember when we had gone on a 9 game winning streak and had just clobbered the phillies? when we were in 1st place in the NL east at 14-9? well since then we've gone 4-9, an even worse skid than the one we opened the season with. We now find ourself clining to .500 and tied for 4th place in the NL east, lucky to be only 4 games behind the Phillies. We haven't won a single series on the road yet. We only have 4 capable starting pitchers. I honestly was clining to a misguided hope that Oliver Perez could somehow right the ship and be a good pitcher again when the year started, I really was, but now I've lost all faith. He can't pitch 4 full innings, he walks leadoff men like it's his job, he let up 4 homers today, and it's not like he's a developing prospect trying to learn: he's 28, he hasn't been remotely consistent since 2007, and he's taking up roster space and salary cap space. Demote him, fire him, whatever just get him out of my sight. In his place I say we call up R.A. Dickey for the short term, and then demote Jenrry Mejia to the minors and stretch him out into starting duty for the long term. Mejia's stuff is just way too good to waste as a MRP, the bullpen is where you stick people who aren't good enough to be in the rotation. Bobby Parnell, who did well last year, can be called up to take Mejia's bullpen spot while we prepare him for duty.
I can sense this season slipping away. Like seriously, who on our offense is performing besides Rod Barajas? Reyes is hitting below .220, swinging too freely, and has failed twice in the past 2 days to lay down a simple sacrifice bunt. Wright looks skittish at anything on the inner half of the plate and is compensating by swinging for the fences on low and outside pitches instead of taking them the other way: i wouldn't trust him to hit a curveball or an inside fastball if his salary depended on it right now. Jason Bay seems to be getting more hits now, but he still has just one home run: we gave him a salary expecting numbers similar with his 36 homers last year, and right now he's on pace for a whopping 6. Beltran is likely out until at least the allstar break, Francouer is cold as a stone and has reverted back to his swing-at-anything bad habits, i guess Pagan and Castillo are doing allright but that's really not enough. Slumps happen, but when all your good batters are slumping at the same time it's not good. We just had our top 2 starters go and failed to win either game. The only positives have been Pelfrey, Niese, Barajas, and our improved defense/baserunning, with slightly more power. I hate to be a pessimist, but things are looking as bleak now as they have at any point this season, including our 4-8 start. The nationals are hot, and if our bats don't remember how to hit the ball we will be staring straight in the face of a last place finish in the NL east.
PS--it was just announced that attendance at Mets games is down 10%, the worst decline in the major leagues (baseball's average as a whole has decreased only 2%). Oiy...
The State Of Things
The situation is indeed a scary one mostly because of the general lack of punch in the offense. If not for the likes of Rod Barajas who knows what record the Mets would have right now. The pitching hasn't been too bad but Oliver Perez is basically a guaranteed loss at this point. When you go to the other pitchers they are pitching much better but aren't getting enough run support. It's really hard to win with anyone on the mound when you score one run one night and two runs the next night.
The two players I'm most concerned about are Jason Bay and Jose Reyes. As you say we're not paying Jason Bay to hit singles and doubles. He's on pace for 6 home runs in 2010. That's not worthy of a cleanup hitter. I don't know what his problem is. Jose Reyes' troubles are killing us too. What's wrong with him? One thing is that I think that he is trying too hard to be a slugger in the third spot in the lineup. Although Jose has showed flashes of power he plays best as the catalyst, the guy who gets on any way possible and gets the rally started. I think Jerry Manuel needs to move Reyes back to the leadoff spot. I'd also like to see Jason Bay batting third with David Wright in the cleanup spot.
I don't think all is lost yet. Last year around this time the Mets were hot and things turned south pretty quickly. This year let's hope the opposite occurs. If we make some changes now, including pulling Oliver Perez from the rotation, things could get better soon.
A Disaster In Progress
After considering the four game sweep in Florida and the Mets 4-11 record since the end of the 8-game winning streak I'm ready to declare the 2010 season a disaster in progress. So what does that mean? It means anything goes with regards to what to do about the situation. Some of the first moves have already begun with Jose Reyes being moved to the leadoff spot and Oliver Perez being moved to the bullpen. There's more work to be done. A lot more. Some of that work may include firing Jerry Manuel.
seen from afar
I followed this weekend's disaster from Georgia instead of the usual Minnesota but it didn't matter much apparently. Mostly I just logged onto the Mets site on my BlackBerry now and then and watched the game play-by-play and a few things stuck out. When things go well with this team, we're more or less tied after 6-7 innings and happen to pull out a majority of the games. When they don't, I log on and it's 4-2, 6-2, 5-1 pretty early with the Mets usually making a decent shot at a comeback. That means we get back 2-3 runs, head out to the field, turn it over to another reliever, who immediately gives up a 3-run bomb (they're all bombs when you watch it play-by-play). It's got to be incredibly demoralizing to be fighting your way back into a game only to have the pitching coughing up 2-3 runs every inning on you.
As for Perez to the bullpen, what does this accomplish? Tell me what scenario of a game you'd want Perez coming into. We're never up 10-2 or anything and need someone to eat up innings. Bringing him in in relief will only magnify his problems. Eat the money, eat the contract, package him with anyone for anything and maybe you can take that anything and trade it somewhere else for something you want. Tell you one thing: keep trotting him out there and you'll see why attendance is down--no one wants to see him out there. We overpaid, it's done. What were we thinking? No idea. Why was Minaya supposed to be such a genius? Because of the Expos/Nats??
I just don't know, on paper this is a team that can and should hit, should score a lot of runs. And it's not just Beltran. Maybe we don't realize how much Delgado meant when he had that MVP-like run. The pitchers were recently doing a great job--how do they all go south at once? Even Santana, as great as he can be, what good does he do us if every game he pitches, he's gone by the 6th/7th inning in a tie game at best? How does he ever expect to win a game? Nolan Ryan was on an FAN podcast this spring, said that in one game he threw about 230 pitches. 2 3 0. Imagine. Santana's not Ryan but sometimes you've got to get more of the job done yourself.
Me, I'm about ready for Bobby V II.
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