Today’s Line-up

September

29

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 29th, 2007 at 11:25 am by John Delcos.
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5 Responses to “Today’s Line-up”

1. adl September 29th, 2007 at 11:31 am

   This is the 3rd straight year that Randolph’s team has choked under pressure down the stretch.

   – 2005: August 26th, 1.5 games out in the wildcard and 4 games, the team proceeds to go 8-17 and fall hopelessly behind before regrouping and going 6-2 after the pressure was off. They finished the season 6 games behind the wild-card; if they had gone 14-11 (just 1 game better than theirseason-to-date winning percentage before the collapse) during that stretch they would have tied for the wildcard.

   – 2006: Sepetmber 7th, clinching the division in sight, the “best team in MLB” goes 4-6 and gets swept by the Pirates. The lack of any serious competition in the division makes it difficult to even see the pressure or complain about the 2-7 record in the subsequent 9 games but this was still a choke.

   – 2007: September 10th, with a 6 game lead in the division, the team proceeds to go 5-12 to fall into second place with 2 games to go. Too bad the Phillies have the late game today; if they won before the Mets finished then we’d get to see a 2-game winning streak to end the season.

   The players determine the results, obviously. But the rosters have had significant turnover and the team still folds like an accordian under pressure. There’s been turnover in the coaching staff but the team still folds under pressure. But Randolph has been with them throughout and is the guy responsible for setting the tone and getting the players in position to win in “crunch time”; he’s failed miserably in each of his 3 seasons and I suspect he will fail the same way every season he serves as a manager.

2. JK September 29th, 2007 at 11:51 am

   2005: I would excuse that year because it was Willie’s first as a manager. If Omar wanted an experienced skipper to guide the team down the stretch in a near-pennant race in 2005 then he made a bonehead move in hiring Willie. That reflects poorly on Omar.

   2006: Because there was no pressure and little chance of not getting into the postseason, I can’t see a choke here. OTOH, Pinella’s Cubs just got through being swept by the Marlins in games that did matter and he’s an experienced skipper. Maybe he’s the one who really sucks.

   2007: This is a choke. But it’s as much a failure of the bullpen and the GM who put it together as it is the manager. The bullpen has been the biggest culprit during this slide.

3. Doug September 29th, 2007 at 11:52 am

   Well said, I could not agree more…..the blame for this failure falls on Willie. Period.

4. Dan Gurney September 29th, 2007 at 12:18 pm

   Have any of the players brought in significantly underperformed? Could anyone expect good things out of a Schoenweiss, Sele or clean (we think) Mota? I’ll give Randolph some blame for not having Humber ready, not having Castro last night and some of the in-game moves but more of the blame goes to Minaya and the shell shocked players.

   “I take full responsibility. But not the blame. Let me explain the difference. People who are to blame lose their jobs. People who are responsible do not”. comedy sketch by David Frye imitating Richard Nixon talking about Watergate).

   Historically the Mets can not stand up to the pressure of being favored. See 1970, 1987, 1989, 2007. maybe 1986 and 2000 they were. Does a team without much of a past just let the publicity go to its head where the Yankees have 85 years of heroes staring at them telling them to win or else.

5. Delgotit September 29th, 2007 at 7:15 pm

   Stop bitching cause we are ALIVE!

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