Mets, Valdes Collapse
A day after the New York Mets got a wondrous game from R.A. Dickey, the pitching staff allowed the worst team in the NL to put up nine runs and beat them for the fourth time in four games.
The 9-6 loss to the Arizona Diamondbacks proves that the Mets are not going to be playing after the first week in October. That and the loss of Jason Bay for two weeks means its time to raise the white flag and let Jerry Manuel start making golf reservations for October 5th.
The Mets wasted a great game by David Wright, who hit two homers and drove in five runs in the first three innings as he helped the Mets overcome another first inning deficit.
On Friday, it was 3-0 before the Mets came to bat as Mike Pelfrey ended a horrendous month of July by giving up three first inning runs.
In July, Pelfrey went 0-3 with an ERA of 10.01 in 20.2 innings. Batters hit .429 against the pitcher who just six weeks ago was 9-1 and was in line for an early appearance in the All-Star Game. On the upside, the 5.2 innings he pitched on Friday were the most in any start this month as were the four strikeouts.
As bad as Pelfrey was on Friday, he wasn’t even close to being the worst Mets pitcher. That honor goes to Raul Valdes who didn’t record an out.
Valdes (2-3) allowed four hits, including two homeruns, all with two outs. When he entered the game the Mets were winning 5-4, after throwing 14 pitches the Mets were down 9-5. He was replaced by Manny Acosta who struck out all four batters he faced.
The Mets had seven hits (six from Wright and Jose Reyes combined). That means everyone else went 1-for 26, you can’t win many games when that happens.
The Mets even failed to make a splash before the trade deadline, adding the ever famous ‘player-to-be-named-later’ for Mike Jacobs. Just remember, it could be worse. Omar Minaya could have traded away a young pitcher for another Kris Benson. So, count your blessings.
Mets Should Do Nothing Before Trade Deadline
With the trading deadline less than two days away the New York Mets have yet to pull the trigger on any deals. Like everyone else, the Mets are in need of pitching, but now with Roy Oswalt on his way to Philly there is nothing worth going after.
Ted Lilly (Cubs) and Brett Myers (Houston) are some of the big names left, but the Mets don’t have the prospects to offer, unless either of these teams would like some second-tier prospects.
Any rumors that involved the Mets this season always included Jenrry Mejia or Jon Niese. It would have taken a top of the line starter before I would have traded either of them. Lilly and Myers aren’t worth either of the young Mets pitchers.
Niese is 23 and Mejia is 20 and both should make an impact on the Mets in the future, so trading either to rent a pitcher for 2 months is silly, especially since they are 7.5 games back in the NL East (5.5 in the wild card).
So, adding a starting pitcher seems highly unlikely at this point.
Where else could they add?
The infield? Not at first, short or third. The Mets have good young players at those positions already.
Maybe second base, but truthfully, how many second basemen make a difference in a pennant race? Any one that could make a difference is not going to be available to the Mets, or any other team.
The outfield? Not here either. In fact, the Mets are one outfielder heavy. The most obvious choice to leave New York woud be Jeff Francoeur. Not sure how much you could get for Frenchy, maybe another arm in the pen. Even then it wouldn’t be much more than another 7th or 8th inning guy.
How about at catcher? The Mets piece mail backstop situation has been fine, so far. Rod Barajas helped power the Mets in the beginning of the year, John Thole has been good as a rookie and Henry Blanco is the perfect number two catcher. Getting an upgrade at catcher would be a good idea, but then the Mets would have to get rid of at least two of the catchers.
The best bet for the Mets is to hang tight and not make any moves, unless they can get rid of Francoeur for some bullpen help. Seven and a half games is too many to make up in division and they would have to climb over five teams to win the wild card.
The Mets should stick with what they have now. The pitching has shown that it is good enough to win and if the hitting comes around, it would be enough to propel this team into the playoffs. They have shown that when everything is working together they can put together some impressive win streaks.
Another reason to stand with what they have is the Mets have a tendency to sell the farm for mid-level talent that never works out. Do I even need to go into the failures the Mets have had at the trading deadlines? I didn’t think so.
Stand pat and wait for next season.
Mets Lose, DVR Shortens Length Of Pain
Oh my effin god! Will this first inning ever end?
I’m watching the Mets/Cardinals game on dvr and its already 6-0. And Albert Pujols is up with the bases loaded. I’m wondering if I should even watch the rest of the inning, much less the rest of the game.
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Hooray, the inning is over. The only good news could be that Pujols left five men on base in one inning, probably for the first time ever in his career.
It should only be 2-0. Jose Reyes should have gotten to that ball up the middle, that was bs. You need to get to a ball hit by a pitcher. I don’t care if he is hitting in the 8-spot.
Someone named Crash Davis or Less Nessman drove in two runs in the bottom of the inning to at least make it semi respectable.
Its nice to see Darryl Strawberry at the game, instead of a mugshot of him on ESPN.
Its also always a little sad to see him as well. The 1-b of All-Time Most Disappointing Mets. Even with all his problems, he is all over the Mets Offensive Career lists. Homeruns, RBIs, runs and walks, all have Strawberry at the top. He places in the top 10 in just about everything else.
Then nothing happens forever. Johan Santana finally gets pulled after allowing a career high 13 hits, he also blew his chance to be NL Pitcher of the Month.
Another cut in to see A-Rod go for 600 homers. He has the most at bats between 599 and 600 homeruns, which is an odd stat. Nice to see the best two on that list are the true homerun kings. Babe Ruth had 1 AB between 599 and 600 and Hank Aaron had 2.
Angel Pagan with a blast to make it 7-5. Is it too little too late, or the start of something good. Lets see what David Wright does.
He’s had a poor game, thrown out stretching out a single right before the Carlos Beltran homer, not hitting behind the hitter in his second at bat.
