Hey there Mets fans… felling sad and blue during this western road trip?
Last night our Mets lost 3-2 in Phoenix to the Arizona Diamondbacks, bringing this road trip record to 1-5 so far since the All-Star break. R.A. Dickey was the hard luck loser despite giving up only three earned runs over seven innings. To say “only three earned runs” is actually a step up from Monday night’s 13-2 debacle started by Mike Pelfrey.
A few things to consider before reaching for hemlock, pitchforks or the panic button…
1. The Mets haven’t necessarily been a good road team all season so far, so why should we be shocked at the way this western swing’s going so far?
2. The Mets were starting to slump during their last home stand against Cincinnati and Atlanta. The Mets have been a roller coaster all season long, so maybe they were due for this skid.
3. The Mets are maddenly inconsistent. When the pitching is good the bats go cold. When the bats heat up the pitching implodes.
4. The bullpen is an adventure every time Jerry Manuel goes to it. The ninth inning challenges everyone’s patience and sanity.
5. Players seem to be taking turns being nicked or slumping. Johan Santana finally finds his groove and Mike Pelfrey’s lost his. Jose Reyes pulls an oblique muscle as Carlos Beltran and Luis Castillo get ready to return from the DL. Everyone takes turns having a cold bat.
6. San Francisco was highly underestimated. While the Giants are 11-20 against the NL West, they’re 41-22 against everyone else.
7. In a few days the Mets will wrap up this road trip in Los Angeles, and the Dodgers are 0-6 so far since the All-Star break and just put Manny Ramirez on the DL again.
8. We’re still over .500.
9. You still have your health?
Okay, so things look a tad bleak. Steve Popper of the Bergen Record is calling for Jerry Manuel’s firing. ESPN’s Linda Cohn is calling for hitting coach Howard Johnson’s firing. WFAN’s Joe Benigno’s been bracing himself for the apocalypse since Mother’s Day… or was it Easter? Spring training?
Allow me to toss a little cold water on everyone and give us all the sobering slap we all need… we’re still talking about a team that by all rights was only supposed to be .500 this season, and we’re seeing exactly what most of us predicted in March. We’ve watched our Mets stumble out of the gate, then get hot, then trip all over themselves again, then go on a tear, then play like their shoelaces are tied together. Up goes the roller coaster… down goes the roller coaster… up goes the roller coaster… down goes the roller coaster…
Oops, sorry… I’ll wait for you to stop feeling nauseous…
Let’s talk about pitching for a moment, since red flags have gone up big-time lately with Mike Pelfrey and Hisanori Takahashi on the mound. It’s no secret that Takahashi’s stuff is, well, no longer a secret with NL hitters. While Takahashi’s been effective with his off-speed stuff during the first 3-4 innings, his stuff goes bad really fast once hitters get a second look at it. He needs to go back in the bullpen where he can be most effective. It’s no secret the Mets need another starter to stabilize the rotation. We’ve been discussing this for weeks, long before Takahashi started becoming a piñata for hitters and Pelfrey hit the wall.
Guess what? The Mets aren’t alone in needing one more starter. Add the Red Sox, Twins, Tigers, White Sox, Reds, Rockies, Dodgers, Phillies, and now the Yankees to the list. Now that Cliff Lee is in Texas and the Astros are likely asking too much for Roy Oswalt, we have to face reality that whoever GM Omar Minaya gets in a trade is going to be a second-tier starter at best, but hopefully someone who can eat up innings with each start, save the bullpen from complete burn-out, and keep the Mets from completely falling out of the NL East and wild card races. But keep in mind that this will be the same story for almost everyone else still hoping for October baseball.
Now Pelfrey is pitching like it’s 2009 and needs to figure out fast how to turn the calendar back to April, May and June 2010 and regain his form. The Mets can get by with a second-tier starter to replace Takahashi if Santana, Pelfrey, Dickey and Jonathon Niese keep giving us quality starts. But if Pelfrey continues to implode before the sixth inning every start this will be a back-breaker. For the Mets to have a chance, the starting rotation realistically needs to eat up 30-35 innings for each five-man turn. Why? The bullpen is tired and has been overworked since April. K-Rod has been a head case since Castillo dropped A-Rod’s ninth-inning pop-up LAST SEASON at Yankee Stadium. The eighth and ninth innings are no longer a sure thing, especially on the road where the Mets have lost ten walk-off games. Do I believe Ollie Perez could theoretically give the Mets a few quality starts before the season winds down? Yes, I do, but if the Mets are banking on Dr. Jekyll without Mr. Hyde as the fifth man of the rotation in order to defer a trade, we’re in big trouble. Ollie in the bullpen or a spot start still won’t be enough to cover up the need for additional pitching, and Jenry Mejia simply isn’t ready yet to come back to New York and take over a rotation spot for the rest of the season.
