Fun with spreadsheets

Did you know?

That since the Mets torrid offensive April came to a close (therefore, including only May and June, for those of you in Rio Linda), D Wright is leading the Mets in:

Runs (29)
Doubles (14)
HR (13)
Total Bases (113)
RBI (36)
SLG (.579)
OPS (.957)

and tied for the team lead in:

Hits (60) with J. Reyes

Oh no

It's the top of the 11th, and the Mets just brought on Heilman, who's first pitch was a 92 MPH 2-seamer that was just above belt high. Nothing says "coughing up the lead via the extra-inning jack" quite like seeing Heilman starting his outing up in the zone.

SHK has left the country

Congrats and enjoy the honeymoon.

I'm sure the Mets will have righted the ship by the time you return.

Quote of the Day

From NYPost as always.
It's actually probably beyond a big slump now, too. They've now lost nine of 10 and dropped 11 of 14 after last night's 9-1 rout in which they were again hammered by the bottom of the Dodger lineup and again looked terrible defensively.

"It's not stunning," manager Willie Randolph said of a team of his caliber struggling for such an extended period. "It's reality. It happens."

It happens.

Willie

Read from someone even more bitter than me, especially at Willie's tactical decisions - the editors at Metsgeek.

M-E-T-S

I think I may stop following Mets until all-star break, or at least until June ends. Except for fielding, we stink in every aspect at this point. I see three issues that need to be addressed:

1. We all knew we were playing with fire heading into the season banking so heavily on older players. In particular our #1 and #2 pitchers, alou and valentin. Some of the injuries have been freak bad luck, but some have got to be due to age. But in particular I think it was not a good idea that of our top three pitchers, two are over 40, and one is a complete unknown coming back from major surgery. While it may be acceptable in regular season (if our offense ever decides to show up) it will not be a winning formula in post-season, and I think we're getting a good taste of that in June now that the competition level has been raised.

2. Lineup. Willie, please stop changing the lineup EVERY freakin' night. I can't imagine this does anything to help the offense. We need some stability here. Go to Reyes - Duke - Beltran - Wright - Delgado - Green - ... (Easley / Johnson / Gomez / etc.) I believe this is the lineup that makes most sense on paper and in reality, just lock it in and go with it.

3. Hitting coach. I don't know much about rick downs or his approach, but to be honest I don't see anything positive he's done. This offense has WAY underperformed what it should be doing on paper - the only time we score runs is when other team gifts us errors, or we are already up big so we're just piling on. The offense is nowhere to be found when it counts. Contrast that with our pitching staff - Rick peterson's work has been nothing short of miraculous with Perez, Sosa, and even Maine's relatively rapid progress over just a year. The mets approach at the plate stinks. Except for lack of DH, I don't see why this team should score any less than red sox or yankees, yet we way underscore. The reason is that the mets have TOTALLY different plate approaches than the sox or yankees.

Bottom line - I think if you look at our record against the braves (3-6) and what we've done so far in june (2-8) against much better competition speaks volumes about how good this team really is. Maybe at full health, once Alou and pedro are back that changes, but even in that case we're still back at point #1 - the key contributors are old and injuries just waiting to happen.. I'd like to see us get either Crawford or #1 pitcher.

Meet the Mets, Beat the Mets

Well, as the Yankees rise up, the Metties fall down. Not in the standings, luckily, but in the level of play. Granted, we don't have Pedro, Alou, Green or Chavez, but one thing is clear - this team as-is will not be challenging anyone in the playoffs. June has made it quite clear that we are not ready to consistently play and win at top level. Hopefully that will change once we have our whole team healthy, but I'm not so sure. We really need a legit #1 starter, and a Carl Crawford. And our bullpen is really expecting a lot out of a first year guy in Joe Smith. He's had a couple of rough outings in between his otherwise brilliance, but enough shakiness to suggest to me a team that is serious on going to WS should not have to bank on him as their #1 setup guy. And no one will take this bullpen seriously while Sele and blowenweis are still there.

Jose Jose jose

unfortunately my post from a month ago is as true tonight as it was then:

1. Jose Reyes' disappearance in big games. The fact that he is hands down the best player on the Mets 9 nights out of 10 makes his lack of production in big names that much more noticeable. Beyond what you saw over this weekend series with Yankees, we can look at last year's series with Yankees (6 games, 5-24 = .208 avg), last year's playoffs (10 games, .250 avg, .298 OBP), and last year against Red Sox (3 games, 1-13 = .077 avg). Somehow he has got to find a way to be more of a factor in big game series.

Apparently tonight's game was not that night. At least Sosa shut stuff down, one of the best performances by any Met this season.

Just a few things

1. Why is Scott Blowenweis still on this team? All joking aside, he is unsuitable to be on the relief staff.

2. Why won't Willie move Lo Duca back to #2 spot? I think his slot machine approach to who bats #2 is very unsettling to the lineup. Lo Duca hit a tiny cold spell several weeks ago, is clearly out of it now, and back to last season's form. Our best lineup is Reyes - Lo Duca. Go back to it. I really have to question some of Willie's strategic moves, both with lineup as well as bullpen.

