Monthly Archives: September 2006

The Game…

The Pitchers…

The Lineup…

The Numbers…

The Bleachers…

…enjoy…

On September 18, the Mets finally clinched the National League Eastern Division…

…on the field, it looked like this…

…from the stands, it looked like this…

…outside the stadium, it looked like this…

…and this…

…and in the clubhouse, it looked like this…

…there was a lot of unwarranted criticism about the post-game celebration made by fans of the yankees…i think they lacked the necessary perspective to understand what we, as fans, and the mets organization were feeling…

…this was not just a win of a division…this was the end of two painful eras in mets history…the first being a four-year stretch in which this team and its fans had no direction whatsoever…and the second being a decade-plus nightmare that was dominated by the atlanta braves…

…both, however, officially ended on the night of september 18…and so we celebrated accordingly…

Once trailing 7–1, the Mets came back to defeat the Cardinals by a score of 8–7 on a Carlos Beltran walk-off home run at Shea Stadium on August 22…

…after the game i wrote the following…

…i love seeing Carlos Beltran show emotion, and smile, as he did while rounding first, with his fist held high, during his walk-off homer…he flipped his batting helmet, David Ortiz style, and jumped, leaped, pounced on home plate below a crowd of teammates hugging and high-fiving him…all the while, Willie Randolph was beaming, smiling, pumping his fist, looking very, very happy about his team…as he should…great, great scene, man…great scene…

…as i watch this clip, it occurs to me that this the first time all season that i, as a mets fan, felt like i was a fan of the absolute best team in the national league…

…i mean, i knew they were good, and had total confidence in their abilities, especially given that they were 14 games up in the nl east, and 12 games better than the cardinals at the time, but the excitement, the smiles, the cheers, the fist-pumping, the pile-up on home plate, and the utter jubilation, and so on, simply solidified it all in my mind…

On June 9, Jose Reyes was batting just .246 with a .310 OBP, leaving many fans and members of the media to question, once again, whether he could be the leadoff man that the Mets had hoped he could be…

Reyes collected 47 hits in 110 at-bats over the next three weeks bumping up his average to .300, along with a .355 OBP, while on his way to being the starting shortstop during this season’s All-Star Game…

On June 21, by hitting a leadoff home run, a double in the third, a triple in the fifth and a single in the eighth, Jose Reyes joined Wes Parker, Tommie Agee and John Olerud as the only players to hit for the cycle at Shea Stadium…

Keith Hernandez, who hit for the cycle in 1985, on Reyes, while appearing on SNY’s post-game following the kid’s cycle…

“We’ve seen Jose have spurts of greatness, and by spurts, maybe four games and then go back to four games where it looks like: how can he lose it that fast.  He’s maintained it, and this is a significant streak right here for him.  He seems much more relaxed.”…

“I’m watching him carefully.  I almost wanna think that maybe he’s turning the corner, because you get better with experience, you become more comfortable, you face the same pitchers year in and year out and your get familiar.  I think he may be on the verge of turning the corner, and that makes him a true veteran then.  Because he’s just wearing it out.  What I like is that he’s staying back, he’s not jumping out at the ball – he’s staying within himself and hitting the ball the other way.”…

“Let’s watch this hot streak.  He’s the type of hitter who can maintain it for a month.  Let’s see if he does it.”…

By mid-season, fans at Shea Stadium began chanting Reyes’s name to a classic melody made famous at soccer games all around the globe, which goes as follows…

On September 7, he hit the first inside-the-park home run of his career…

According to Kevin Kernan in the New York Post, Reyes ran from  home to home during the inside-the-parker in just 14.06 seconds…

…after which i noted the following…

…the best part about the homer was that reyes had a smile on his face as he slid headfirst across home plate, which was not needed since the ball had yet to reach the infield…priceless…

Earlier this week at ESPN.com, Jayson Stark and Jerry Crasnick debated who’s more valuable: Reyes or Yankees SS Derek Jeter…

…in other words, the boy has arrived…

During this season’s All Star break, David Wright became a star…

…i mean, we actually got to see it happen…right in front of our eyes…of course, we, as mets fans, already knew how special he was, but during the middle of june david hit the national scene with force…

…he finished second in the home run derby, had a huge night in the all-star game, appearaed on Late Night with David Letterman, and was seemingly the feature story for every major sports-media outlet…

…in the span of one week, the nation learned that the best young third baseman in baseball was on the mets, that he was a nice kid, with star quality, with an outstanding future ahead of him, and, of course, that he likes to rock the pastel shirts…as seen below…

