|
The Mets lost to the D’Backs by the score of 10 to 4 in Arizona.
For a recap and boxscore, go to SNY.
…well, i was happy to see the Mets fight back from down four to bring the game within one run…however, though Jorge Sosa and Aaron Heilman were able slip through two innings without giving up a run, while giving the team’s offense a chance to reclaim the lead, Duaner Sanchez entered the game, put runners all over the bases, which Scott Schoeneweis let cross the plate…it was all down hill after that…
…much like the case last season, the bullpen is just all over the road…guys who were great yesterday, are terrible today…guys who were terrible yesterday, are great today…they all look exhausted and off rhythm, and i can’t help but think they are overworked, which has everything to do with the team’s starting pitchers throwing a million pitches by the fifth inning, leaving Willie Randolph very little wiggle room for the coin he flips in the bullpen…
…it’s not that Jose Reyes isn’t patient enough, it’s that he just doesn’t keep himself compact and hit through the zone and hit the other way…he’s perpetually pull-happy, and it’s clear as day when he faces a pitcher like Brandon Webb…
…speaking of webb, he entered the day regarded as one of – of the not the – best pitcher in baseball, with a 1.98 ERA and having won six of six starts, yet the Mets were able to score four runs off of him…not that you get extra points for this, but it’s worth noting…
…i don’t really care, but it’s a bit much having D’Backs local announcer Mark Grace calling the Mets-D’Backs game on national television…which got me thinking…an interesting option could be to always have one home-town announcer from each team call the game, instead of these generic, uninvolved national announcers like Kenny Albert, Tim McCarver, etc…so, today, it could have been grace and Gary Cohen…or Ron Darling…i think this would be fun…
…i have never seen a catcher have more trouble with his equipment than Raul Casanova has with his…
…speaking of casanova, he capitalized on a fielding error by webb, which allowed a base runner and the inning to continue, by driving in an early run in the second…
…Carlos Delgado got in the way of a ground ball, jogging and lunging and deflecting the ball by Damion Easley, who was in prefect position to field it, and, as such, two runs scored to give arizona it’s first lead of the day…of course, had Mike Pelfrey not walked two batters it would not have been so bad…
…however, delgado sprung to life after that…he hit a big three-run home run to right off of webb, who uncharacteristically left a ball up over the plate, which closed the Mets to within one run…in the bottom of the inning, delgado picked a bad throw from David Wright out of the dirt to end the inning…had the ball gone by delgado, who knows what may have happened…
…speaking of carlos, i have been giving Carlos Beltran the benefit of a lot of doubts, but this is getting to be a bit alarming…it’s May, and he’s batting .208…
…one step forward, one step back…one step forward…one back…
The Mets end their three-game series with the D’Backs at 4 pm EDT pm today in Arizona, with Johan Santana facing Dan Haren.
It was nice to see Delgado “spring back to life” against Webb. ‘Course, it was mystifying as to why Moises Alou was out of the lineup, witha .474 average against Webb in 23 ABs . . . then I saw what he’s doing against Dan Haren, and maybe Willie’s saving him for today. 8-for-14, 2 2Bs, 2 HRs.
Also, Aaron Heilman didn’t give up any runs.
But, bringing in Scott Schoeneweis to pitch against a RH batter (or was he a switch hitter?) is just nuts.
he was a Switch hitter that had already done a lot of damage hitting lefty, so this turned him around to the right side. Not that he apparantly is any worse that way!
Willie said after Friday’s game Alou wouldn’t be playing Saturday .. I’d think it’s the “day game after a night game” thing. Alou hurt himself last year playing in one of those, and with him just getting back, they didn’t want to push it.
Thank you, guys, for setting me straight on those two things.
Matt, can you please stop with the excuse that the bullpen is overworked. We just had 2 days off this past week and have had 5 or 6 days off already this season. S while certain pitchers like Heilman have appeared in a high % of games, its not like we have been playing everyday. That being said, the starters need to pitch further into games or the pen will start to be overworked once the days off diminish and we start playing a few double headers.
Pelfrey’s first couple of innings spelled doom. Way, way, way too many pitches. Now I can almost see the disenchantment with Peterson. These guys need to be more aggressive and throw strikes — pitch to contact.
