Submitted by Matt Latorre (not verified) on Fri, 09/12/2008 - 18:18.
Gotta love the mets schedule to end the season after this 3 game series with the braves they go to Washington for 4 I expect at least 5-2 out of those games. The one tough spot is a 4 game series with the cubs at home.
Submitted by robsafuto on Fri, 09/12/2008 - 20:41.
Well the schedule certainly looks good. I don't want the Mets looking at the schedule and thinking that though. The team needs to come to play hard since we all know that these teams would love to play spoiler. They can only relax when the division is clinched. And we all know the history that the team is trying to overcome.
Unfortunaltely, I have to work this weekend, so i will miss the first game of our doubleheader today as well as the game tommorow (and even worse, my packers game on sunday! this sucks). But i am happy we have a doubleheader today. since our phillies series, we have played just 2 games in 5 days. those 3 days rest are precious, as this team doesn't have an off day the rest of the regular season and we really need all hands on deck, ready to play at their top level everyday. so this is where it starts. today. we have our best pitcher capping off a series with our rivals for the last time at shea, with all our player rested ready for the stretch run. coincedentally, there are now exactly 17 games remaining on our schedule. for an entire season, the mets have been wanting one thing more than any other, and that is a do-over of last season. we don't quite have our 7 game lead, but we do have a 3 game lead, and that is just fine by me. In june we would have been thrilled to be in this position. now lets close the door this time! time to put some distance between us and the phils!
however, with the way the phillies are playing and the way the brewers are playing, me may end up getting the wild card even if we don't win the division. or the phils might win the wildcard. who knows? we'll find out in 2 weeks. lets go mets!
You could be doing my 8-hour shift plus the 3 hours of o.t. and miss the whole thing. Mind you, I'm in Minnesota so it's not like I get to see the games anyway. It's just the ESPN GameCast for me, but I'll manage fine. It got insane at work the other day when I was telling a Brewers fan that they'd better take care of Philadephia--no sign of it so far. He said he hoped they would too but that Philadelphia would pass the Mets. I told him they could do whatever they want in the Central as long as we can shut Philadephia our of both the division and the WC. It got even more complicated when two Cubs fans showed up. It's insane when you work with people from all over.
Ugh, bases loaded and nobody out, Easley grounds in to a DP, we don't even get a run out of it like on a 6-4-3. Schneider gets an IBB and Santana K's. I'm glad we didn't bite and PH for Santana there with two outs but still, that inning could hurt in the long run.
Surprised we couldn't do a bit more against Hampton but at least he's out of there. With the new school year starting, he must be off to Colorado again to check out the schools.
Actually, Hampton was the only Met I've ever run into casually. I was working on W. 61st by Columbus Circle and he was apparently living at the top of that Trump hotel they had just built at Columbus Circle across Broadway from me and I wound up holding the door for him as he came out of $tarbuck$ with an armful of coffees. I hear he never really went out of the hotel much, so it's no wonder he never got to like the city much. I did the same thing for Lily Tomlin later that week....
I rest my case. Why on earth would you take Santana out even after 7 innings to replace him with Schoeneweis in a tight game??? Bases loaded, no one out. What a surprise.
GREEEEEAAAAAATTTT. Down 3-2 now. Again, with Schoeneweis and Heilman you'd think there might be some statistical possibility of every getting through an inning scoreless or getting out of a situation like that allowing 1 or at most 2 runs but nope not these guys. Gotta let Atlanta clear the bases and then some.
And after a listless outing like this and not winning the first game with Santana (barring a comeback), how do you feel about game 2 odds with our nobody starter? I hated hearing we were playing a doubleheader today--it's so hard to sweep them (yet seems easy to get swept, the math there doesn't add up). Plus everyone who was hot would cool down, which seems to have happened. The bullpen isn't benefitting from extra rest either.
johan did great. he went 7 innings and let up 0 runs. i really bet that had he been kept in he'd have won us the game. we are paying the dude hundreds of millions of dollars. i don't know why we aren't more comfortable with him than any of our other pitchers in any situation in which he could pitch. if the game is even close, i say keep him in the full 9. we have to cling to this lead over 2 weeks. that's it. 2 weeks. and while our bullpen has been doing decent recently, we just blew another 8th inning lead. salvaging the split in the nightcap is a must.
