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At ESPN.com, both Buster Olney and Rob Neyer held chats today and the Mets were one of the many discussed topics.
Olney had the following to say when asked if the final game at Shea will be relevant or will the Mets have already ripped out the fans’ heart:
“You don’t want to hear my answer. I really think the schedule is going to hurt the Mets this week. The Brewers get to play the Pirates, who have lost 11 of their last 16, and then the Cubs over the weekend, and while Lou Piniella has every intention of competing to the finish line, the reality is that by Friday or Saturday, a lot of his decisions will be shaped (and rightly so, by the way) by preparation for the post-season. He’s not going to pitch Kerry Wood on Saturday and Sunday against the Brewers, for example. He won’t pitch Carlos Marmol in extended outings. He won’t overtax his starters. If one of his position players is playing 85 percent, he’ll get him out of there. That works against the Mets, who have to play the team nobody wants to play, the Marlins. But hey, who the heck knows…”
During Neyer’s chat, he was asked who’s neck is on the line if the Mets don’t make the playoffs, in which he replied:
“(Omar) Minaya, perhaps, but he might be given credit for the team’s big comeback in the second half. I guess if I were Minaya’s boss, I’d want to know if he’s learned anything from this season.”
…as far as the schedule is concerned, i don’t care who we play or where we play…perform like there is no tomorrow and we shall see what happens when the dust settles…talk is cheap, just play ball…
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talk is cheap, just play ball…
Coach Coughlin. Is that you?
Hey, didn’t it work for the Giants?!?!?!?
worked very well. i was sitting in the corner of the end zone when plax caught that ball.
i take full responsibility for this mets mini-collapse. i used all of my sports luck on winning the super bowl lottery for season ticket holders. sorry guys.
LETS GO METS! LETS GO METS! Lets start thinking positive and go out there and kick some butt!!!!
Excuse me….but based on the pen, Omar never learned his lesson from LAST season.
Time to get a GM who’s not on a learning curve
The funny thing is that most of us thought we had the makings of a good pen when the season started.
Ultimately, I think the one mistake made by the front office was putting too much stock in the return of Sanchez. If they had known he’d come back like this, I’m sure Omar would have tried a bit harder to bring in a capable set-up guy. As a result, we were only left with Heilman. Aaron was very good in the set-up role, and had been from ‘05-’07, able to get out both lefties and righties. Whatever caused him to regress this year, be it the injury, or whatever it may be, was the biggest blow to the pen. After Heilman proved to be ineffective, the rest of the relievers went down with him.
I am a huge Omar fan, but –
to put stock in Sanchez is not the mistake. It is not doing anything about it once you KNEW he was not what you hoped. Had he returned to the dominant setup guy we once saw, with Heilman in the 7th, and the other guys (Smith, Feliciano, et al) filling in the specialists role, we’d have a monster pen. But with Heilman having a terrible year and Sanchez not returning to form, Omar sat on his hands in August. Not to mention Wagner had the muscle spasm in his shoulder in late July (before trading deadline).
Exactly…Nobody thought that Matt Wise and Wagner would get hurt. Nobody knew Sanchez would be 1/2 as good as he was pre-accident. Nobody knew Heilman would forget how to pitch. Would have been nice if Register was still around, but Joe Smith was pitching better than him at the time (I wanted Joe to stay too).
I think the pieces were there, but the Mets are very unlucky. It is not all Omar’s fault. However, if someone were not going to return next year, I’d rather see Omar go than Manuel.
Let’s go Mets!
Who did you think he should have signed? You want Octavio Dotel for 3 years or Scott Linebrink for 4? I don’t.
there’s like 14 guys in this bullpen and none of them can get anyone out
who’s fault is that?
The GM
Castillo and his contract along with the persistent bullpen problems are enough reason to seriously question Omar’s ability to be GM.
But without that contract who woould have played 2b on opening day?
My fingers are going to be nothing more than stubby nubs by the end of the weekend.
“The Brewers get to play the Pirates, who have lost 11 of their last 16…”
wow, four more losses in a row and they will have the same streak as the Brewers do now. How about:
“The Pirates get to play the Brewers, who have lost 15 of their last 20″
The thing that you fail to realize is that even the worst teams stop losing.
