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One of the few bright spots in last night’s game was Jose Reyes, who had two hits, two steals, a walk and a run scored. 
In this week’s installment of “The Starting Nine” on ESPN.com, Jerry Crasnick pays tribute to MLB’s top base-stealers and ranks Reyes as numero uno.
Crasnick writes:
“Rickey Henderson, Vince Coleman and Tim Raines were risk takers at heart, and so is Reyes. He feeds off the buzz in the stands and was born to unnerve pitchers and make catchers antsy.”
…jose’s play has been very encouraging lately, especially at the plate…now if only the rest of the lineup can follow…
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At the moment, I don’t think many fans are interested in silver linings, moral victories, or a bright spot.
We want results…If not, we want someone’s head on a stick! NUF SAID!
Speak for yourself. I am encouraged by Reyes’ play and don’t like to always focus on the negative. At least there is one guy along with Church who I like watching right now. Reyes appears to be getting in a groove and even his last out of the game last night was scorched.
Someone has got to turn this team around so why not Reyes?
It’s gonna take more than Reyes waking up and Church keeping up his stellar play. But, I admire and envy your ability to stay positive in the midst of the nightmare this franchise has become.
It is the only thing keeping me sane about this team. If I were to look at the negative and focus on Willie having lost his team, Beltran losing all of his power, Alou getting hurt standing in the OF last night, Anderson running 3/4s of the way to a fly ball and stopping the other night, Castillo making no contact and not making the defensive plays, Delgado…well I’ll leave him alone because I didn’t expect much, I would drive myself nuts.
So yeah, Reyes and Church are keeping me afloat.
Correct Gipper. I didn’t think it would be possible for this season to make me feel worse about last year, but it has. Clearly ‘07 was the final squandered chance for this group of guys. If ‘06 was akin to ‘00, we’re clearly into ‘02-’03. Awful
Thus the Mets cycle. A few years of good ball, followed by double the years of pain.
Seriouly, I remember the fun rebuilding of 84, 85, then joy in 86! into 87-8 when we thought we had a dynasty in the making only to fall rapidly backwards to the insanity of the 90s (all this after the dark ages of the late seventies/early 80s).
*seriously
This offense is built around the Big Three, Reyes, Beltran and Wright. The Mets need those three to produce in order to succeed. All three have not been consistent this season but rather spotty. For instance, Wright has crushed left handed pitching, batting .457, but is only hitting .224 against right handers. The only consistent bat has belonged to Ryan Church.
true, although I still think Reyes is the most important of those guys. I know sabermetrics says “speed doesn’t matter” or some such nonsense, but the fact is, when Reyes is hitting, he changes the game. When he’s on base pitchers worry about him more than the hitter. He makes things happen for the rest of the team. The best baseball I’ve ever seen from the Mets was that road trip in ‘06 where they scored a run in the first inning of like 13 straight games, and Reyes was the catalyst, playing the best baseball of his career. If he really is turning it around, this team should be in decent shape going forward.
pfft, 2, 3 or even 5 guys cant will a team into decent shape when the rest of the roster has given up on the manager.
Offense is all built on momentum. Building off of what the previous batter or batters did. And for the Mets this season that momentum hasn’t been there. They’ve had chances, especially early in games, to build it and bury a team but have let it slide. For instance, the second game in LA. While the Mets did have a 4-1 lead early, with the opportunities they had in those first 3-4 innings, the score should’ve been 7-1 and the game virtually over. They let the Dodgers hang around and retake the lead at 5-4 and the Mets never got there offensive momentum back. You could say the same thing about the first inning of the first game of this current series. The Mets were up 1-0 and had the bases loaded with one out. Two line drives produce nothing and the offense has never gotten that momentum back. If just one of those line drives produces a hit and a 3-0 lead, the series might have played out differently.
Bottom line. Offensively, they’ve not seized enough chances when they’ve been there.
Of those three, the one that told Jimmy Rollins that the Mets were the team to beat has been the worst.
yup. F you beltran, seriously. So indicitive of the fact the Mets should just avoid high priced free agents like the plague.