But this is the time of year when it's just not good enough. We dropped ½ a game 2 days ago when we were idle and now another ½ today by not winning the game we were supposed to win. It's all well and good winnning the 2nd game, but DH sweeps are rare and this should've been one.
Submitted by robsafuto on Sun, 09/14/2008 - 14:58.
These come from ahead losses are killing us. The lead is razor thin. No doubt that the Niese performance helped. It is very obvious that the Phillies are not going away. So we must win-win-win to get the NL East title.
Ugh, here we go again. Another starter leaves in the 7th or 8th with a slim lead. Heilman/Schoeneweis comes in and automatic rally. Two of three guys faced, two hits and outta there. Why is either of these guys in the majors? Just hope Smith can undo the damage.
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And he does, two K's, great job. I trust Smith so much more than either of those two other clowns.
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Grrrr, Philly just went up 7-3, not going to make up any ground, but we can take care of our own and force them to sweep if they're even going to pick up ½ a game. Split and they lose ½. Boy, Milwaukee is just AWOL this whole series. All I heard all year was Milwaukee's so good, Milwaukee's so good, where are they??
Submitted by robsafuto on Sun, 09/14/2008 - 16:53.
Terrible, just terrible. This is like a two engine plane flying on one engine. Luis Ayala continues to be the guy who can save two out of three games and that is not acceptable. If the Phillies win tonight they will be one stinkin game back. Ugh.
Better to have them 1 game back than be 1 back. Why did Joe Smith come out? You get one guy effective and take him out after two hitters. If that's the whole season there, so be it.
remember when i did that real long post about being at the end of my rope with our bullpen and our late game losses? yah. my rope was just extended again. we are becoming the laughingstock of the league. have frikin 27 BLOWN SAVES!!!!!!!!!! 27! we have entered the 9th inning with a lead and exited the 9th inning with a loss 11 FRIKIN TIMES! the phillies, on the other hand, have not done that once this entire season! if the phillies had blown 11 9th inning leads and we had blown none, we would be leading by (brace yourselves) 22 games in the NL east. well, probaly not cuz the marlisn would be ahead of the phils then, but still. that is it, folks. to sole difference between crushing the phillies and being neck and neck with them is out bullpen. last year our whole team collapsed. this year our whole non-bullpen team has done great. our bats are on fire. wright, delgado, beltran, reyes, and even church when healthy are having excellent seasons. lineup has been far better than the phillies. the starting pitching? same deal. johan has dominated, pelfrey has done very well, and maine and perez have both succeeded. pedro is a passable number 5. again, our sp's outdeul the phillies. the only reason the mets are even talking about the phillies instead of the world series right now is their bullpen. the phillies hav enot blown a single 9th inning lead this season. the mets have blown 11. i can see like 3 or 4 being an acceptable total, as gaffs do happen now and tehn to everyone. but had we been far worse than most teams and blown, say, 6 ninth inning saves this year, we would be 6 games agead of the phillies instead of 1 or 1.5. why the media isn't blasting the mets bullpen for this as a ridiculous spectacle of sucking is beyond me. it is infuriating because nearly every batter and starting pitcher on this team deserves to be going to the postseason and the majority of philly's everyday players other than utley and howard and hamels don't, yet if this keeps up they will be going and we won't be. so far, we are 3-2 in the "12 games in a row that are very easy which we should definetly win" part of our schedule. both losses have been on our bullpen. we need 5 of 7 minimum in our next 2 series.
Submitted by robsafuto on Mon, 09/15/2008 - 16:00.