What about the hitting? For the first time all season, the Mets seem to have all parts in place to provide the kind of everyday lineup we looked forward to in March. Unfortunately Beltran isn’t yet in full form. Yes, he’s hitting, but he’s yet to become the force we expect from a cleanup hitter. With Beltran’s return, Angel Pagan now seems lost trying to claim his spot in the order after he’s more than demonstrated his bat belongs on an everyday basis. Reyes wasn’t out for long with his achy side, but every time he’s out of the lineup for an extended period of time his timing goes off. Jason Bay contributes but not to the level expected for his free agent contract. Ike Davis has power, but he’s still a rookie and it’s asking way too much for him to carry the team. Jeff Francoeur and Rod Barajas generate lots of breeze but little contact these days with their swings. Castillo also needs time to get into form since he returned from the DL.
Too many changing parts in the lineup have thrown off the timing of bats, and now the Mets need to jell all over again. Does this mean Howard Johnson needs a pink slip? No, but Hojo needs to work fast with his players to get everyone back in synch. When a divisional race hangs in the balance, Jerry Manuel needs to stick with the best batting order he can put on a lineup card and keep riding that lineup until it can’t go anymore. If Francoeur and Barajas can’t produce at the plate anymore, players who can produce need to take their places, even if there’s a small drop-off defensively. The Mets never seem to make up their minds as to whether they can be a team of speed or team of power. If Manuel honestly thinks the lineup can boast speed and power, then he needs to write a lineup card that best reflects this and let it play day after day and develop its groove.
If players are not in their best defensive positions, then Manuel needs to address this definitively as well. It’s clear from the first six games that Beltran really isn’t ready to play everyday as the centerfielder. While Beltran is clearly the Mets’ best outfielder and hitter when 100% healthy, the fact is he’s not 100% healthy yet and he’s the second-best centerfielder behind Pagan. Ego and contract status aside, Manuel needs to move Beltran to right or left field to platoon with Bay and Francoeur and make Pagan the everyday centerfielder for the remainder of the season. If Castillo’s heel isn’t healed enough for him to play second base everyday, then Manuel needs to use him as a bench player and let Reuben Tejada stay in the everyday lineup, even if he is all-glove and no-bat. Manuel needs to look at his lineup for the next ten weeks in terms of risk-reward. Which lineup will give him the least risk and greatest chance for reward? That’s how the lineup needs to be written for the foreseeable future, even if it means well-paid veterans are riding the bench as situational hitters.
But all roster spots and lineup positions aside, the biggest thing we all need to keep in mind is that the Mets are a very streaky and inconsistent team, it plays much better at home than on the road, and they’ve yet to maintain themselves beyond ten games over .500 each time they reach that level. What we see is what we get, and what we see is exactly what the Mets are in their present composition. This is not the 70-92 team we saw last year, and this is not the 90-72 team they were on pace to be at the season’s midpoint. They’re somewhere in-between, which is probably an 80-84-win team.
Am I shocked the Mets have hid the skids at this point of July? Yes and no. I expected them to cool off, but not this bad. I’m also more surprised the Braves haven’t slumped yet at this point. Maybe the Braves will hit their slump in a few weeks when the Mets regain their spark. Maybe we should count our blessings Atlanta only leads by 6-1/2 games at this point, as opposed to double digits. As bad as the Mets have played since the All-Star break, they’ve only lost two games so far in the standings and the Phillies have drifted backwards with them.
Perhaps the most telling point was from WFAN’s Mike Francesa yesterday afternoon. During his show, Francesa said Manuel told him during an interview prior to starting this road trip, “it’s at a good time… it’s early enough [in July] for us to recover from it.” Francesa wondered if maybe Manuel foresaw this slump coming. Perhaps he did. Perhaps we all did. Maybe Manuel sees better than us how the Mets will turn the corner and get back into the race. For his sake he needs to be right. There are still five games to go on this road trip and folks are already calling for his return flight to be canceled.
The MLB season is a long one and we still have 68 more games to go. Plenty of time to right the ship and get back in synch. But if the Mets are hoping for a catalyst to help make these last 68 games count for something, the front office needs to make things happen in the next ten days before the July 31 trading deadline.
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