The Same Old Mets? And Joe Torre Begins to Ruin the Yanks' October
Man did last night stink.
I hardly saw it coming. Everything was going so well. I found myself sitting there asking myself, Could it be? Could this be the New Mets?
Could this be a 2-0 team that we all had confidence in?
Were we finaly there?
Come the 5th inning of Wednesday's game, these were all the questions running through my head. I hadn't had that feeling since 2000. I saw pitching, I saw defense and I saw a middle of a lineup that could flat out mash. I saw Jose Reyes leadoff the game with his best at-bat as a Met. I saw our young pitcher, Brian Bannister, looking like he belonged in his first start of his career.
The New Mets?
Not so fast...
From the 6th inning on, things started to unfold like they did for, well the old Mets. All of a sudden, LAST YEAR was now!
I thought that Willie left Bannister in too long.
I thought he should have brought in Darren Oliver to face Nick Johnson.
There was plenty to second guess, but that's always easy to do once the game is over, and even easier when the game is over and you've lost. In the end, the game went perfectly except for one pitch. A 92 mph fastball off the guy who once threw 100 mph.
If Wagner gets Ryan Zimmerman out in the 9th, the Mets win and Bannister gets a win.
Delgado hit a huge homerun, Nady continued his stellar hitting, and Anderson Hernandez looked like Ozzie Smith in the field.
D Wright had a big RBI to start the game, Beltran walked three times and Reyes looked extremely patient.
Bannister gave us a solid 6, Sanchez pitched a flawless 7th and Heilman pitched a solid 8th.
One pitch is all it took. One pitch and we were the Mets again. My cousin joked he wanted to bring back Braden Pooper and KFC told me could no longer talk online, he was too depressed.
One pitch and we were the old Mets.
One pitch and Billy Wagner was Armando Benitez, he was Braden Looper, he was John Franco.
All I'm saying is this. For those who know me as a friend or an enemy, and those who just know me as Young Sippy Momo, you know that I am a huge pessimist. That I don't see the Mets as a playoff team.
After today you'd think that I felt my feelings were confirmed, that the Mets did not belong in the talks of playoff teams.
Well, hate to tell you guys, but Sip has changed. I really like these Mets. I've seen so much in the first two days that I have found somewhat shocking. Two things in particular have really impressed me.
First off, the defense.
We knew Wright and Reyes would make up a solid left side of the infield, but it looks like we have something special defensively in Anderson Hernandez.
Beltran is a gold glover in center and Nady and Floyd are decent at the corners.
But the most important improvement appears to be Paul Lo Duca. Sure he made a mistake in the 10th, but this guy has shown some tremendous signs. He appears to be calling great games. The 2-2 curve that he called for Royce Clayton at the beginning of the game when Bannister didn't appear to have command of that pitch caught Clayton by surprise.
Secondly he threw out Brandon Watson, the Nationals speedy leadoff guy on the first pitch of an at-bat. Cousin Evan im'd me: "It's been a long time since I could expect to see that." And it's true; we loved the Monster, but he wasn't much for throwing out runners.
The second thing that really excited me about the Mets so far has been the ability to get to Wagner. There have been two games and we have had two save opportunities. The starting pitching has been solid and the middle guys have done their jobs.
The Mets have been playing the ideal formula of baseball. Take the lead to the 9th and get it to your All Star closer.
So Wednesday Wagner looked human. His fastball was topping out at 93 and his slider, considered a plus plus pitch, wasn't sharp.
There are two ways to look at this.
The Negative: Wagner has lost a step. He's aging and he isn't the pitcher he was 2 years ago.
The Positive: Wagner was pitching at the start of the season in near freezing weather and his arm just isn't at top form yet.
The truth is, we will have to wait and see. A lot of this season depends on Billy Wagner. The difference in the Mets missing and making the playoffs in 2005 was the difference in blown saves between Wagner and Looper. So if BW can be the guy that he was, we should be fine. If not, well we know what it's like to have a closer that blows leads.