The scary thing about this situation is the fact that the Mets have no answer to the bullpen debacle. There isn't a pitcher in the pen right now who we can count on to get three outs when we need them. At this point in the season it's up to Jerry Manuel to figure something out. You can't win if you can't close. Really scary.
as the bullpen falters more and more, we need to rely on the starting pitching to go deeper and deeper. and that only hurts us. pedro has a short fuse already and as he showed tonight we can't leave him in after 5 innings and expect anything better than our bullpen. johan and pelfrey are great and can go deep, but pelfrey's never had this much of a workload on his shoulders before and showed signs of deteriorating in his last start. that may be why we are giving him nearly a full weeks rest before his next go. and with maine out until at least the postseason, maybe not even then, we need to rely on perez and niese (who looked great, albeit, and is our freshest arm) to carry us later and later into games. and that can wear their arms thin too. obviously we have to win the division first, but even if we make the playoffs i'm worried our guys will be too shot to do anything. i guess all the other teams have this same problem though.
But, as always, why do all these issues seem to affect only us as we stagger to the finish line and every other team seems to be getting stronger now? Are the Phillies having any of these pitching wear-down issues? What are their complaints if any? I saw the ESPN preview on their game and had to laugh when I saw it said they had no significant injuries. Ain't that the truth.
Submitted by robsafuto on Fri, 09/19/2008 - 15:09.
It could be simple bad luck. I think that part of the issue is the fact that so many of the Mets key players in recent years have been older. Pedro, El Duque, Alou, Wagner, Valentin, Easley. The fact is that most of the injuries have effected the over 35 players. John Maine and Ryan Church would be the exceptions in 2008. But Ryan Church is back and Maine might be able to pitch in relief soon.
Can we expect Maine to be effective in short relief though? Maybe if we need a 4- or 5-inning middle relief job a la Sid Fernandez, but I wouldn't expect much from Maine.
vs. 
Great schedule
Gotta love the mets schedule to end the season after this 3 game series with the braves they go to Washington for 4 I expect at least 5-2 out of those games. The one tough spot is a 4 game series with the cubs at home.
September Schedule
Well the schedule certainly looks good. I don't want the Mets looking at the schedule and thinking that though. The team needs to come to play hard since we all know that these teams would love to play spoiler. They can only relax when the division is clinched. And we all know the history that the team is trying to overcome.
Doubleheader
Unfortunaltely, I have to work this weekend, so i will miss the first game of our doubleheader today as well as the game tommorow (and even worse, my packers game on sunday! this sucks). But i am happy we have a doubleheader today. since our phillies series, we have played just 2 games in 5 days. those 3 days rest are precious, as this team doesn't have an off day the rest of the regular season and we really need all hands on deck, ready to play at their top level everyday. so this is where it starts. today. we have our best pitcher capping off a series with our rivals for the last time at shea, with all our player rested ready for the stretch run. coincedentally, there are now exactly 17 games remaining on our schedule. for an entire season, the mets have been wanting one thing more than any other, and that is a do-over of last season. we don't quite have our 7 game lead, but we do have a 3 game lead, and that is just fine by me. In june we would have been thrilled to be in this position. now lets close the door this time! time to put some distance between us and the phils!
however, with the way the phillies are playing and the way the brewers are playing, me may end up getting the wild card even if we don't win the division. or the phils might win the wildcard. who knows? we'll find out in 2 weeks. lets go mets!
could be worse
You could be doing my 8-hour shift plus the 3 hours of o.t. and miss the whole thing. Mind you, I'm in Minnesota so it's not like I get to see the games anyway. It's just the ESPN GameCast for me, but I'll manage fine. It got insane at work the other day when I was telling a Brewers fan that they'd better take care of Philadephia--no sign of it so far. He said he hoped they would too but that Philadelphia would pass the Mets. I told him they could do whatever they want in the Central as long as we can shut Philadephia our of both the division and the WC. It got even more complicated when two Cubs fans showed up. It's insane when you work with people from all over.
