More Bad Offense
The Mets lost to the Expos 2-1 last night. Where have I heard that before? You can take what I said yesterday about the importance of not wasting good performances and substitute Tom Glavine instead of Al Leiter. A Mike Cameron error lead to the winning (unearned) run. So much for defense up the middle.
The Mets anemic offense actually managed 8 hits but were only able to push 1 run across the plate. Two Mets runners were thrown out at the plate. This is the big second guess of the night. Third base coach Matt Galante sent home Mike Piazza in the 2nd and Karim Garcia in the 8th. Some people have criticized Galante for sending the runners. Personally, I think it was a good move. When the offense is struggling like the Mets offense has (this was the third 2-1 loss in 5 days and the fourth game in 5 days in which they’ve scored just one run) you need to take some chances in the hopes that it’ll spark something.
Comments to this post
Stanton Keeping Batista On Base
Why was Mike Stanton being so careful about keeping Tony Batista so close to first in the 8th inning? Especially with 2 outs? The guy has never had more than 7 stolen bases in a season (his career high of 7 came in his rookie year of 1996). He has stolen only 33 bases in a 9 year career (to date). That’s a 3.7 per year average. The guy is hardly a stolen base threat. And with 2 outs shouldn’t Stanton be concentrating on getting the batter out?
Comments to this post
Another One Bites The Dust
The Mets blew another one last night losing 2-1 to the Expos. From what I’ve read so far this morning people are really coming down on the Mets for losing this one. While it’s true that the Expos are a team the Mets should beat the fact is that the Mets can’t win every game against them. Add in the fact that the Expos were bound to break their losing streak on this trip (8 consecutive losses going into last nights game) and I’d say it could be worse. If the Mets can win the next 2 games and finish this series winning 3 out of 4 I’d be satisfied. But for that to happen the hitting is going to have to come around.
The Mets spoiled an excellent outing by Al Leiter in which the lefty pitched 7 innings allowing 5 hits and 1 earned run. The earned run ended a personal best 29 1/3 consecutive scoreless inning streak for Leiter. When Leiter left the game for a pinch hitter in the bottom of the seventh the game was tied at one. It’s easy to blame David Weathers for the loss after he gave up a solo homer to Jose Vidro (hardly a power hitter) but that wouldn’t exactly be fair. The blame should go to the Mets hitters who are just not getting the job done. They managed just 4 hits off Expos starter Zach Day (2 in the first inning) and failed to get any hits off of relievers Luis Ayala and Rocky Biddle. In fact, Biddle threw only 6 pitches to retire the Mets in the 9th and earn his third save of the year.
It’s easy to say that it’s too early in the season to panic but you can’t be too patient even this early in the season. If you allow yourself to get into too deep of a hole in April then you’re only making you’re job tougher for later in the season. When you get pitching that is as good as last night’s pitching then the job is made relatively easy. You simply can’t waste good pitching performances like the Mets did last night. Whatever is wrong with the hitting must be fixed if the Mets are going to stay afloat in the early going this year.
Other notes:
Comments to this post
Things To Look For Tonight
Things to watch for in tonight’s game against the Expos:
Comments to this post
Update on the Waffles Google Bomb
The Google bomb worked!! As I wrote yesterday, the blog Esoteric * Diatribe is leading a Google bombing to get the #1 search result for the term waffles on Google to be Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry’s homepage. They have succeeded. To see the results click here. Even more interesting is that it now appears that Kerry’s campaign is sponsoring the results for the search terms “waffles” and “waffle”. Nice move to try to capitalize on one of their candidates biggest problems.
Comments to this post
My Take on A-Rod’s Slump
Everyone in the press is all over the Alex Rodriguez slump and trying to figure out what’s wrong with him. The answer? Nothing. He’s a player who is adjusting to a new team and a new position. Like any other player in that situation he is bound to have cold spells while making the adjustment. But history has shown that his slumps don’t last long so look for him to break out very soon. My guess is that by this time next week we’ll all have forgotten he ever had a slump.
Comments to this post
Mondays Action
As mentioned in a previous post the Mets beat the Expos 4-1 last night to break their 3 game skid. It’s always nice to have a last place team come in when you’re on a slide like that.
Some random notes:
Comments to this post
Bad Audio on Fox Sports Net
While I was watching the Mets-Expos game on Fox Sports Net tonight I couldn’t help but notice the horrible audio. The fan noise in the overpowered the commentators to the point where it was not easy to hear what was being said. Also the audio levels seemed to be in flux through the whole game. One second the audio was loud, the next second it was low. I’m no audio technician but certainly broadcast technology has progressed to the point where we can get a good, even broadcast where the audio levels are constant and the commentators can be heard clearly over the crowed noise. (Not that I love Ted Robinson and Fran Healy but it would be nice to hear what they had to say.)
Comments to this post
Mets Win
The Mets won 4-1 against the Expos tonight. Granted, the Expos are a last place team so it’s not much to get excited about. But as a last place team the Mets are expected to beat the Expos if they are going to contend this year. So beating the Expos is a good sign. Let’s see if they can take the next one tomorrow night.
Comments to this post
Mets Winning in 4th Inning
I just turned on the game and the Mets are winning 4-0 in the 4th inning. As the Mets were victimized by a couple of big innings over the weekend I’m not going to get my hopes up yet. But this is certainly a promising development.
Comments to this post
