Loading ...After a disappointing road trip the Mets open their final homestand, and the final week of the season tonight at Shea against the Cubs.
“We’ve got to close the deal out at home. We’ve got to give Shea Stadium a nice send off,” manager Jerry Manuel said. “We have the opportunity. It’s right in front of us.”
Of course, the Mets had the same chance last year, but went 1-6 the final week.
Here’s something you never heard before. It’s from David Wright.
“We’re going to see what we’re made of,” he said, in what could be prophetic either way, this time next week.
Posted under New York Mets
This post was written by NYMR Archive on September 22, 2008
Funny, Wright said the same line last year in the midst of the collapse. Instead he should have said, “We’ve shown that we aren’t made of much over the past two weeks. This last week, we’re going to change a lot of people’s minds and hope our bullpen doesn’t give up an average of two runs an inning.
Looks like the Cubs aren’t giving us any breaks… they’ve got their “A” lineup in there.
Aaand, the Braves, of course, are starting team scrubs against the Phillies. No McCann or Chipper or Escobar (although the last 2 didn’t really play against us).
One can only hope that Jurrjens is lights out.
gotta have faith ladies and gents.. Let’s Go Mets
interesting question here for everyone as we sit and wait. Would you rather the mets go 5-2 over the last 7 but the Brewers play lights out and go 6-0 and steal it. Or would you rather the mets go 2-5 and back into the playoffs because of a miserable brewer team.
i just want in.
Glad to see the bats have shown up tonight. Marquis has control issues and everyone went up swinging on the first or second pitch. Oh well….
Cool… 1-0 Phillies 2 batters in.
Does anyone know the song that was played when Murphy came to bat? Sounded Celtic, maybe Dropkick Murphies?
Mackey Sasser… you surprised by that? The Phillies won’t lose another game this season, I think that’s pretty clear. Who cares about the division… JUST GET IN
JM - It is dropkick murphy - I’m shipping up to Boston.
If the Mets don’t win the division, they’ve really shot themselves in the foot since they’ll get the Cubbies instead of the Dodgers or Dbacks. You never know in a short series whether the Mets would actually match up better w/ the Cubs, but b/w the fact that they kill lefty pitching and would run out Zambrano, Harden, and Dempster in a row, you’d have to think they’d be tougher than anyone from the NL West.
That Dropkick Murphy song is the same song that Papelbon uses when he comes in.. he’s been using it for a few years now.
A two out RBI whats that….
Oh, thanks Bob.
Gotta love Ronny: “this is how the Cubs role.”
JM.. it’s unrealistic to think they can win the division with how hot the phils are opposed to how cold the mets are. It also looks like one of those nights that Jason Marquis will throw a gem, 8ip, 2h, 0er. Sad, but true.
I think the Phils are like 13-2 against the Braves this season. Better chance they lose to the Nats.
In looking ahead, and assuming the playoffs, the Mets figure to get in as the wildcard and don’t match up well with either the Cubs or Dodgers because they won’t have the home field and because of their bullpen.-JD
Marquis owns Beltran. … Phillies up 2-0.-JD
This is why you can’t have a guy who can’t hit it out of the infield batting in an RBI position like the 7th slot.
Castillo should have been batting 2nd.
Offense is killing this team as much as the pen…. 1 and 3 one out Castillo cant get him home……they got lucky to score…. Ramon should be tried at 2B because neither of the others can get it done….
Gift run, but will take it
Mackey: Ditto. That was a horrible at-bat. They were lucky to get the run in.-JD
Castillo has really been awful the whole season. I agree, try Martinez; maybe he could have hit a fly ball there at least. And though neither can hit, Reyes is a better defender than Castillo.
niese looks pretty good early but 60 pitches is a lot thru 3… mets need to get to marquis
To say the offense is killing this team as much as the bullpen is absolutely short sighted you’re talking about a team second in the league in runs with the 2,3,4 RBI guys in the league. Granted there are spots that they miss but that stuff is only magnified due to a horrendous bullpen.