Question…were you saying that in 2006? Jimmy Rollins looked really smart in May 2007 too, didn’t he?
That being said, I think it’s pretty evident that this team can’t win with Luis Castillo starting at 2B, Moises Alou on the DL, and Beltran, Wright, and Reyes playing the way they are. Nor can they afford to trot Pelfrey out there to take his lumps every 5 days (although I still think he is going to be a good pitcher).
I wonder if Alou would be open to a trade to an AL team to be a DH, in return for some bullpen help. He is a great hitter, but enough is enough already. Just to throw a name out there, how about to Toronto for Jeremy Accardo? Although I just looked him up on Yahoo Sports and saw he has forearm tightness. Next, is the trip to Dr. Andrews in Alabama. Then a year on the DL with Tommy John surgery. Fair trade, I would say.
I’ve been anti Beltran since ‘05.
Way to be supportive of the players on the team you allegedly root for. Are the Mets terrible right now? Yes, but hopefully they will play better.
Easy high-n-mighty. Sometimes you don’t care for players on the team you root for. We don’t all subscribe to the Jerry Seinfeld theory of rooting for laundry.
One of the most annoying things that happened last night imo, was once the game was out of hand Carlos Beltran got two hits. Way to salvage your BA there Mr. small time…
Oh yeah, he absolutely rakes when we’re up/down by 4 runs plus.
How about Prince Wright? As compared to Beltran, neither one of them is hitting to their abilities, but at least Beltran plays a gold glove defense.
Let’s not kill Beltran and turn the other cheek on Wright. I love both players, but let’s be fair. Both have been pretty brutal. But at least one plays defense.
Wright also carried the team last year to at least give us a chance not to blow it. That buys him a lot of slack in my book.
Wright doesn’t play defense? That’s weird, who’s that white guy who makes almost all the plays at 3rd? I always assumed that was Wright, but I guess I was wrong…
Not sure why it needs to be made into a racial issue. For the record, I’m white as well. But anyway…
Wright does make all teh plays at 3rd. I’m not doubting his glove. It’s just that when he throws the ball, Keith Olberman’s mom shudders. Let’s be honest…Wright has a great glove, but his defensive abilities shouldn’t be mentioned in the same breath as Beltran’s until he solves his throwing problems. Like I said, I love both players, but if you’re going to get on Beltran, what about Wright’s costly throwing error in the September game in Florida last year when we scored 3 in the 9th to take the lead???
Wright is hitting .287 with 8 home runs and 36 RBI and single handedly beat the Phillies in April. You cannot compare him to Beltran, who has done nothing except play good defense and not hit against anyone.
He started the season on a tear. He will be fine. I’m not trying to knock Wright. I’m just saying, we view Wright, Reyes, and Beltran as underperforming.
how did I make it a racial thing? All I asked was who the white guy who plays 3rd base is? You said it wasn’t David Wright, so I wanted to know who it was…there wasn’t an iota of making this a racial issue, I was simply using white as an adjective, which is what it is, to describe what the guy who plays third base looks like. Sensitive much?
I’m glad bringing back the laughing and dancing made Reyes Reyes again and saved the season. You know, like the way he was laughing and smiling during the ninth inning of a yet another blowout loss last night.
I saw that and said, “man, if the season hadn’t been saved already, this might concern me.”
When he did laugh and smile last night? I didn’t see it.
FIRE WILLIE!!! HE IS A LOSER.
So much of a loser that he has had a winning record in how many seasons with this team? After how many seasons of losing?
the funny thing is he’s still 2nd in Winning % as a Mets manager, only behind Davey Johnson. I don’t think that makes him a great manager, and I think his time has come and gone, but it is funny when people flat out call him a loser.
I agree that maybe he has lost the team and it may be time for a change. But think about this. He is a big part of the reason this team is relevant again. This start would be a non-issue if he and Omar didn’t change our (the fans’) mentality that we expect to win. I think he has done his job here.
If your only argument is that Willie’s better than Art Howe, we’re in more trouble than I thought.
Not that he is better than Art Howe. Just that the attitude is different than anything I can remember in these parts for a long time. Even different than when Bobby V. ran the show.