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OK, now we got our first two runs on the board and Milwaukee's chipping into the 5-run Philadelphia headstart. Let's keep 'em both going, folks.
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Ugh, bases loaded and nobody out, Easley grounds in to a DP, we don't even get a run out of it like on a 6-4-3. Schneider gets an IBB and Santana K's. I'm glad we didn't bite and PH for Santana there with two outs but still, that inning could hurt in the long run.
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Surprised we couldn't do a bit more against Hampton but at least he's out of there. With the new school year starting, he must be off to Colorado again to check out the schools.
Actually, Hampton was the only Met I've ever run into casually. I was working on W. 61st by Columbus Circle and he was apparently living at the top of that Trump hotel they had just built at Columbus Circle across Broadway from me and I wound up holding the door for him as he came out of $tarbuck$ with an armful of coffees. I hear he never really went out of the hotel much, so it's no wonder he never got to like the city much. I did the same thing for Lily Tomlin later that week....
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I rest my case. Why on earth would you take Santana out even after 7 innings to replace him with Schoeneweis in a tight game??? Bases loaded, no one out. What a surprise.
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GREEEEEAAAAAATTTT. Down 3-2 now. Again, with Schoeneweis and Heilman you'd think there might be some statistical possibility of every getting through an inning scoreless or getting out of a situation like that allowing 1 or at most 2 runs but nope not these guys. Gotta let Atlanta clear the bases and then some.
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And after a listless outing like this and not winning the first game with Santana (barring a comeback), how do you feel about game 2 odds with our nobody starter? I hated hearing we were playing a doubleheader today--it's so hard to sweep them (yet seems easy to get swept, the math there doesn't add up). Plus everyone who was hot would cool down, which seems to have happened. The bullpen isn't benefitting from extra rest either.
another crushing bullpen blow
johan did great. he went 7 innings and let up 0 runs. i really bet that had he been kept in he'd have won us the game. we are paying the dude hundreds of millions of dollars. i don't know why we aren't more comfortable with him than any of our other pitchers in any situation in which he could pitch. if the game is even close, i say keep him in the full 9. we have to cling to this lead over 2 weeks. that's it. 2 weeks. and while our bullpen has been doing decent recently, we just blew another 8th inning lead. salvaging the split in the nightcap is a must.
yup and they did it
But this is the time of year when it's just not good enough. We dropped ½ a game 2 days ago when we were idle and now another ½ today by not winning the game we were supposed to win. It's all well and good winnning the 2nd game, but DH sweeps are rare and this should've been one.
mets.com spin
Love the mets.com headline:
"Niese helps Mets extend NL East lead to 2.5"
Yeah, extended from the 3-game lead we started the day with...
Splitting The Doubleheader
These come from ahead losses are killing us. The lead is razor thin. No doubt that the Niese performance helped. It is very obvious that the Phillies are not going away. So we must win-win-win to get the NL East title.
Sunday game
Ugh, here we go again. Another starter leaves in the 7th or 8th with a slim lead. Heilman/Schoeneweis comes in and automatic rally. Two of three guys faced, two hits and outta there. Why is either of these guys in the majors? Just hope Smith can undo the damage.
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And he does, two K's, great job. I trust Smith so much more than either of those two other clowns.
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Grrrr, Philly just went up 7-3, not going to make up any ground, but we can take care of our own and force them to sweep if they're even going to pick up ½ a game. Split and they lose ½. Boy, Milwaukee is just AWOL this whole series. All I heard all year was Milwaukee's so good, Milwaukee's so good, where are they??
Praying For A Phillies Loss
Terrible, just terrible. This is like a two engine plane flying on one engine. Luis Ayala continues to be the guy who can save two out of three games and that is not acceptable. If the Phillies win tonight they will be one stinkin game back. Ugh.
