Mets Chat Room: Off-day edition.
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- August
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The Mets are off today, licking their wounds from a tremendous road trip. Not a lot of scoring, not a lot of good pitching, and paging the bullpen ….
Billy Wagner goes for a MRI tomorrow, and we have to suspect more than a few of those seven blown saves have to be health related. If they don’t fix the pen they are in trouble, but we’ve known that all along.
All that other stuff, not hitting with runners in scoring position. Only playing with two legit outfielders, and one of them coming off the bench. Questions about John Maine’s shoulder, and Pedro Martinez’s durability.
I keep thinking back at the run they had a couple of weeks ago, and how much it reminded me of 2006. But, it’s not 2006 anymore, and this isn’t that team.
This entry was posted
on Monday, August 4th, 2008 at 6:59 pm by John Delcos.
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Well hopefully Church comes back soon. That will help a lot.
Also as for the pitching, as I said before our pen is not good because the starters do not do their job.
Ollie for all his wonderful stuff usually can’t go beyond 6. That is truly terrible for an elite pitcher. It is good if you are a 4 or 5 pitcher.
Maine has not done well this year and Pedro is hurt and trying to come back.
This leaves us with only 2 pitchers this year, Santana and BigPelf.
With 2 legit pitchers you are not winning anything. We shall see if Pelf gets tired in the last month or so which will leave us with one quality starting pitcher and a pen which is really not that bad but which does not equal starting pitching.
Say what you want about Wagner. No he is not a great closer, but he is better than most. How many closers are really better than him? I say not many.
For those who want to throw him under the bus, please list 5 closers better. I bet there are not more than 3 or 4.
I am not defending his penchant for the long ball and just giving away games. What I am saying is he is what we have, we will not get anything better this year. We are waiting for Kunz to grow up and take the spot from him. Most likely that won’t happen this year.
First to JD. This site will not have much traffic if you wait this long to open a new thread. Maybe you would like the posters to have more authority to open their own tnreads as some other sites do. Now that being said, I will have to argue aginst dave, who I think is a pretty good poster on his defense of the horrible season Wagner is having. Seven blown saves plus the all star debacle put this guy as pretty f n horrible. If you take his blown saves vs. lidges in philly which equal none the mets would be in first place now wouldnt they?
5 better closers off the top of my head are Nathan, Rivera, Rodriguez, Lidge, and that guy who closes for Houston, what his name? who has more blown saves than our own stupid big mouth redneck? none of course, which makes your question so easy to answer. Sadecki would make these Idiots in our bullpen hang their heads in shame if any of these fools had any shame.
Yeah I checked the site today at work several times for a new thread. Wagner is having a strange year. His numbers, other than saves/save opps are all very good. His walks are down, his batting average against is low. But he has blown 7 saves. That’s a lot. The Mets did win 2 or 3 of those games anyway though.
Yeah, JD, you need to fix what’s wrong with this site…and it has nothing to do with starting threads.
Better closers than Wagner: KRod, Mo, Papelbon, Nathan, Lidge, Valverde, Street, Wood (when healthy) and last but not least, Mota. Ok, the last one is a joke.
Again like I said in the other thread, i’m not sure how much more we could have expected from this team except to be later into the season and within striking distance of first place. The Mets can sweep the Padres and the Phills can lose two of three to the Marlins and the Mets will be back within a game. And thats how quick it can change back again.
also Jenks by far….even Brian Wilson 31 out of 33 for Giants….. BJ Ryan….. I don’t think Street is better. But I’m sure none of them blast their teammates or poison the clubhouse nearly as well as Wagner does.
Steve: The mets can sweep the Padres? Really, sweep em? Like we we’re going to sweep them in four games during that trip earlier this year? Oh yeah, the one where they SWEPT us. Weren’t we supposed to sweep the ‘stros as the cardinals would beat up on the phils? Yeah, they swept us too. I think the likeliness of the mets sweeping the padres is the same as the padres sweeping the mets. This team ALWAYS plays down to the competition. This is it, if they don’t make a move now, they’ll be out of this race before we even get to September. Get down to business boys.
I guess you must have missed the homestand when the Mets swept the Giants and the Rockies and took 3 of 4 from the Phillies on the road. The Mets don’t even see Peavy this series. Why the heck do I care what happened on the road two months ago and after their third road trip out of the eastern time zone in two months. They are playing in Shea need I remind you where the Mets have been playing excellent baseball. Geez, the Mets were doing great, have one losing streak and it’s all over. Gimme a f’n break. Sheesh.