I don’t know. I just find it hard to blame it all on Willie. His team isn’t performing. He has a defensively and offensively challenged 1B, same for 2B, and an underachieving core of talent. The bullpen has been batting practice, except for Wagner, Joe Smith, Schoenweis. He has a LF that gets hurt while standing in the outfield. It’s a disaster. I am thinking about checking out for a week. I can’t deal.
Delgado is a cancer on this team. He makes the team worse every time he is on the field and cant produce. His OB% is atrocious and with a guy like that clogging up the lineup how are the mets ever going to score? Once Delgado and Heilman leave the team we will only get better. Until then its not willies fault, its the players producing worse then I could have ever imagined
Completely agree. Spot on.
Think about this. Delgado is batting 7th. He will probably hit about 20 HR this year. That’s not bad coming from your 7th hitter. Problem is this. He can’t play defense. Matter of fact, his defense has definitely regressed in his time here.
for some reason this post really made me realize how much I hate Aaron Heilman for giving up that homerun to Yadier. That World Series should have been ours….ugh.
gomets,
Your post made me think of Chris Russo’s monologue the Saturday morning following the loss in Game 7. He said something to the effect of:
“…Mets fans…this will never get easier. You will never have this clear a path to the World Series. Many teams have thought that it was their divine right to take the next step the following year after a season like this. It will never, ever be easier.”
How right he was. Opportunity: Lost.
so true. I read your post about Delgado’s defense slipping, and the image I got in my head was Delgado’s fist pump after the Endy double play and how convinced I was at that moment that they were going to win the World Series. Then Heilman happened.
Not just his defense but his base running. Overally, his athleticism has just toally left him starting in the offseason before ‘07 and we saw it all through ‘07 and now in ‘08 its just pathetic he is still out there. How dare Minaya not get rid of him this offseason. His swing is a timing mechanism in which he taps his toe and then brings his stance closed before swinging. His hip, and slow hands make it impossible to time it effectively anymore. He is an awful drag on this team and needs to go. Willie Randolph may be a poor manager but he is not the reason this team sucks.
You can’t get anything for Delgado at this point. I wonder if he will basically be forced into retirement at the end of the year. Can’t see anyone picking him up.
No, no i agree. The grease vats in Shea probably have more value than Delgado (hey collectors will buy crazy stuff). That being said, he definatley could have been traded for pennies on the dollar to a AL team or just cut outright. Either one of those should have been done, and to not have done so was the worst move Minaya has ever made. (yes worse than the Bartolo Colon trade, its only hind-sight that makes that as bad as it is).
Yeah he’ll probably take the Mike Piazza route: trying to latch onto an AL team to be a DH and having to retire in may after getting no offers.
I disagree about the Bartolo Colon trade. He was the GM of a franchise that was going to leave Montreal. He tried to seize the last opportunity to win there. It would have been a great story, but it didn’t work out. The thing I like about Minaya is that he has balls.
We can bring up guys from Binghamton that can hit 20 homeruns playing for the big league mets. Delgado is going play about 130 mabe 140 games Im assuming. Any 1st baseman should be able to hit 20 homeruns playing that much with the lineup. Homeruns mean nothing when they never come in a big spot. He never gets on base which is just so disgusting to watch. As your skills diminish you gotta find ways to get on base and it seems Delgado just doesnt care about changing or getting better
What happened to the most exciting player in baseball, where did he go ?
I tell you where he went. The middle of the road. There are 22 shortstops in the majors with more than 145 plate appearances and here is where the most exciting player in baseball stands…
13th in average
10th in OBP
5th in Slugging
8th in OPS
10th in Runs
8th in Hits
9th in RBI
7th highest in strikeouts
Not real impressive. If you were to compare him to leadoff hitters it would be even worse. He does lead all SS in SB’s with 14, but is also second in CS with 5.
If you look at the MLB league leaders Jose doesn’t show up anywhere on the radar screen except for SB’s where is a 7th, and again 2nd in CS.
This guy could be awesome, but the key word is “COULD” be.