Better to have them 1 game
Better to have them 1 game back than be 1 back. Why did Joe Smith come out? You get one guy effective and take him out after two hitters. If that's the whole season there, so be it.
end of my rope
remember when i did that real long post about being at the end of my rope with our bullpen and our late game losses? yah. my rope was just extended again. we are becoming the laughingstock of the league. have frikin 27 BLOWN SAVES!!!!!!!!!! 27! we have entered the 9th inning with a lead and exited the 9th inning with a loss 11 FRIKIN TIMES! the phillies, on the other hand, have not done that once this entire season! if the phillies had blown 11 9th inning leads and we had blown none, we would be leading by (brace yourselves) 22 games in the NL east. well, probaly not cuz the marlisn would be ahead of the phils then, but still. that is it, folks. to sole difference between crushing the phillies and being neck and neck with them is out bullpen. last year our whole team collapsed. this year our whole non-bullpen team has done great. our bats are on fire. wright, delgado, beltran, reyes, and even church when healthy are having excellent seasons. lineup has been far better than the phillies. the starting pitching? same deal. johan has dominated, pelfrey has done very well, and maine and perez have both succeeded. pedro is a passable number 5. again, our sp's outdeul the phillies. the only reason the mets are even talking about the phillies instead of the world series right now is their bullpen. the phillies hav enot blown a single 9th inning lead this season. the mets have blown 11. i can see like 3 or 4 being an acceptable total, as gaffs do happen now and tehn to everyone. but had we been far worse than most teams and blown, say, 6 ninth inning saves this year, we would be 6 games agead of the phillies instead of 1 or 1.5. why the media isn't blasting the mets bullpen for this as a ridiculous spectacle of sucking is beyond me. it is infuriating because nearly every batter and starting pitcher on this team deserves to be going to the postseason and the majority of philly's everyday players other than utley and howard and hamels don't, yet if this keeps up they will be going and we won't be. so far, we are 3-2 in the "12 games in a row that are very easy which we should definetly win" part of our schedule. both losses have been on our bullpen. we need 5 of 7 minimum in our next 2 series.
Condition Critical
The scary thing about this situation is the fact that the Mets have no answer to the bullpen debacle. There isn't a pitcher in the pen right now who we can count on to get three outs when we need them. At this point in the season it's up to Jerry Manuel to figure something out. You can't win if you can't close. Really scary.
And just as scary is our SP fatigue
as the bullpen falters more and more, we need to rely on the starting pitching to go deeper and deeper. and that only hurts us. pedro has a short fuse already and as he showed tonight we can't leave him in after 5 innings and expect anything better than our bullpen. johan and pelfrey are great and can go deep, but pelfrey's never had this much of a workload on his shoulders before and showed signs of deteriorating in his last start. that may be why we are giving him nearly a full weeks rest before his next go. and with maine out until at least the postseason, maybe not even then, we need to rely on perez and niese (who looked great, albeit, and is our freshest arm) to carry us later and later into games. and that can wear their arms thin too. obviously we have to win the division first, but even if we make the playoffs i'm worried our guys will be too shot to do anything. i guess all the other teams have this same problem though.
Phillies
But, as always, why do all these issues seem to affect only us as we stagger to the finish line and every other team seems to be getting stronger now? Are the Phillies having any of these pitching wear-down issues? What are their complaints if any? I saw the ESPN preview on their game and had to laugh when I saw it said they had no significant injuries. Ain't that the truth.
(Bad) Luck of the Draw?
It could be simple bad luck. I think that part of the issue is the fact that so many of the Mets key players in recent years have been older. Pedro, El Duque, Alou, Wagner, Valentin, Easley. The fact is that most of the injuries have effected the over 35 players. John Maine and Ryan Church would be the exceptions in 2008. But Ryan Church is back and Maine might be able to pitch in relief soon.
true
Can we expect Maine to be effective in short relief though? Maybe if we need a 4- or 5-inning middle relief job a la Sid Fernandez, but I wouldn't expect much from Maine.
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