JOE TORRE's MISSTEP
I wrote a piece last year bashing Joe Torre, the most overrated manager in baseball( http://yankees2000.blogspot.com/2005/10/thank-god-joe-is-back.html)
He was the fastest manager to 1000 losses before he was handed the perfectly assembled team. The face that he hasn't won a World Series since 2000 with the best team in baseball spoke wonders about his managerial skills.
The one thing that I concentrated on was Torre's inability to manage a bullpen. It had appeared to me that Torre blew out his bullpen every season so that they were dead in the postseason.
Well Wednesday night's game against the A's was a great indicator of this misuse. Down 6-4 in the 8th inning with 2 on and 2 out Torre signaled to the Pen.
He brought in Kyle Farnsworth, the Yankees big bullpen acquisition, to get out Frank Thomas. He was taking out an ineffective Jaret Wright to try and keep the Yankees close.
The result: Thomas went yard and the A's went up 9-4.
I hated this move by Torre. He brought in Farnsworth for the second night in a row with the team down. Sure it was one batter, but one batter requires a full warm up. One out is one appearance.
There is no doubt in my mind that Kyle Farnsworth will be overused. He will be among the tops in baseball in appearances, which in my opinion is stupid. The Yankees are a lot like a basketball team at the top of their conference. They know they are going to make the playoffs, or at least be there in the end. They should be preparing like this is the case.
Instead, Farnsworth will get to October worn out. We've seen it in the past, we will see it in the future.
Yankees2000, Joe Torre is heavily responsible for that.
VCD,
SM
I hardly saw it coming. Everything was going so well. I found myself sitting there asking myself, Could it be? Could this be the New Mets?
Could this be a 2-0 team that we all had confidence in?
Were we finaly there?
Come the 5th inning of Wednesday's game, these were all the questions running through my head. I hadn't had that feeling since 2000. I saw pitching, I saw defense and I saw a middle of a lineup that could flat out mash. I saw Jose Reyes leadoff the game with his best at-bat as a Met. I saw our young pitcher, Brian Bannister, looking like he belonged in his first start of his career.
The New Mets?
Not so fast...
From the 6th inning on, things started to unfold like they did for, well the old Mets. All of a sudden, LAST YEAR was now!
I thought that Willie left Bannister in too long.
I thought he should have brought in Darren Oliver to face Nick Johnson.
There was plenty to second guess, but that's always easy to do once the game is over, and even easier when the game is over and you've lost. In the end, the game went perfectly except for one pitch. A 92 mph fastball off the guy who once threw 100 mph.
If Wagner gets Ryan Zimmerman out in the 9th, the Mets win and Bannister gets a win.
Delgado hit a huge homerun, Nady continued his stellar hitting, and Anderson Hernandez looked like Ozzie Smith in the field.
D Wright had a big RBI to start the game, Beltran walked three times and Reyes looked extremely patient.
Bannister gave us a solid 6, Sanchez pitched a flawless 7th and Heilman pitched a solid 8th.
One pitch is all it took. One pitch and we were the Mets again. My cousin joked he wanted to bring back Braden Pooper and KFC told me could no longer talk online, he was too depressed.
One pitch and we were the old Mets.
One pitch and Billy Wagner was Armando Benitez, he was Braden Looper, he was John Franco.
All I'm saying is this. For those who know me as a friend or an enemy, and those who just know me as Young Sippy Momo, you know that I am a huge pessimist. That I don't see the Mets as a playoff team.
After today you'd think that I felt my feelings were confirmed, that the Mets did not belong in the talks of playoff teams.
Well, hate to tell you guys, but Sip has changed. I really like these Mets. I've seen so much in the first two days that I have found somewhat shocking. Two things in particular have really impressed me.
First off, the defense.
We knew Wright and Reyes would make up a solid left side of the infield, but it looks like we have something special defensively in Anderson Hernandez.
Beltran is a gold glover in center and Nady and Floyd are decent at the corners.
