Jose Jose Jose has had a great week to start the year. He's focusing in the field and at the plate.
Church looks to have regained his early '08 form. He's killing the ball and playing a solid RF.
Murphy is off to a good start, and he's still looking like he might be on a track to unseat D Wright as my favorite Met.
The rotation has looked good, other than Ollie's meltdown. Pelf and Ollie sort of had Bizzaro outings. Pelf was shaky in the first, but then battled through. Ollie looked untouchable early, and then fell apart. Livan gave us 6 scoreless before the fish plated a couple in the 7th. Apparently Maine (shoulder) and Hernandez (knee) are pitching pain free for the time in multiple seasons, and Johan's spring "injury" seems pretty overblown after his first start. Guess we'll find out more tomorrow.
The revamped pen is obviously a huge improvement.
That's not to say they're going to be dominant top to bottom. Parnell, Green and O'Day have combined for some Maalox Masher moments early on, but I'll still gladly take where we are now over 12 months ago.
Delgado looks like he wants to make a contract year push.
Our offense has been tacking on late runs, something that was sorely missing last year.
Finally, the gangsta: he's growing on me. His weird, overly friendly, chuckling interview style doesn't exactly give me the impression he's a taskmaster, or all that knowledgeable. But for a team with a shattered psyche in need of a shrink, having a class clown for a manager, and a loose clubhouse, might not be the worst thing in the world. It's not a subscription for multi-year success (IMHO), but it may be a path to forgetting yesterday's epic fail.
Overall, after our first 5 games (all on the road), with a 3-2 record and our ace taking the hill tomorrow, I give us a B+. Now let's see how things develop as the season settles in.
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I'm not sure I'm feeling as good as Fredo at this point. Positives so far are that Johan looks to have lost nothing from last year, and the combo of Putz and K-Rod is obviously a ridiculous upgrade over last year.
Other than that though, I'm not sure I see any forward progress. Through spring training and their first games I see more of the same from Pelf, Perez, and Maine. That is, inconsistency and short outings. We REALLY need one of these guys to be a legit #2 by consistently pitching 7 or more innings and keeping an ERA below 3.2 or so. Putz and K-rod can only do so much, the bullpen is going to get worn out unless one of these starters steps up all season.
Offense is still stranding a lot of runners, although the offense was not the problem last year (#2 in NL I think) and I doubt will be the problem this year. I'm sure it will be in top 5 and probably top 3.
At the end of the day I think this team's success or failure will go as the starting pitching goes. If Pelf and Maine can be consistent this year, we'll be in tremendous shape. If not, as good as the Marlins, Braves and Phillies look, it's going to be a long season.
Overall I'd grade them a B so far. Good but not great.
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