Duaner two days in a row was probably not the right call, but he’s the setup guy, and he’s the guy you want out there in that situation, in theory. I wonder if he’s not all the way back yet.
Beltran has always been ridiculously streaky. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that sometime this month he has one of his monster weeks and lofts his average closer to career norms.
He’ll either have a monster week, or we’ll find out that his knees/quads aren’t 100 percent and he’s going to take a week off and then come back on fire. Beltran’s tailspins always seem to coincide with his legs hurting, though at least he’s taking walks right now. Otherwise he’d be bigger dead weight in the lineup than Delgado right now (yesterday’s HR nonwithstanding).
“…one step forward, one step back…one step forward…one back…”
Gonna be like that most of the year.
And after every win people will post “Where are the Willie haters now?”
And after every loss people will post “Where are the Willie defenders now?”
It’s gonna be a long, long roller coaster ride.
I’m just glad we have Giuseppe Franco to help us ride it out.
Don’t forget your local sovereign bank!
When two good teams are competing, winning comes down to who wants it the most.
Hey maybe the Mets can learn from Ron Darling and stop this nonchalant garbage.
you just defined .500 baseball.
Enough to keep us frustrated.
And enough to stay the course and not make any major changes. Even more frustrating.
I’m really getting tired of this pen…so incosnistent! ANd when they do get outs, it’s usually a tight-rope act. I would like to see a stat on when we are trailing how the pen does in keeping the team close. Anytime this team is down by 1-2 runs late in teh game, the pen usually lets in 2-3 more runs, sealing the game. IT’s happended quite a bit over the course of the first month.
I really don’t like the way Casanova calls a game. I can’t wait until Schneider is back. I think Pelfrey for one will be greatly helped by Schneider. Look at his ERA with Schneider and without it is a whole run higher.
I’d love to see Schneider back in for that exact reason.
I am a bit worried about Beltran. I don’t question his ability, but I have never seen him play like this. His slumps don’t usually last a month. The upside is that he is taking a lot of walks. That is better than him hitting his patented chopper to the second base side. I really can’t even begin to calculate how many times I have seen that happen.
I do see the bats starting to come around now. Reyes and Wright are doing what they are supposed to do on a more consistent basis. Castillo is a decent 8 hole hitter. Alou’s presence is absurd. He changes the whole dynamic of a batting order, and that’s saying something for a 40 plus yr old guy.
Once Beltran snaps out of it, and hopefully he does, we will be in very good shape. The rotation will level itself out. These guys are talented, and as someone mentioned before, maybe they are attacking these hitters in the wrong way. That could be Peterson’s fault, it may not be. I am completely speculating when I say that, as obviously I am not in the clubhouse. It will be nice to have Pedro back.
All this being said, I’m a big Church fan. Even when I lived in DC watching him play for the Nats.
NYCSEQ,
In July of last year, Beltran hit .208
He’s currently hitting .208. And at least Beltran’s on base isn’t below .300. His OBP is .372 which is remarkably good for his batting average. Beltran is a VERY streaky player. He’ll be awful one month, below average w/ about a .230 avg for two months and then he’ll hit .350 for a month or two and he’ll be back up to hitting .265
I think a lot with Beltran has to do with the pitches he’s been getting. As you point out, he’s walking a lot, mostly thanks to Mr.Delgado having been “protecting” him for most of the season. Of course, even if Beltran was batting with the pitcher behind him he should still be batting closer to .270 than .200, but with Moises hopefully ready to play five times a week, pitchers will be forced to throw strikes to Beltran, and maybe he can get hot…
I think Alou will certainly help Beltran. Pitchers have been extremely careful with him, he’s really not seen much to hit at all so far. With Alou behind him they’ll have to stop nibbling, and we might start to see some of those mid-thigh mistakes he feasts on.
to be fair to david, his “bad throw in the dirt” that delgado saved was a beautiful barehanded catch on a hop. it was a great play that you don’t see many 3rd basemen make.