Regarding the comment by the offense…
It’s clear the bullpen has major issues, so to compensate as a team, this offense CANNOT squander any scoring chance they have.
Sure, they may have some good stats individually and even collectively compared to other teams, but it’s clear to anyone who has watched this team that they don’t score nearly as much as they should.
David,
i’m talking about down the stretch taking 4-2 leads against last place teams past the seventh inning isn’t clutch enough in a pennant race, IMO. Also the five run average per game is lead leading but its also a bit decieving form blow out games….
Mackey: Bottom line with most any major league bullpen this would be a 95 + win team anyone whos watched this team and understands baseball can see this.
ED: When was the last truly blowout game. Hell they score 10 the phillies get 9. I dont really see anything as a blow out.
keep believing
I think it is fair to say if either the bullpen or the offense played up to expectations the Mets could have already clinched the division by now. However, to pick one, the bullpen has been the greater disappointment.-JD
ED: One more thing just to argue my point here. Most people when bitching about the mets offense point to the phillies offense as the holy grail. Well last week vs the braves the Phils put 8,6,4 runs, meanwhile this past weekend the mets put up 9,4,7. Phils swept mets lost 2 of 3. Damn the offense sucks huh.
Sending the runners by Lou. He’s not taking this easy.-JD
you almost have to laugh at that garbage
Holy cow
everyone knew the curveball was coming there. Either way you’ve now put your offense in a position where they must score 7 against the best team in the league while your bullpen holds them scoreless. But everyone is right the offense is just as much to blame
Wow! How does a pitcher hit a grand slam? This kind of stuff shouldn’t happen to a team that expects to get into the playoffs.-JD
unreal
Of course, this is piling on. But, when you look at the problems with this team, to have a inexperienced guy like Niese starting a game of this magnitude only illustrated starting pitching (depth) is also a problem.-JD
make that 8 runs now. God the offense sucks
You have to think Figueroa isn’t really the answer, either.-JD
Does Piniella have any resentment to the Mets because they wouldn’t trade for him and he ended up managing in Tampa for four years? The Mets were wise not to since the Mariners wanted Jose Reyes. Hiring Art Howe was not wise. But Piniella did end up in Chicago and that franchise should dominate the mostly small market NL Central if they can do things right.
Our best hope for a playoff spot is the Brewers have Guillermo Mota and Eric Gagne in the bullpen. Maybe we should thank Bud Selig for devaluating the regular season by adding a wild card in 1994, otherwise the last 20 years would have been real horrible instead of just horrible.
Dan: I don’t think so. Lou landed on his feet.-JD
Marquis is a lifetime .205 hitter with 4 home runs in 438 at bats so it’s not too surprising. But still embarrasing.
Good play by Church. You come back one run at a time and you need runners.-JD
JD: Impossible to come back one run at a time when you’re guarantee to give up at least 3-4 more.
David: I stand corrected. You’re probably right.-JD
The smart ass in me says that’s a nice job to advance the runner to third with the double play so he could score on a wild pitch.-JD
I don’t agree that the bullpen was a big dissapointment. The bullpen was horrible last year and the only moves made were to dump Mota and add Wise. So why would a horrible pen get better with basically no movement made to it?
I agree with Harry and omar needs to be taken to task for it.
At least the jets start up in a bit.
Harry: That is a good point. There was a lot of talk that the bullpen pitched too many innings last year because of the starting pitching. That hasn’t changed. The pen, weak to begin with, has been overworked. That said, they expected more from Heilman and Feliciano than they received, and losing Wagner was a blow.-JD
You are right John, probably not. Just thinking about Piniella he must have a good autobiography in him (or the subject of one) is he chooses to right one. Stuck in the minors in the 1960s, traded away from the expansion Seattle Pikots to become Rookie of the Year. Spent a long time with the Bronx Zoo Yankees as a player/manager. Rebuilt the hapless Mariners into a contender. There has to be something with the Naimoli Devil Rays. And it could end with the Cubs winning it all this year (although as someone who despised the Leo Durocher/Ron Santo “Bleacher Bums” Cubs of the 1960s, that’s a disgusting thought.