3. I understand we have a lot of injuries, but we still have reyes, beltran, delgado, wright, and lo duca. Why is this team so miserable at scoring runs? Answer: approach at the plate. Until they change that, this team - despite all of its talent and superstars - will never consistently beat top teams. Which means, a very short life in the playoffs, if we even get there.

June is looking fuglier and fuglier. Looks like (d) is the most likely scenario.

Heilman is the bomb

I mean, Heilman gives up the bomb(s). He's more jekyll and hyde than perez - sometimes he's lights out, but (far too frequently) he comes in and gives up a game-changing 2 or 3 run jack. He's way too inconsistent.

But, you can hardly get spun up about Heilman with the meager offense as an available topic for discussion. Yet again, our "prolific" offense shows absolutely nothing against a hack pitcher that's been destroyed by everyone else in the league, especially recently. Not to mention, we've lost both of our first two June series.

It will be interesting to see if the return of Alou, Green, and Valentin turns the offense around. I wouldn't be surprised, because if you look at the teams that score a lot of runs (Yankees, Red Sox, ..), they typically get better than average production out of their 1-2 and 6-7-8 guys. Assuming for the most part that most top teams have comparable 3-4-5 guys, the difference is the other guys. I'm sorry, but Newhan is an automatic out, and Gomez is not someone we should need to lean on at this point in his career.

Also, I really think they should move Lo Duca back to 2 spot. There is a better match between Reyes-Lo Duca than any other pairing. Two reasons for this: first, Lo Duca doesn't mind taking a strike if it gives Reyes a chance to steal. He strikes out so infrequently it doesn't bother him. Second, he is more likely to come through with a single with Reyes on base than any other guy I've seen Mets put in 2 spot. It just seemed we used to have a much better rhythm with Reyes - Duke - Beltran. I can remember how frequently we used to score in first inning, and everyone would point out what an advantage Mets had to always score first.

Philthies

So far through top 11 Mets have solidly answered my last blog, by showing me more of that steaming pile they call an offense. Yet another outstanding effort by Glavine wasted. All your hopes and dreams - gone.... down the drain.

How much would you like Carl Crawford or Soriano now???

June

Will the Mets step up by sending a message to Philly, and end their "lackluster" play, or lay down by putting up meager offense? And when will Beltran stop coddling his legs? With Lo Duca hot again, I'd like to go back to more typical lineup, seemed to work a lot better. Reyes - Lo Duca - Beltran - Delgado - Wright - Chavez - Easley - Gomez - P. We really need Alou.

When it rains, it pours

I have never seen a team experience as many injuries as Yankees. In the last few days alone, added to the list were Clemens, Giambi, and Mientkiewicz. I honestly can't think of any team in any sport having as many injuries as quickly as Yankees.

Have you seen me?

The Mets offense belongs on the side of a milk carton. Except for the Yankees in the playoffs last year, I've never seen a team with so many actual and potential superstars score so few runs, and strand as many runners on base as Mets. It's almost like no one appreciates the value of three singles in a row.

Perez continues to be pleasant surprise, although he has had at least one meltdown inning in several of his last starts. If he can figure out what changes in his mechanics or mental approach when he suddenly goes from pounding strike zone to hitting batters and yielding BBs, he'll become practically automatic. Sosa also obviously a huge surprise.

Jose

Nice to see jose apparently shaking off his slump, picking up some hits and RBIs lately..

Maine-ly Disappointed...

What was up with last night's line-up? We send our top gun (save the grumblings for a minute) against the reigning NL Cy Young champ and the hottest team in baseball and how do we respond? By loading the order with pure rubbish--Franco, Newhan, Johnson. Webb had to be drooling. Between the additions and some of our struggling regulars it looked like a buffet of lameness. I'm kinda surprised we didn't get no-hit last night.

Now I understand that injuries forced Willie's hand into handing in that card with a straight face, but c'mon! If our roster is that depleted let's put a few guys on the 15 day DL and get some damn reinforcements. Could you imagine if last night had been a 14-inning affair? Granted, that would have been impossible because a bunch of blind, one-armed howler monkeys would have scored before the Mets could muster a run in extras, but you get the point.

Maine was awesome last night. One bad pitch (which he seems to do each start, even when on fire--guess that's the price of challenging hitters) but otherwise 7K's, 5 hits, 0 BB's in 6 innings. I'm pleased as punch with that.

Of course then Willie has to bring in Mota and all goes to the outhouse. Why does everyone love this guy and see him as a bullpen savior? It's become obvious that his success was due to framapaloocical enhancements so let's stop throwing him out there every chance possible.

Red Sox

Ah ha, here is the secret to the Red Sox's success. This video is classic, I highly recommend it.