Also to be fair, though, the talk of Delgado being a below average glove consistently ignores how often he saves David’s throws. I don’t know if they keep this stat, but it would be very interesting to see where he ranks around the league in terms of number of runners successfully tagged out after throws pull him off the bag – I’d expect him to be right up there.
Matt’s last comment was by far his best, and it perfectly captures my feeling of this team:
Win a game, lose a game, play crisp, play sloppy, get a big hit, fail to get the big hit, get good starting pitching, get knocked out early, insert great relief, see the other team pull away late.
The word is inconsistant, and it perfectly describes our New York Mets.
Actually, the “word” is inconsistent.
actually, the “a” was for apathetic.
Now I realize Beltran hasn’t been swinging a hot bat lately, he doesn’t look great up there or anything, but other teams are really making an effort to stay away from him. His OBP is .372, and his average .208, that is remarkable. Obviously Beltran is as streaky as they get, so I’m sure he’ll come out of it, but right now, he’s not getting much to hit. He’s still getting on base though, so its not a total loss, and he’s still playing great defense. When he snaps out of the offensive funk, it should be a fun week.
he really didn’t have a spring training either. He’s a month behind.
I’m not worried about Beltran. He’s going to give us the .265/35/110 season. We all know it, but are just frustrated in waiting to see it start to happen.
if i remember correctly, Darling does the TBS weekly games now, so that will be a nice change from Grace’s slobberfest yesterday
it just strikes me as odd that when up 7-2, we see Smith/Feliciano/Sanchez, and when down 5-4, we see Heilman/Sosa. As it turns out, H&S did fine yesterday, but I thought the idea was to restore their (esp. Heilman’s) confidence in something like a…7-2…situation, no?
Can’t get too down on Sanchez and Scho when they have been very dependable so far. It will happen.
personally i think the problem with the pen is the number of appearances each reliever makes. i dont know if they are unable to go more than 1 inning or if willie just doesnt want them to. it seems like sosa is the only 1 of the bunch thats able to go more than 1. in a game like yesterday, i think you have to have these guys go 2 or more and keep the other guys fresh so they can hold the leads they get.
Well, it is worth wringing hands over the pen b/c they are totally unreliable now–not a good feeling.
Today we need a huge performance from Santana–seven IP for sure, eight IP really preferable. No gopher balls, please! Control and strikeouts will win it!
Well, overall the bullpen has been ok: 3.65 ERA, 11th in MLB. Heilman should come around, and Wagner will probably level off.
I’d like to see Wise get another opportunity–but not at the expense of Smith being sent down. Sosa should be waived. But with two guys that are arguably LOOGY’s and Smith being used as a ROOGY, we probably need Sosa as an innnings eater in the pen. With Alou back, I’d really consider moving Pagan down and going with Wise for a while as an extra arm.
Overall, we have 4-5 guys who should prove solid, which is more than you ask for: Wagner, Sanchez, Feliciano, Smith, and most likely Heilman.
agreed, an extra arm right now may be key, and Sosa is still kind of needed, since he’s really the only guy in the pen who can go multiple innings. Pagan had a nice start and all, but his value as a bench player is diminished, he doesn’t play good D and seems to hit better when given more chances, so sending him down makes sense. This is why a guy like Endy is valuable, his defense is just truly that good.
In other news, at least the Sillies managed to lose to the Giants last night. At home.
Not that scoreboard-watching is acceptable, especially at this point in the season, but at least we’re still only a half-game behind them, despite all our scratching around.
“One step forward, one step back, one step forward, one back.”
This, Matt, is the definition of the Mets over the last year (maybe a stepo and a half back at times) and the definition of a .500 team – which is what this team stocked with talent has become.
Tic-tock, Willie. Tic-tock. Tic-tock…..
I hope the roof is open for today’s game. Games played in domes are always grey-appearing and the sounds echoey. Just speaking from an aesthetic point of view… Go Mets, open-roof or closed!
For all the Beltran worriers out there, his BABIP is only .250, so he’s been unlucky. His predicted OPS (based on his line drive, ground ball, and fly ball percentages) according to the Hardball Times is .889, .142 points lower than his actual OPS.
Delgado has been even more unlucky, so be patient with him too.