The sad thing is that the Brewers are still just about tied with the Mets and they are awful, what does that say about the Mets?
Its sad, but then remember where these two teams were in the standings when the Mets came back from the dead in July.
At least starting next Monday we can start some hot stove talk on this blog lol
Yea. We need to trade for Santana.
We need Ervin Santana to go along with Johan
Maybe we can get the real Carlos Santana to sing when Johan and Ervin come out…rather than a recording. It’ll be Citi Field’s version of Ronan Tyner.
I am torn, I want to watch the games, but, I cant enjoy it when they blow it. I know that late in the game when the Cubs take the lead its over. I have NO FAITH in this team and dont think they can come back and win. When the going get tough the METS roll over.
Omar should go whether we get in or not, Castillo, the bullpen, not trading for relief help, not picking up an OF while at the same time actually believing Alou would be around….not good
If and i mean If this team played up to their potential, we could beat anyone in the mlb.
I completely agree…
“(Omar) Minaya, perhaps, but he might be given credit for the team’s big comeback in the second half”.
…. which still means NO October baseball! He should be treated the same way Willie was. If not worse.
We should get some odds up on out of the Mets 14 relievers who will be back next year
Billy Wagner 1:1,000
Blog trade proposal that is sure to get me publicly stoned (not high):
Wright, Maine, FMart, and Niese for Halladay and Rios.
You sure you aren’t already stoned (high)?
Listen, in no way would I be blaming this collapse on Wright or Reyes. However, I am saying this team will need a major shakeup that it didn’t get following last season.
Of all of our players that could net us a guy like Halladay, Reyes and Wright are the most realistic ones. They are young, relatively cheap, and under control for a few years.
And hey, I was just responding to the hot stove call.
Fair enough…also I read “Halladay” as “Holliday” and my head nearly exploded.
I’m still not a fan of unloading any of Reyes/Wright/Beltran. These guys are the core around which a championship team is built.
But we have had that core for the last three seasons and have not won a championship… Don’t you see…
If you can build a championship team around them, why haven’t they won anything?
Holliday wouldn’t be worth Wright straight up.
It would be pretty sweet to have two aces on our staff. A lefty one and righty one. Kinda what we envisioned this year before Pedro proved to us that he was finished. Hope he has one more start in that right arm though.
“If you can build a championship team around them, why haven’t they won anything?”
…because we haven’t built anything around them…I’m pretty sure they can’t give us any effective relief outings…
Just because we can build a team around them doesn’t mean we have…
There’s Always ‘09, now you see why I questioned your sobriety ;). I would love to have 2 aces, but with the way Big Pelf is shaping up my biggest issue is still the pen. Sure better starters make it easier on relievers, but that’s what we said last off-season when we got Santana and 0 bullpen help…
If this post shows up twice, my bad…
Ok, to be fair it isn’t like we haven’t built anything around them. We have a solid rotation (pretend we have a healthy Maine and an effective Perez…), strong defense, and had an effective closer that didn’t make me cower in fear when thinking about the 9th inning.
We need to rebuilt the pen. You want a shake-up, trade off Heilman, Duaner, Show (or Feliciano…we only need 1 lefty specialist), and whomever is our long man.
14 bullpen pitchers. Biggest bullpen in the league BUT useless!
Carlos Beltran will play tonight, which will also feature Luis Castillo’s return to the two-hole.
7 Reyes, SS
1 Castillo, 2B
5 Wright, 3B
15 Beltran, CF
21 Delgado, 1B
11 Castro, C
19 Church, RF
6 Evans, LF
57 Santana, LHP
murhpy for church, church might as well be done
I agree with Imtiredof. Church still looks pretty dizzy at the plate.
What a mess…
lol wow ok I hate to say it but get ready to lose unless Johan can go nine scoreless the reason ….. batting second number 1 …. Luis Casillo
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Luis Castillo…..Luis Castillo….Luis Castillo….YOU $UCK!!!!!
Hey, I guess that means people won’t pitch around Castillo anymore like they used to with the pitcher on deck. Now they gotta come right at him. I could see him parking one on the net behind home plate tonight.
lol
I think Luis is going to have a 4 home run game tonight I feel it … LETS GO CASTILLO
yea…and monkeys fly out of my butt!!!
that must be painful….