Anthony: Yeah, you can almost hear the remotes clicking right now.-JD
If the Rays won it all, would their story be even more amazing than the 69 Mets?-JD
Relative to the rest of the league, the Rays have more talent than the 69 Mets. The Rays probably have more talent than the 2000 Mets, which I point out to show that there is a difference b/w a team with a bunch of budding stars that isn’t expected to win (the Rays) and a team that does a lot of it with smoke and mirrors (the 69 Mets).
I suppose the Rays would be a bigger story. They would have to win three rounds although one of those would be against the AL Central winners (you can’t take them lightly as Mike Francesa did in 2006). But the 1969 Mets did beat one of the greatest (sadly under-appreciated) dynasties in history in the Baltimore Orioles. Not sure if the Rays would be doing so.
I thin almost as amazin maybe even… They never lost 120 games but the Mets didn’t have to compete with teams like Bostona dn New York buying every player they wanted either.
Back to the pen, Nobody could have expected Heilman to make Mota look good, and Feliciano but Wagner was showing his age before the injury. He had a lot of blown saves and both managers were obviously babying him all year. But Minaya was just wrong to expect a guy like Sanchez to bounce back after being out so long. He needed a solid set up man/part time closer and he got Wise….. Even at the deadline he sat tight when guys like Rauch and Bradford were moved. Neither a star but both certainly better than any of these guys.
Harry, you are right about the pen. Maybe in the long run you will be right about Milledge. You were wrong about Randolph, though. Im glad hes a happy yankee now. (Or soon will be)
JM: The 69 Mets had a superb pitching staff, both starters and relievers. The offense was weak but with that pitching staff you didn’t need a powrhouse offense. The only staff that was better was the O’s.
Harry: Sanchez was a blunder. They had no realistic reason to think he’d bounce back. There has also been the lack of a quality long man this year, too. … The bullpen was a strength in 2006, but not keeping it intact was Minaya’s first mistake.-JD
The Rays do have some great budding talent which is not quite the same thing. Of course the early 1970s Mets would have had great talent if they had drafted Reggie Jackson instead of Steve Chilcott and held onto Amos Otis (or traded him for Joe Torre instead of Joe Foy) or Ken Singleton (like hire a real hitting coach instead of having Ralph Kiner try to teach him to hit like Ralph Kiner). And Nolan Ryan, how could I almost forget him?
Sadecki: Randolph was a lousy manager. I’ll certainly give you that. But, Omar treated him like dirt so somebody had to defend him. But I’ll give you Randolph. And Milledge, I just wish he would have been dealt for relief help. I think that you can always find a decent bat to put in the outfield. And Tatis, Murphy and even Evans show that. And in 06 if you remember Randolph put Valentin in the outfield before he replaced Matsui. Remember that wekend in Milwaukee when he benched Floyd and Valentin got his stroke back? Willie’s finest hour!!!
If Alou played 80 games this offense is a different team…
I think Omar went into tweak mode once he put the 06 team together which the Angels learned was a mistake (02 WSC 03 struggled same team), but it’s taking Omar too long to realize that.. Your success one year doesn’t equate to success the next… Basically this is the same team from three years ago with Santana replacing Glavine
Not addressing the pen was a huge mistake
Harry, the offense was beyond weak. None of the position players, other than Cleon Jones and Tommie Agee, hit 70 RBI. They were atrocious, and relied on timely hits from guys who would never have another one. To say they were weak is an understatement.
JM: Except for Agee and Jones and Harrelson (who could not hit) all the players were platooned so you can’t look at the stats in the mode you do today with 5 man benches and virtually no platoon.
To Edfever: If Alou played 80 games!!!!!!!
You and Omar and who else thought it could happen. And he would have done what better than Murphy has done?
