The Mets Waste a Golden Opportunity

After Friday afternoon's thumping of the Yankees, the Mets failed to take advantage of the situation. They could have buried the evil empire and really thrown Hank into a tizzy, but Pedro couldn't get anyone out, and Santana wouldn't throw strikes.

In the Friday afternoon game Wright had 4 hits and 3RBI, Beltran had 3 RBI and Delgado had an out of body experience and had 9 RBI. In doing so, he broke Dave Kingman's club record of 8 RBI in a game. Pelfrey pitched ok but labored all day, and was lucky to get to thru the 5th inning. He worked out of jams all day, and showed his continued maturity on the mound. He is quickly turning into one of the more reliable starts for the Mets. The Yankees have a lot of left handed bats in their line-up and Pelfrey has trouble with lefties. I believe lefties are hitting over .350 and Big Pelf, so for him to survive and beat the Yankees is a good sign.

Unfortunately, Pedro needs to learn how to pitch again. For someone who's a future HOL pitcher, how can he do something as stupid as tip his pitches to the Yankees. No wonder they're his "Daddy". I have no problem with Pedro going out in the 6th inning, the game already was lost at that point. The 4 hour emotional marathon from earlier in the day seemed to have drained all the energy and fight out of the Mets. Delgado came back to earth and Beltran is sliding again into one of his slumps. Can someone throw batting practice to him and only throw breaking pitches? The man can't hit anything but fastballs.

In Saturday's game, once again the Mets bats were sleeping at the plate. I wonder if Johan was calling himself out of his pitching yesterday? In his last start, he took a backhanded swipe at David Wright because of an error by David. He said "we can make routine plays". Well Johan, don't walk people and they won't score any runs. 2 of the 3 Yankee runs were due to JOHAN WALKING THEM. I bet David didn't have any comments like " If we throw strikes we would have won this game". I thought Johan's comments in his last start were uncalled for, and now the shoe is on his foot. Besides Castro and David, were wasn't a whole lot of offense. Beltran struck out 4 times and Delgado was back to his normal self. Hitting weak grounders to 1st base and striking out of pitches off the plate. I found it curious that Castro was catching for the second game in a row. Was Schneider hurt, or does Johan not like Brian behind the plate? I'm certainly not impressed with Schneider behind the plate. I fail to see where he's a defensive improvement over Lo Duca. The only thing he does better is throw out base runners. He calls a lousy game, can't catch the ball, can't block anything in the dirt, and shows little ability to get to anything off the plate. I think we all can see why the Nationals traded him with Ryan Church. It almost seems like they wanted him gone anyway possible.

Today may bring a dramatic change to the Mets offense. Ryan Church, "The Minister of Offense" is scheduled to return to the line-up today. I think he should slide into the 4 spot and move Beltran down to 5th and Delgado the 6th. He was by far the most consistent bat in the line-up before he got hurt. With Ryan behind him, David should start to see better pitches and continue to raise his average and RBI totals. Beltran is not a clean-up hitter, and he's not the consistent threat needed in the 4th spot. He's too streaky and goes into prolonged slumps too often. With Ryan covering David's back, the Mets could have a NY version of Manny and Poppy. If one doesn't kill you, the other will.