Wayne’s World reference.
I hate to say it because I like the guy but Church needs to be benched. He doesnt even look like the same person out there and sadly its a little late to try and rehab while playing the final 6 as well as the 6 most important games of the season.
The problem is I question whether this team can actually play like there is no tomorrow…
When have they in the past 2 season?
On Sunday…..there really is no tomorrow for this team
Phillies fan here. Just wanted to say, you should care who you’re playing this last week. The Marlins are a scary team and we were lucky to get out of there with 2 out of 3.
yea i dont expect the marlins to take it any ez on us since technically they are still alive and would benifit from beating the mets.
Phillies fan you are right …. the Mets will lose 2 of the next 3 to the Cubs and 2 of three to Florida …. are only hope is that the BRew Crew lost all week
Not gonna happen… (The Brewers losing I mean)
Meet the Mutts, Meet the Mutts…Step right up and meet the Mutts
it would be step right up and greet the mutts???
Haaa, yeah. Thanks…
Ultimately, why *should* they play like there’s no tomorrow? No matter what happens, they get to go back to their home(s) and enjoy the fruits of their $7-10 million contracts. Really — what motivation do they have to extend the season by 3 more games? Yeah, I know, they’re professional competitors, yada yada, they want to win, yada yada…. yawn.
exactly the reason i don’t feel bad for firing willie at 3AM.
the mets HAD an easy schedule (nats n braves)
but turns out they are not so easy
i dont think Anybody will be easy for the Mets in September
Whether it be the Pirates the Reds or even the Mariners
nothing comes Easy these days.
just hope the Mets realize that nothing is a cake walk.
but the ‘easy schedule’ sure has turned out to be for the Phillies…
For these Mets, even a little league team schedule is not an easy one.
i don’t care if they lose the next 6 games…they better be in the playoffs.
You will care because if they lose the next 6, they’ll be watching the playoffs just like us…
You know what, who cares about what WE think is going to happen….or what WE are scared is going to happen….or what anyone on TV thinks is going to happen…the ONLY thing that matters is what actually DOES happen. As a die-hard Mets fan, I am behind this team…100%…till the final out. If you’re not, then you’re not a fan – it’s that simple. That’s our job – root for the team you chose to be a fan of…..if you can’t root now, while you’re still VERY much in this thing, then why even follow baseball?!?!?!?! Come on guys, this is the time to show up and be louder than ever….forget everything that has happened up untilt his point and cheer these boys on….it’s a 6 game season….we’re in this thing….Give me a break! We’ve had to deal with MUCH worse!
Let’s Go Mets!!!!!!!
“As a die-hard Mets fan, I am behind this team…100%…till the final out. If you’re not, then you’re not a fan – it’s that simple”
….. No, it is NOT that simple. And stop saying fans are not fans if they disagree with you.
At home against the Braves the Mets got knocked out with just 2 horrible loses … its been going on all year but they would take that punch and get back up and keep coming …. but I don’t no after last weekend in Atlanta the Mets took I think there last punch …. they have nothing left and in the next 3 games the Brewers I am sad to say are going to go right by them …. me thinking that does not make me less of a fan. I will cheer and pull for them but its hard when you watch the way this team loses it makes it tuff to be a positive fan.
Actually, mrBill, it absolutely IS that simple. As a matter of fact, by definition a “fanatic” is definied as someone with an extreme and uncritical enthusiasm or zeal for something. If you consider yourself a Mets FAN and your beloved team is still alive for the playoffs….explain how the you can validate not rooting for them? If I wasn’t sure you would go on and on about last year, I would actually be interested in your response. Now is not the time to be critical…I promise you’ll have plenty of time to criticize in the offseason. I am a Mets fanatic – through and through – I will root and cheer bc, really, that’s what I chose when I decided to be a fan of a sports team. If you cant do that….then just go sing “meet the mutts” to other people…i’m sure there are phillies fans somewhere that would love to join you….
Let’s Go Mets!
