Nobody seems to be talking about losing nine straight to the Phillies anymore. Winning four in a row has a tendency to do that. The Mets have won eight of their last ten games.
Looking at yesterday, the important thing for me was Aaron Heilman. You never want to let a team think it owns you, which is close to what was happening with him and the Phillies in this park.
Oliver Perez pitched 5 2/3 scoreless innings, but he always walked five and gave up four hits. Yes, pitched out of trouble which is a good sign, but there was an uneasy feeling. It’s always going to be that way with him.
David Wright and Ryan Church are hot, and Jose Reyes is getting on a roll. We’re still waiting for Carlos Delgado and Carlos Beltran to break out.
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Might be “waiting” on Delgado for a LOOOOOOONG time.
Amen to that, JM.
We’ve BEEN waiting on Delgado for over a season now.
Aaron Heilman simply saved his job and his reputation on that mound yesterday.
Just like it’s a fine line between clever and stupid, it’s a fine line between a sports hero and bum. The 8th inning could have easily gotten away. But yeah, you kind of forget the Mets had lost 9 straight to the Phillies.
Personally, I’m not ready to say that this team has turned a corner. Heilman was fantastic to get out of that mess yesterday, but his teammates did everything they could to put him there. There will always be sloppy games, and it’s good that the Mets won a game in which they didn’t play crisply. But I need to see them do this for more than a week.
Uhm, yeah, Delmovaughn… we might be waiting on him.
The body’s just no longer willing there and he’s not willing to make adjustments to try and just hit for average until people are no longer stupid enough to pay him to play baseball.
When he’s 100% rested, he’ll have little streaks of looking like the guy he used to be… like at the sparsely scheduled rain-out-laden beginning of the season…
But the guy is just too beat up to do what he used to do.
Its time to slot him and Luis Castmovaughn in at 7 and 8 and just… pray that the Braves release Gotay for some reason.
What a mess, what a mess.
The 8th inning yeterday demonstrated clearly how pathetic the game has gotten. Bases loaded one out and there’s your so called best reilever sitting in the pen doing nothing because he can’t pitch until the 9th inning. These “9th inning guys” have such inflated meaningless stats. The guys from the 70s and 80s would have been brought in and they would have finished the game. Now they don’t know what to do in the other half of the inning so they can’t start one and then do the next. Sad detrerioration in the game. THE WHOLE GAME, this isn’t a blast on Willie…..
and then the closer comes in with nobody on base and a 2 run lead and credits for what???? a save for not giving up 2 runs. What does the set up man get???? Nothing but boos if he gives up a hit…..
Sloppy, Wagner can’t pitch more than an innings… he just can’t. This has been proven time and time again.
Now this doesn’t mean he shouldn’t be used in high leverage situations like the one you described above, but do not expect him to succeed in multiple inning stints.
And Mike C., are you ever happy with this team? They have a nice little streak going, they’ve gotten excellent pitching all around (Heilman’s incident with Dobbs aside), and Reyes, Church, Wright, and Beltran are playing extremely well right now. Pagan and Church have also been solid. Sure Delgado and Castillo have been disappointing, but I would hardly call this team a mess.
As for Castillo and Delgado, I’m reserving judgment until it warms up a bit.
I will say this about Delgado, watching Howard play first make Carlos look like A Gold Glove candidate.
I wasn’t bitching about Wagner, Keith. I was bitching about baseball in general. It not that Wagner or any of the others can’t. They’ve been trained not to be able to. Then it becomes a mental excuse. In situations like yesterday’s, in the past any manager would use his best releiver. Today he uses somebody less than his best because it the not the 9th inning.
Ok, Sloppy, I hear you. You certainly put forth a valid argument.
sloppy,
i agree with you. i was looking at some stats from the 86 mets and McDowell would come in and pitch 2 scoreless innings in the WS. I would like to see 9 out of 10 relievers today do that. They are a bunch of overpaid prima donnas.