Well, I didn’t expect the Mets to sweep Philly. But, I did expect them to show up last night.
It’s easy enough to pin it on Brian Lawrence, but who was impressed with the offense last night? Any hands for the bullpen? I didn’t think so.
You can’t go up and down emotionally with every game, it will drive you nuts. But, you have to play better against your main competition, and the Mets are a .500 team vs. Phils and 4-8 vs. Braves.
That doesn’t cut it.
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If I recall correctly the Mets cut the lead to 3 to 2 in the 5th. If they didn’t show up, they would have been shut out. They were undone again by their bullpen who couldn’t keep the game close.
They lost to a lousy pitcher with a 5.14 ERA making his 8th career start. Not a good young talent like Hamel. Not to even a fading veteran like Moyer or Lieber who can give an occasional good start. The Mets had “Willie’s dream lineup” in a bandbox. John is right, you can’t take every loss too deeply. But if this team has an early exit, we will be saying they never put the hammer down. I saw this in the late 1980s. After those incredible comebacks in 1986 versus Houston and Boston, the team thought they could turn it on anytime they wanted to. They seldom did. The postseason is turning into more and more of a crapshoot and this opportunity to have a great October run may slip away.
I remember those 1986 comebacks, too. These Mets are coasting a bit – and a one or two run lead can melt away in the late innings as we have seen all too often this season. Omar and Willie have a really good team here, good guys who are professionals in every way. Even Milledge is trying very hard these days.
Lets Go Mets – all the way to late October – keep your eyes on the prize.
I will pin the entire thing on Brian Lawrence.
As a fan I wasn’t expecting the Mets to win, and everytime the Phillies batters exploded on the ball, you knew it was going to happen, and then once Lawrence gave up those runs after the Mets scored, you knew it was a lost cause.
Its all good in the hood, the Mets now have Glavine, Oliver Perez, and El Duque.
Glavine, ehh, he can go either way.
Oliver Perez is a fly ball pitcher…
and El Duque has been money.
Regardless of what happens in this series, I fully expect the Mets to win the division.
JD – tonight is huge. they have to show up big time against a stiff coming off the DL with a 6+ERA. Time for them to light up that bandbox.
of course, i would love to see some solid pitching from Tommy (horrible #s in Philly, right?) and from this beleaguered bullpen.. but the offense needs to reassert itself.
I spoke with Brett Myers last night and he didn’t think Utley’s dinger was going out. He thought it was just a pop-up.
I knew that with Utley’s return there’d be a lot of energy in the Phillie dugout last night, so I wasn’t expecting a lot from our guys. But, championship teams start with a championship front office and right now Omar is afraid to admit he’s made some mistakes, especially with this bullpen. Sele, Schoenweiss, Mota and Lawrence all need to be DFA’d. Bring up Smith, Pelfrey, Humber and Collazo and don’t wait for rosters to expand to do so. They cannot possibly be worse than the four we’d be unloading. Maybe one of these guys will actually be lights out in the pen and we’ll need him to be eligible for the playoffs. As far as the position players, Endy needs to play everyday for the rest of this week. Lastings has not been the same since coming back from the flu. We need a spark in this offense and I think Endy can provide that. Also, someone needs to tell these guys to stop swinging at the first or even second pitch. You’ve got to make the opposing pitcher work for it and raise his pitch count so we can get into that horrible Phillie bullpen. I’d love to have a dollar for everytime Reyes or Alou swing at the very first pitch. It’s insanity!
John,
The Phillies have been scoring a lot of runs lately and with Utley back in the lineup last night, I don’t know how you use a pitcher that can’t throw over 80MPH against them. Not how I’d handle the closing weeks of the season.