Harry,
Alou is one of the best sluggers any of us will ever see, I like Murph alot but you cant put him in Alou’s league… There were many who expected that many games out of Alou, which of course is wishful thinking
The classic games in the 1969 season was the Sept 12th doubleheader against Pittsburgh where Don Cardwell and Jerry Koosman both pitched 1-0 games and both drove in the winning runs. Don “Big Daddy” Cardwell was a good hitting pitcher, Koosman was about as lousy as they got (set a record for strikeouts by a pitcher as a batter the previous year. I wonder if he still holds it).
Looking up the team, all 8 starters were 26 or younger (they have Kranepool list instead of Clendenon. I always think of Clendenon as the starter because the Orioles had 4 starts from left handed pitchers and Hodges went with the platoon.
But few of them really developed after that, maybe Kranepool as a platoon/pinch hitter. But they were a weak hitting team and Hodges had the right amount of platooning and luck while Durocher played his starters everyday and the team wilted.
I wonder if Hodges’s philosphy was more based on “use what you got” or if watching his Dodger teams of the 1950s which featured “same guys everyday” get beat most Octobers by the platooning Yankee teams of Casey Stengel.
ED: With a healthy Alou for 80 games they might have won a few more games. Hard to guess how many, but certainly not enough to make up for 29 blown saves.-JD
Now you guys know what I was talking about when I said if we win the first two, the second two are house money. No one expected the mets to split this series, now it’ll be nice if we take one out of four as you can chalk Pedro up for a loss on Thursday and who knows what coin flip will deliver Wednesday.
If we are going to criticize Minaya for not building up the bullpen (which is fair), shouldn’t we also mention we would be trailing Milwaukee if he didn’t trade Anna Benson for John Maine?
Because Maine contributed exactly what down the stretch?
JD - once again all were going to fall is somewhere between 1-4 games short which Alou certainly could be valued at
The Jets / Chargers game has worse ball control than the Mets relievers.
Dan: When you look at the Benson deal, he was dealt for Jorge Julio, who didn’t contribute much other than being traded for Orlando Hernandez.-JD
Slappy should be benched for the rest of the year…. I’d try Ramon and if he looked bad then A. reyes and his .220 bat…
The next one of these jerks who hits into a double play with first and second none out should be castrated.
JD- why does Marlon keep getting chances
ed: Maybe many wished for 80 games from Alou but I doubt many expected it. Alou’s been a very good player but to say he’s one of the best sluggers we’ll ever see is quite the stretch. I’ve seen plenty of sluggers better than Alou. And Alou played his ball down the stretch last year, and how much did that help?
Dan: One of my Pirate friends hates that double 1-0 header as much as we older Metsies love it for life.
Ed: There’s another one who has worn out his welcome. He’s contributed a few quotes and a couple of predictions, but other than that not too much.-JD
Phillies have blown it open.-JD
In terms of pure hitting talent, I agree w/ Ed. Alou is absolutely sick. Woulda been a HOFer if not for the injuries.
The offense contributes as well.. Church hits a gapper and a two run deficit doesnt seem that bad
JM: The perfect DH.-JD
Harry,
he played 18 years with a lifetime .300 BA and a .519 Slg. there are many including myself who consider him one of the best hitters of his generation
JD, he wasn’t a bad fielder in his prime. He usually judged balls pretty well, played fearless, and was pretty adept at the Beltran art of sliding knee catches. If by the perfect DH you mean that it might have kept him healthier, that is probably true, but he was far from the butcher say, Pat Burrell or Manny are.
Little rally? Eh? Eh?
JM: Didn’t mean the DH comment in relation to his defense, but that if he played the last three or four years he might not have been so vulnerable to being injured.-JD
That’s Ok Ed: You think he was great, i think he was good. Whatever. He still shouldn’t have been renewed for this year. It was one more example of the GM loving older ready for retirement players and giving them more years than he should have.
Is Alou going in the Hall? If he makes it, I’ll admit to your evaluation. If he gets in will his plaque list all his DH stints?
Really can’t pin anything on Niese.. as has been said a rookie shouldn’t have been put in this position, however, you also don’t let a pitcher sit for 9 days and expect him to come out sharp as a knife. In a regular rotation slot, Niese is going to be a nice 4 or 5 for us.