Um, I never once said it’s all over. I still think this team will win the division as there is about 1/3 of the season remaining. Relax buddy, all I said is you can’t expect this team to do, well, exactly that, what’s expected.
per others points, Mets are 3 games back and have a chance to get back to even or so over the next 3 weeks/21 games but they will have to beat teams they are suppose to beat while the Phils and Marlins have more difficult scheds.
But if Mets are not within a game or 2 of Phils when they meet 8/25, they could be in trouble as things turn tougher in late Aug-early Sept.
They had a chance to at least keep pace this first 2 weeks since the AS break but did not. If they can’t pick up a little ground, Sept could be a downer….
Wagner is not as good as some of the guys pointed out, but what will you be saying when Heilman etal blow a few.
It’s over. Once the losing starts it affects this team like a virus. They have no anti-losing immune system. They were able to play well for a while because they blamed Willie (and Nieto) for the losing they were doing. If you read between the lines on all of their quotes when they were asked about Willie it was always implied that it was Willie’s fault. Manuel came in and they had a temporary psychological lift because Willie was gone. They had convinced themselves that Willie was standing in the way of winning. Now that they’ve started losing under Manuel they can’t blame Willie anymore, especially in their own minds, and they have to look in the collective mirror and admit that they are losers. The losing won’t stop from here on out. Manuel’s magic has run its course. In fact I’ll be shocked if they win another game the rest of they year. I’ll be shocked if they get a hit. These games will be called in the 2nd inning with the Mets losing 34-0. They’ll have to institute a mercy rule in major league baseball. The whole team will retire in disgrace in a couple of weeks and they’ll have to promote the entire AAA roster. Citi field will be empty next year and the Mets will fold. I can’t stand to watch. The city’s economy will be destroyed and it will in turn destroy the country’s economy making the great depression look like a picnic.
Taylor: Good one! Giggity gigitty gig i teeee! :-)
When Heilmann blows a save at least he won’t beg for an MRI. Heilmann did fine when the manager you all love to hate allowed him to close in late ‘05 alternating with Roberto Hernandez. Wagner is finished, never was clutch, always has poisoned clubhouses. You know he knows he’s done becuase he went to the full wind up to try something different and it worked for 6 weeks. The best thing for the Mets would be for his MRI to say retire and the Mets give the ball to Kunz/ Heilmann and say go get em kid, just like the Sox did with Jonathon. If Gregg can close pretty well so can Heilmann or Kunz…....
Harry: Well we are going to find out. I’d rather put it in the lap of Kunz if Wagner is going to be out a long time because at least he IS a closer. Unlike a converted starter in Heilman and a still getting his arm strength back Sanchez.
I agree with you original.
wagner getting hurt really isnt that big of a deal, everyone thinks that with him out, this team is short of a closer, when in fact we never had one in the first place. wagner is washed up and the mets would be at least 4 games ahead of the phillies in this division if it werent for him and him alone.
yep these are the mets i remember from june/september of last year, the pitching will be there one day but the hitting wont be, the next day neither will show up and they’ll get blown out, and the day after that, the hitting will show up, but the bullpen will blow a four-run lead and the team will lose a slugfest.
Wagner has a torn flexor tendon in his left elbow. TJ surgery is next.
Ferris, where did you read/hear that?
I have not seen anything to confirm what ferris bueler is reporting. Brooks has an article in the post today where he states the mets bullpen ERA since the break is over 8 !! Regarding Beltrans OPS, a lot of that has to do with all the walks he takes. Better to keep him in the 2 hole.
I was there in Houston when Wagner stuck his index finger down his throat and swiveled it around his uvula. He gagged and coughed, took out his finger, wiped it on his uniform.
He then brought his finger up to his nose smelled it and nearly vomited…throwing his arm in a weird motion.
TJ surgery is the logical next step.
Ferris: The next thing you’re going to tell us is that you saw Wagner passing out at 31 Flavors, right?
Steve, don’t give him the attention he’s seeking. Just ignore him, he gets banned for a week or two then reappears with a different name. I feel badly for JD who runs a great blog, yet has to deal with this tool who is on his 7th grade summer vacation, school can’t come back soon enough for this moron. Hopefully he meets a woman, although it is unlikely.
I would not be surprised that ferris is another name that the sloppy guy uses.
You guys place some nice names to go against Wags and I can’t really argue against them.
My point tho was altho he implodes way too much he is still one of the better closers in the game.
If you look at his numbers they are very good. I believe street for example has his share of blown saves and an era of close to 4.
I am not trying to say that you cannot do better than wags, just that there are not many better. If you look close he really is a good pitcher numbers wise.
One thing I will say about his attitude is that when he blows he will sit in front of his locker and say he blows. Not everyone will do that.