What everyone was fearing would happen has happened. Wagner's elbow is history and so is his Mets career. With the required 12+ months to recover from "Tommy John" surgery, the is little chance of Billy ever pitching for the Mets again. His contract is up after 2009, and the Mets will have K-Rod in the pen next April. With Kunz as the possible set-up man, and Billy's desire to close games, the Mets don't figure into his future. It's too bad that Billy's Mets career had to end like this. He was always a gamer and fighter that never ducked the consequences of his failures, and didn't boast when he succeeded.
While Billy was testing his failed elbow, the Mets managed to win a game this weekend against the Phillies. Big Pelf did his best, but Meyers was just a bit better. The Mets' bats once again went to sleep and hardly managed a hit against Meyers. He threw his nasty curve for strikes the whole game, and we all know how the Mets hit curveballs. Just picture Beltran in the 9th inning of game 7 of the '06 NLCS and you get the idea. Why the Mets continue to show the inability to hit good breaking pitches is beyond me. Too bad Doc Gooden is pissed at the Mets, he'd make a great BP pitcher for them.
If Friday wasn't bad enough, in Sunday's afternoon game Jamie Moyer once again baffled the Mets and showed that a 82 MPH fastball works if you put it in the right place. Too bad Pedro wasn't paying attention. For the 3rd consecutive start, Pedro was shelled. The longer this goes on the less likely he comes back in any fashion next year. Unless Pedro takes a lesson from Moose, and learns to pitch to location and movement, he's done in this league. No longer can Pedro just go about his business and get outs. He's not even the pitcher he was in '05 much less '99. It's almost to the point of replacing Pedro with Parnell in the rotation. He certainly couldn't do any worse. Although Pedro gave 6 runs in only 4 innings, the offense never showed any signs of life until the 8th inning. 3 straight extra base hits scored the 2 runs, but by then it was too late.
Sunday's night game was the Carlos and Johan show. Delgado provided the offense, and Johan kept the Phillies in check. Santana continues to prove why he's the best pitcher in baseball. He hasn't lost a game since June, and is pitching into the 7th inning more time than not. His second half record during his career is something few pitchers in history have had. In 119 games, he's 55-17 with a 2.75 ERA. That's a .7635 winning percentage !!! He has proven this season why Cashman made the biggest mistake in the history of the Yankees by not trading for him this off-season. How Cashman could even think that Hughes and Kennedy were worth keeping over trading for Johan, baffles everyone in baseball.
What can be said about Carlos Delgado? I and many others wanted him off the team in April and May, now he may be the league MVP. Who would have thought that Carlos had the same reaction and feelings about Witless Willie as I did. If I had to work for Willie I probably would have slit my wrists, Carlos just hated playing baseball for him. As soon as Willie was canned, Carlos came to life. If not for his improved play, the Mets would have a hard time beating the Marlins in the standings, much less leading the standings. Without Carlos, the Mets are probably below .500 and talking like the Yankees are. You know, talking about injuries, being big players in the free-agent market this winter, making changes to the line-up, ect. All the things teams say when they have no hopes for the rest of the season.
Now the Mets spend the next 12 games playing the Nats and the Braves while the Phillies have the Brewers and Fish on their menu. I hope the Mets don't take any of these upcoming games for granted. Last year the Nats helped ruin the Mets season and the Braves have no warm fuzzy feelings for the Mets either. If the Mets can win 8-10 of these upcoming games, they should be able to gain a few games on the Phillies. A cushion of 3-4 games would be nice heading into the 4 games with the Cubs, and 3 games with the Fish to end the season. Last year the Fish buried the Mets' in the last game, and would love to do it this year too. With Wagner gone, Stokes and Ayala will really be tested and be the anchors of the pen. With some help from Smith and Figgy, maybe the pen can make all Mets' fans proud and bring another banner to the new ball park next year.
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2 comments:
I was actually constantly writing that Delgado was not done yet and that once he was able to catch up to the fastball, he starting suffering from bad luck. He was hitting the ball hard but always straight at people!
Also, it looks like the Mets are tossing around the idea of putting Maine in the bullpen when he comes back and maybe next year. I predicted this early this season. So Dan, as the mature adult that I am, pfffffttt!
K-Rod will be the closer next year, the only talk of Maine in the pen is IF he comes back this year. No SNY person, or person interviewed on SNY has ever said that John is going there next year. SNY people talk to Omar, Tony, the Wilpon's and all the local Baseball guys all the time. With Pedro and Perez leaving the team next year, who do you expect to be starting games besides, Santana and Pelfrey?
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