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Nice to see My Captain starting his season off with two home runs. Go Tek!
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Posted: |
Apr 22, 2009 - 9:43 PM
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By: |
ANZALDIMAN
(Member)
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The Mets are not playing well, either offensively or defensively and on the mound, and things will need to change soon lest we hear the cries for Jerry Manuel to be fired. Manuel has been cool and calm during the press conferences after the losing games in his office, and if he has some magic plan to turn this situation around, he surely has not told any reporters about it. He's been given this deck of cards to deal with, and he will have to manage the team he has. They are set. The bottom line is that the Mets are playing flat in almost every game I've seen this season. The clutch hitting is not there, they are leaving a ton of runners on base, and with the starting pitching (other than Santana) being as bad as it's been, they should be grateful to have the 6 wins they have already. The only saving grace so far early on is that both the Phillies and Braves have been playing below 500 baseball so far as well to open the season. The Marlins jumped out early in the division winning games but recently have hit a slight bump in the road. The Mets cannot hide their lack of hitting and mediocre starting pitching so far to open 2009. John Maine got shelled tonight, and put the Mets in a hole early tonight against St. Louis. Mike Pelfrey has been no better so far either. Oliver Perez was "Bad Ollie" yesterday, and as is his pattern, he pitched well into the middle innings and then collapsed when the Mets had a lead, and gave it right back to the Cardinals. The middle innings are his bugaboo, where he brain farts and suddenly starts becoming a thrower rather than a pitcher. Perez has been around now for 7 years in the big leagues (He's still only 27) and many pitching coaches in his career have no doubt tried time and again to fix this, but none so far it appears have succeeded. With Oliver Perez, you get "Good Ollie" and "Bad Ollie" and you either live and die with that or you sign Derek Lowe and be done with him. The Mets decided to cheap out on Lowe, not upping their offer to him this winter and allowed him to sign with Atlanta. They got stuck having to re- sign Perez, who was still available (I wonder why?) as all of their other options in the free agent starting pitching sweepstakes ran dry. When your next "reliable" starter in the rotation after ace Johan Santana is retread Livan Hernandez, you are foolishly playing with a lit firecracker that is eventually going explode in your face. We'll see how it goes from here, but right now the Mets at this point look do not like a contending ballclub this season. I hope they surprise me.
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Posted: |
Apr 24, 2009 - 8:55 PM
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By: |
ANZALDIMAN
(Member)
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The Mets got yet another superb effort tonight by Johan Santana against Washington. Two time Cy Young Award winner Santana has earned every bit of the money in the contract he was given by the Mets, and is an ace in every respect. The Mets broke their losing streak in large part tonight because of him. Another 10 strikeout performance, keeping the Mets in the game through the middle innings. I don't blame him one bit for getting quietly frustrated when the Mets do not support him offensively, because very much like Seaver he is a workman out there on the mound and gives it his all, and does not like to see either his team, or a good pitching performance go down in flames due to a lack of run support. Give him a chance to win, score some runs for him when he pitches, and Johan Santana will not only keep you in a ballgame, he will win you 20 games during the regular season and give you hope for appearances in post season play. He cannot do it alone, but he's carried this team on his powerful shoulders since he came aboard. And he is a joy to watch when he pitches.
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