Suddenly the Mets are on a roll. Suddenly the Mets may be developing a complementary pitcher next to Johan Santana. And maybe, just maybe that Jose Reyes we all know and love is starting to come back. Also, a little bit of haterade to spew, you know I have to.
– First things first and its always the pitching effort and Mike Pelfrey’s 7 inning shutout performance was pretty solid.* He threw 102 pitches and while being interviewed by Kevin Burkhardt after being pulled he asked to remain in the game but Jerry Manuel wouldn’t let him and you know what? I believe he would’ve loved to stay in the game. But his next line was the best part of it all, he said “but it is April so I understand.” You’re absolutely right Mike, its only April so following that theme, I’m liking the performance but his three wins**, have all been against teams that he routinely owns, other than the Nationals who the Met pitchers just can’t seem to stop when it matters.
Career totals against:
Rockies: 4-2 3.18 ERA
Cubs: 2-0 0.60 ERA
So perhaps this is growth or perhaps this is just a case of a guy who pitched against teams he does well against. Either way, its going to take more than 3 phenomenal outings to start saying Pelfrey is the solid number two that the team wanted him to be when they drafted him in the first round. But we will know how much he’s progressed real soon. If he pitches against the Braves, as he is scheduled to do so, or he pitches against the Dodgers on Monday for some reason, he will face two teams he doesn’t quite have so much success against:
Braves: 2-5 6.09 ERA in ten games in 54.2 IP (he does have one complete game against them and averages 7 2/3 innings against them, who knows.)***
Dodgers: 0-1 5.40 ERA in two games and 10 IP.
*= Ok, fine, I’m ecstatic. I’m doing the happy dance. I’m so happy to have another pitcher other than Santana that I dont know what to do with myself.
**= He has half of the Mets wins which depending on how your outlook on life is, is either a really good thing for Pelfrey or a sad statement on the Mets.
***= Also how he handles being on a national stage on Sunday Night baseball and the immortal 20 year old phenom rookie savior of baseball Jason Heyward. Guess what, I’m not even being sarcastic. I’m buying in on this kid. Albert Pujols in the outfield. Yup.
– What would be the second biggest headline coming out of this game? Easily the 4 for 5 night for Jose Reyes. Two of those hits were loopers that found grass but no one should apologize for it since Lord only knows the Mets deserve some good luck. But that two run triple was the best part of the entire game. That feeling lasted about two seconds. It wasn’t until I saw the replay that I saw something and maybe I’m reading too much into it, but Reyes still isn’t running on full speed and not just that, if the Cubs infield had just thrown to third Reyes would’ve been out by almost a mile. His speed is not back folks. That’s my opinion. Nothing expert but just seeing him run, its not that same burst or that same velocity and he’s not running as hard as we’re used to seeing. Its troubling but its only two weeks. A month from now, I’ll definitely be ringing the alarms but I’m just saying, his running speed isn’t what we’re used to. Back to the positive, that triple was a thing of beauty hitting wise. He went with the pitch, and drove it to the gap. The play ended up a win win for the Mets but they still would’ve ended up with two runs so let’s atleast relish that things went right for the Mets.
– I’m still troubled over David Wright and Jason Bay’s start and current progress. Wright is going back to bad habits and trying to swing for the fences and trying to be a hero everytime. He seems to pick a point at the game where the Mets have some kind of momentum and he goes up there hacking and what he doesn’t understand is he doesn’t need to. He needs to play his game. Swing at strikes, not at balls. Even if he has to cheat a little and see where the catcher is set up, do it. I dont care. Right now the book on Wright is to pitch him with offspeed away and high and tight. Until Wright proves he can turn on the inside stuff and lay off the away stuff he won’t get anywhere.* As for Bay, the problem with him is, and pardon me for being in fan mode, but he has more 3 pitch at-bat strikeouts than anyone I can remember. Recently I’ve watched his at bats and he just seems to go up there with no plan and hoping that he gets a strike to hit and you know what? He gets first pitch strikes and nothing else. He then swings at garbage on the last two pitches and goes back to the dugout wondering what happened. His at-bats are kind of tough watching and he’s turning into Jeff Francouer who is returning back to his normal average of swinging at everything. I mean everything. He’s seeing, on average more pitches than his career totals would suggest, but its no surprise that he’s back to hacking and pitchers are back to giving him nothing but sliders that he chases. Its almost embarrassing that the Mets 3-4-5 are doing nothing but again, its April so hopefully in May, Bay busts out, and so does Wright and the pitching remains constant. The hope that both facets of the game continue going well along with a really good bullpen.
*= Look at me making it sound so easy. Yeah, anybody can do it.
– Ryota Igarashi went on the DL today after sustaining a moderate injury to his left hamstring trying to field a bunt. He landed awkwardly while misplaying the hop. He was one of my favorite pieces of the bullpen. He was the power pitcher that we had lacked over the years and now he’s on the DL and let’s be honest, who knows how long he’s gone considering we can never tell what a moderate injury is in Met medical official terms. Manny Acosta, former Brave, was called up. He had decent numbers in Triple A. So here’s the first real injury of the season to a key player and let’s see how the Mets do in filling the void here. Let’s face it, the Mets need more innings out of their starting pitching and hopefully they continue to get great outings continuing tonight against Oliver Perez. He’s the key. Honestly, I’m not hoping for the best with Maine and Pelfrey he’s hopefully putting it together and Johan is Johan. Ollie still has the stuff in my opinion and can be the catalyst for sustained winning streaks and as long as we get him going, we’ll be fine.
– At some point these fans booing Bay and Wright need to stop. I had this conversation a few days ago with some friends of mine who are also Met fans. Its beyond me how these fans can sit in their seats and call themselves fans of a team and boo. In my opinion these are people who have unrealistic expectations or no clue of the Mets history. Any real Met fan knows that trouble is just around the corner so we expect as much. We’re not down on them, but we’ve come to temper expectations. They are still from the 2006 crowd that jumped on the bandwagon. Those fans who wanted to support a team but wanted to be on the new cool “it” team and the Mets fit the bill the way they cruised that year. They had more of those fans jumping on board and talking about how great fans they were. They are the ones sitting down and booing. Its not even like they are up and cheering, they are seated in the nice seats by the way, booing and it frustrates me to no end. I enjoy heckling the other team but there are some fans who see an 0-4 day and boo the crap out of somebody and its not that its unfair, because well let’s face it some of them deserve it, but its dumb. If you’re a fan of a team you have to support them through the good and the bad. Save some of those boos for the opposing team instead of reserving the disappointed “oh’s” and groans whenever something bad happens. This may come off as harsh but the crowd at Met games has got to be one of the ABSOLUTE WORST. EVER. Its almost unpleasant sometimes to go to Met games as a fan because you’re disappointed in how the people turn on their team.
– Oliver Perez goes tonight and like I said, he’s the key. If he can give us 6 solid, 7 good innings, then great. If not, we’re in trouble and we’re revisiting the discussion of Ollie being such a terribly unpredictable force of nature on this team. That’s not good.
SEASON: 6-8
MY PREDICTION: 7-7
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