On June 13, the Mets pulled in to Philadelphia with an eight game lead over the Phillies in the National League East, while in the middle of a 6–1 road trip, during which the Mets averaged eight runs per game…

While appearing on WFAN 660 AM on June 12, Mets C Paul Lo Duca had the following to say regarding his team’s coming series in Philadelphia…

“We’re playing well, but this is a series we need to go into and just bury them.  I mean, if we can come in here and win two of three, or even sweep them, we can move nine, ten games up in the loss column and that’s huge…

“So, this is a big series for us.  And I know they’re gonna be pumped up, because this is where they can try to cut the deficit in half.  So, we need to come out and play well, and, like I said, we can put them in the freezer and hopefully bury them by the end of the series.”…

During the ninth inning of game one, and the Mets sporting a two run lead with Billy Wagner on the mound with the tying run at the plate, David Wright made a sensational back-handed grab on a grounder to third, which he turned into a rally-killing double play. The Mets eventually won the game and swept the series two games later…

…that afternoon i wrote the following…

…so, i’m not sure things can get any better during a streak of games in the regular season…in some ways, it’s awkward – because, as a mets fan, i’m just not used to watching this type of success…i’m giddy…it’s strange…and i like it…i mean, they’re one game away from being 20 games over .500…two…zero…20…amazin…let’s hope it continues…

…i knew it, and you knew, though we didn’t want to admit it, but, the division was over that day…at that point, it was only a matter of time…

…i would hope even yankees fans can appreciate this…

…well done, hot foot…

At 12:35 am on Tuesday, May 23, Carlos Beltran hit a walk-off home run in the 16th inning against the Phillies at Shea Stadium, in a game that burned through 521 pitches, five hours and 22 minutes and 39 different players…

…following the game, i wrote that this was beltran’s first great moment as a member of the mets, a comment that many of my readers argued against…

…i then wrote…

…yes, beltran’s home run on friday against the yankees was huge, as was his home run in the first week of the season last year against the braves…

…however, there is a significant difference between those homers and the one he hit last night…when i think of the other two, i don’t see an exhausted fan base smiling in the middle of the night, i don’t see his teammates jumping, and smiling, and high-fiving him in relief and pride, and i don’t see a dejected second-place team moping off the field…

…the mets and their fans were tired last night, hoping for a hero, and we got one in the form of our highest paid player, a guy who had been beaten on all off-season for not doing the very thing he did last night…

…to me, it was his greatest moment to date because it won a game, it demoralized an opponent, it inflated his team’s fans, picked up his teammates in the middle of the night, and it proved he is capable of being a hero for this team…

On Saturday, May 21, at Shea Stadium, during the first of this season’s Subway Series match-up with the Yankees,

Heading to the ninth inning with a 4–0 lead over the Yankees, Billy Wagner allowed four runs and blew his third save in 11 outings.  The Mets went on to lose in 11 innings…

Talk radio and print media spent the next 20 hours mulling over a) whether Wagner should have been allowed to pitch, b) whether he can pitch in a game that isn’t a save situation and c) can he handle the pressure of pitching in New York…

The following night, in the final game of the series, Wagner rebounded allowing two hits and no runs for a save, giving the Mets a series win over the Yankees…

Wagner, on the save, as quoted by a variety of newspapers after the game…

“I felt like I had a lot to prove to my teammates and prove to this city that one tough outing ain’t going to break me.  I’m good enough to go back out there after taking a whipping.”…

Spanning 30 at-bats during the team’s first 27 games, Jose Valentin hit just .167, mostly in spots off the bench, while driving in just two runs…

During the second weekend in May, Willie Randolph inked Valentin to his starting lineup during back-to-back games in Milwaukee.  Valentin responded by going 6–for-9 with a home run and six RBI…

From that point on, Valentin hit .273 while knocking in 58 runs along with 18 HR in 90 starts at second base…

…his offense has slipped of late, though who on the mets hasn’t…what i have been most impressed by with valentin is how wise he appears on the infield…sure, he may make physical error, which will happen to everyone from time to time…however, he rarely if ever makes a mental mistake, he’s always in the right place, he makes heads-up plays and hustles all of the time…

…oddly enough, this is more-or-less the exact opposite of what we saw in Kaz Matsui, who was subsequently traded due to valentin’s mid-season success…

← Older postsNewer posts →

• Search

  Search for:

• MetsBlog Fan Confidence Rating

  

• Old Posts

  Select Month May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 February 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 September 2004 August 2004 July 2004 June 2004 May 2004 April 2004 March 2004 February 2004 January 2004 December 2003 November 2003 October 2003