But the most important improvement appears to be Paul Lo Duca. Sure he made a mistake in the 10th, but this guy has shown some tremendous signs. He appears to be calling great games. The 2-2 curve that he called for Royce Clayton at the beginning of the game when Bannister didn't appear to have command of that pitch caught Clayton by surprise.
Secondly he threw out Brandon Watson, the Nationals speedy leadoff guy on the first pitch of an at-bat. Cousin Evan im'd me: "It's been a long time since I could expect to see that." And it's true; we loved the Monster, but he wasn't much for throwing out runners.
The second thing that really excited me about the Mets so far has been the ability to get to Wagner. There have been two games and we have had two save opportunities. The starting pitching has been solid and the middle guys have done their jobs.
The Mets have been playing the ideal formula of baseball. Take the lead to the 9th and get it to your All Star closer.
So Wednesday Wagner looked human. His fastball was topping out at 93 and his slider, considered a plus plus pitch, wasn't sharp.
There are two ways to look at this.
The Negative: Wagner has lost a step. He's aging and he isn't the pitcher he was 2 years ago.
The Positive: Wagner was pitching at the start of the season in near freezing weather and his arm just isn't at top form yet.
The truth is, we will have to wait and see. A lot of this season depends on Billy Wagner. The difference in the Mets missing and making the playoffs in 2005 was the difference in blown saves between Wagner and Looper. So if BW can be the guy that he was, we should be fine. If not, well we know what it's like to have a closer that blows leads.
JOE TORRE's MISSTEP
I wrote a piece last year bashing Joe Torre, the most overrated manager in baseball( http://yankees2000.blogspot.com/2005/10/thank-god-joe-is-back.html)
He was the fastest manager to 1000 losses before he was handed the perfectly assembled team. The face that he hasn't won a World Series since 2000 with the best team in baseball spoke wonders about his managerial skills.
The one thing that I concentrated on was Torre's inability to manage a bullpen. It had appeared to me that Torre blew out his bullpen every season so that they were dead in the postseason.
Well Wednesday night's game against the A's was a great indicator of this misuse. Down 6-4 in the 8th inning with 2 on and 2 out Torre signaled to the Pen.
He brought in Kyle Farnsworth, the Yankees big bullpen acquisition, to get out Frank Thomas. He was taking out an ineffective Jaret Wright to try and keep the Yankees close.
The result: Thomas went yard and the A's went up 9-4.
I hated this move by Torre. He brought in Farnsworth for the second night in a row with the team down. Sure it was one batter, but one batter requires a full warm up. One out is one appearance.
There is no doubt in my mind that Kyle Farnsworth will be overused. He will be among the tops in baseball in appearances, which in my opinion is stupid. The Yankees are a lot like a basketball team at the top of their conference. They know they are going to make the playoffs, or at least be there in the end. They should be preparing like this is the case.
Instead, Farnsworth will get to October worn out. We've seen it in the past, we will see it in the future.
Yankees2000, Joe Torre is heavily responsible for that.
VCD,
SM
posted by Sippy Momo at 2:01 AM
3 Comments:
I'm really glad you let this article turn into something positive: that's exactly how i felt. I was devastated by the loss but to be honest we kind of just got snakebit in the 9th and 10th. As much as Julio will suck, and he will, his inning was not that bad. Two seeing eye ground ball singles, a broken bat, a strike out turned error, a double play ball thrown into center. Wagner's homerun pitch was ball 4. High heat. If people are going to knock that out of the park against us every day, well then God hates us but it isn't Wagner's fault. he clearly was struggling to locate but, really, he was unlucky. Hernandez is a huge positive. Reyes looked like a new man and Delgado is a difference maker. What I think will turn tihs offense into a mashing machine is Clifford getting hot. When/if that happens, watch out. Let's go Petey tonight. Let's go mets. 2-1 here we come.
PS Thank god the yanks lost at least.
looking real good - the apple will be saved and moved to dead center it seems
http://newyork.mets.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/nym/ballpark/newpark_images.jsp
nick the voice got a blackberry from pw.
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