Nice, an infield single. Glad to see Wright still has some hustle in him.
There’s a depressing stat, the Mets have 13 come from behind wins all season, lowest in all of Major League Baseball.
Dude, I sware that the ESPN anchor who cut into the Mets game for another A-Rod update just called it ‘Shitty Field’.
Ike is the Man!!! Base hit! Tie game. Hell yeah!
Wait, what’s happening? Tony Larussa is going to the mound again. That never happens. I think he’s used at least four pitchers this inning. Now its up to Reyes to get the big hit. A walk loads the bases, but they can’t push it across.
Now its K-Rod vs Pujols and why do I have a bad feeling about this. Even with the slump. Its still Pujols. He is the best hitter in the game right now, and singles. The prick. Now Holliday will bury us, I can smell it.
Wow, he didn’t. Neither did one of the most hated opponent, Yadier Molina.
Bottom of the ninth. For the Mets its gotta be a walk-off victory. In fact, now that we are in the 9th, that’s the only way the Mets can win.
Molina is still up there as most hated opponent after throwing Reyes out. I don’t blame him for running, Luis Castillo isn’t going to hit it over anyone’s head, so Reyes needed to be on second. Plus, it took a perfect throw to get him, something that Molina does all too well. Dick.
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Okay, the Mets are playing with fire. You can’t give Pujols this many chances to beat you, he’s going to do it eventually. Or, since the way the season is going, right now. We get it Sutcliffe, there is something wrong with Pujols. You don’t need to let us know you watched him in high school, you sound like a stalker.
Its a good thing I set the dvr to record the game (3 hours), plus an additional two hours, because we just passed the four hour mark. I’ve learned the hard way to add time to sporting events. I missed the final of the UEFA Cup final two years ago, and the Ghana/Uraguay game in the World Cup because time ran out.
I just realized that we still have Oliver Perez in the bullpen and I know I just jinxed the game. F#$@!!!
I am tired. I am going to watch the game on fast forward. Its 2:30AM and I need to sleep. As long as Perez stays in the pen, I’ll be happy.
Watching games on fast forward, not so good. Pujols finally gets the hit he couldn’t all night to put the Cards up 8-7. All 8 of the Cards runs came with two outs.
The games ends with a whimper. A relief pitcher hitting in the 13th and Reyes popping out to end the game.
The Mets are now 11-21 in one-run games. That reason alone should cost Jerry Manuel his job.
Who Will Manage The Mets In 2011?
You would think a road trip where the New York Mets pitchers had an ERA of 3.67 they would be better than 2-9. The opposing teams scored three or fewer runs eight times but the Mets won just two of those games.
The Mets would have had a better record if the offense hadn’t been worse than anemic. In the 11 games on the West Coast the Mets hit .196 and scored just 23 runs. That’s a little more than two runs a game. It didn’t help that they hit just .154 (10-for-65) with runners in scoring position. This is what happens when Howard Johnson is your hitting coach.
The pathetic trip left the Mets 7.5 games back and just one game over .500 and it begs one question.
Who is going to coach this team next season?
Jerry Manuel’s tenure appears to be over. Right now he is four games under .500 for his Mets career (175-179) and in his only full season at the helm the Mets were 70-92.
Someone needs to be blamed for the Mets failure to live up to expectations and that normally means the manager gets the axe. Fine by me.
There will be more than a few managers looking for jobs this off season and the carousel will be spinning wildly. The Mets will be looking for a big name, someone with experience and someone not afraid of coaching in New York.
My choice is Bobby Valentine.
Bobby V is the only manager in Mets history to lead the team to the playoffs in back-to-back years. He knows how to coach in New York and he appeared to enjoy himself.
Could this be the reason he didn’t take the Florida job? That he knew the Mets would fade and Manuel would be out of a job? That plenty of other teams may be looking for a manager and he would have his choice?
Who would you want to manage the Mets next year?
Leave a comment with your choice.
Mets Lose In 13
Anyone who didn’t see this coming raise your hand.
Now, curl your fingers into a fist and punch yourself in the face for being so stupid.
Oliver Perez pitching = Mets losing.
The New York Mets lost 3-2 to the Los Angeles Dodgers in 13 innings. It was another painful, walk-off loss for the Mets. That’s 11 or 12, I’ve lost count.
But the loss was inevitable the instant Oliver Perez stepped on the mound. It didn’t matter if it took one hitter or one inning, it was coming. Like winter.
Similar to his first appearance, Perez squirmed out of a jam, which -amazingly enough- wasn’t even his fault. He entered the game in the bottom of the 12th, runners on second and third with just one out. He got Andre Ethier to foul out, then intentionally walked Rafael Furcal to load the bases.
That’s right, he walked someone intentionally.
Perez got the final out of the inning on a fielders choice off the bat of Jamey Carroll.
At this point Perez had a 0.00 ERA since coming off the DL. Yes, fine, he only had pitched two innings, but still, that’s good. Also, with those two-thirds of an inning his ERA on the season dipped below 6 to 5.97.
Saying the Mets went meekly in the top of the 13th inning is an understatement. They hadn’t had a baserunner since the ninth inning, when they got a pair of walks; and their last hit came back in the sixth inning off the bat of Jose Reyes when he tied the game at 2.
After Reyes tied the game in the sixth, Luis Castillo hit into a double play with the bases loaded to end the inning. The Mets are hitting a major-league worst .209 in bases-loaded situations this season.
It didn’t take long for Perez (0-4) to lose the game in the bottom of the 13th. He got Matt Kemp to fly out on a 3-0 pitch. Swinging on 3-0? You think the Dodgers know Perez only has batting practice stuff. The game ended when James Loney hit the second pitch he saw into the right-center bleachers.
Game over. Season over.