While you are correct about the definition of a fanatic, it sounds good on paper but we both know the “REAL” world is a little different than what Webster’s Dictionary implies. You CAN actually root for your team and also critize it at the same time. That’s basically the Nature of being a sports fan, at least a realistic one. Yeah, you can choose to close your eyes and root blindly for your “Beloved” team and bring out the Pom Poms, that’s your right. Most “average” fans however will show their disapproval and displeasure when the team they follow is not performing to how fans “believe” they should. Clapping and Booooing are part of all sports and they go hand in hand, and quite frankly, both have equal places and both are valid.
Probably just delusional here, but I always thought this season had some parallels to 1999 and maybe this last week brings it all back full circle. A team with high expectations after a bungling finish the previous year gets off to a sluggish start… a coaching staff shake-up in June. One of the best records in baseball that summer, and then a Sept. where they just seemingly couldn’t get out of their own way. I remember going to get playoff tickets at Shea this year and I was able to get decent seats because nobody showed up (we were still a game up in the Wild Card at that point).
Bottom line, this team could very well go 1-5 or 2-4 in it’s next six games and we can call it a season, or it can get one last spark to carry it over the finish line. I think if they lose, there will be some major house cleaning in order starting at the top of the FO, but to answer a question that was raised in another thread today, if the Mets run the table or finish 5-1 and get the WC, people will forget the despair we felt the past week and a half. That 1999 team is totally revered by Mets fans for their “heart,” yet their death spiral that Sept. was one of the most gut-wrenching experiences as a Mets fan because they were playing so well leading into the last month of the year. Last year felt inevitable – it was going to catch up to them, but this year, it still feels different. Hopefully, that different feel starts tonight.
correction, I got playoff tickets at Shea in 1999, not “this year”
Yeah…I totally feel you on the parallel…don’t forget that they were coming off a terrible collapse in 98 just like this team is.
I remember going to that last game vs. the Pirates, and being able to walk up 30 minutes before the game to the Advance Sales window and buy behind-the-plate NLDS tickets which ended up being the Pratt game!
How much better would a Mets win and Brewers loss make everyone feel tonight? I have a good feeling going into tongiht. Johan Santana 8 ip, 1 er, 8 K’s. Nate McClouth game winning HR in 8th inning.
That would be great it really would but I don’t no I think the Brewers sat home last night and watched the Mets and say hey look at us, we have played so bad …. but we just took 2 of 3 from the Reds …. and I think they go out and sweep the Pirates … hope to god I am wrong but I I see the Brewers going 4-2 this week
The Brewers will go 4-2 this week…
These next two games are huge for us. We need big starts from Johan and OP. I definitely don’t see us having any chance of winning the Pedro/Harden series finale. I think that the season’s going to come down to the last day again, with the Mets needing to win to either force a one-game playoff or with a chance to win and get in. Hopefully the latter.
And it will make the postgame ceremony a disaster from a Mets PR standpoint if they lose it…
2 years of disappointment from this team, the Brewers get to play the pirates while we play the cubs. The season is basically over unless the mets win 4 out of 6 or something like that. The Brewers are gonna prob sweep the Pirates and at least win 1 against Cubs. We have to win 2 games in both series
Yes we will have to but based on how they are playing, they will not…
I’m Omar Minaya and it takes two full years of watching a bad bullpen for me to figure out that I have to upgrade … can I have my contract extended now please?
Well, it’s come down to this. Six games to play with a one game lead. Simple mathematics. Problem still remains…………………no BP. It’s allot to ask this offense to score 9 runs every game from here on out to cover the “Spread” of the BP. Santana will probably (most likely) give us a great performance tonight and hopefully we win tonight, but, what about tomorrow and the next day? Someone today on a radio talk show phrased it like this:
“The Mets will run and hide behind Santana tonight”.
“Run and Hide”?? Pretty strong words implying this team does not feel like it can win unless Santana is pitching. Hey, those aren’t my words, just reporting what I heard.
well Johan, this is what we got you for: to be a stopper
please stop this slide and start us on a new one
BP – please throw strikes
castillo – boo
church – “spring training” is over…lets get some hits tonight
correction – start us on a new winning streak
Wow Onley is so darn smart. I’ve been saying the same thing for a week.
cut olney some slack, the yankee shill’s eyes are still puffy and wet from bawling over “the stadium” being shut down
im thinking he was a phillies ran rubbing it in our faces
it would be a Fan rubbing it in our faces???