Archie Bunker's Army

You could have had a bad feeling about this one at old RFK Stadium in Washington DC as soon as the first inning. In the first inning the Mets had bases loaded with only one out for Cliff Floyd who is hitting .359 and is red-hot on a 14 game hitting streak. With Livan Hernandez struggling early as he did in his last outing, Floyd hit a deep fly on a slow curve that just missed being a grandslam and instead turned into a sacrifice fly which scored Matsui to make it 1-0 but spared Hernandez a blowout first inning. Rather than capitalising on their base runners, the Mets ended the inning with a disappointing 1-0 lead. It was a trend the Mets would follow all night as they hit just one single in 11 at-bats with runners in scoring position. In fact, the Mets put at least one runner in scoring position in six innings with similarly miserable and unproductive results and that one run lead held only until the 4th inning when Jose Guillen hit a two out line drive homer to left field to tie t...

Tom Glavine spent 16 seasons pitching for the Atlanta Braves and sometimes it seems as though he still is, even though he joined the Mets a little over two seasons ago. As is his consuetude, Glavine faced the Braves last night and was knocked about even worse than he is by other opponents, this time getting knocked out after just 4 2/3 innings Wednesday at Shea Stadium, allowing seven runs and 12 hits -- including back-to-back home runs by Eddie Perez and Wilson Betemit -- en route to an 8-4 Mets defeat. On the other hand, former Met pitcher Mike Hampton had no such trouble against his former teammates, improving his record to 3-0 with a 1.67 ERA for the season and throwing seven admirable innings against them. Mr Glavine, the prize free agent signing of the Mets winter of 2002 is now 1-7 against his former team with an earned run average of 9.36 and the question begs to be asked: Whose side are you on anyway? Others might say that yesterday's performance was vintage 2005 Glavine...

There were the inevitable comparisons to their first matchup of the season when the Mets had started their season by losing five in a row and Smoltz was burning through the Mets order, striking out 15 and Pedro was matching him out for out with a two hitter before the Mets exploded in that fateful 8th inning. It wasn't quite as exciting, the stakes weren't quite as high and the venue had moved from Turner Field to Shea but after allowing three quick runs in the top of the first, for the fourth time in his five starts and the 15th time in the Mets' 21 games, the opposing team scored in the first inning and the Braves went on to win this 4-3. The drama came eventually but not until a 9th inning rally when down 4-1. Eric Valent, the man who has struck out in 50% of his at-bats this season, led off the ninth inning rally with a two-out double off the Braves not so imposing closer, Dan Kolb. Mets pinch-hitters were three for three last night and Valent raised his batting averag...

You might not be able to say much about how he pitches on the road, but for two consecutive games at Shea, Heilman has seemed right at home. In 16 innings worth of unpredictable fun at Shea, Heilman (2-2) has allowed a mere run, three hits and four walks, striking out 12, to laud a 0.56 ERA. Pedro Country. But on the road, this guy stinks so far, going 0-2 with a 12.00 ERA in two starts. Heilman went through a stretch last night where he retired 15 straight batters and it stayed 1-0 until the sixth when Mike Piazza, who broke out of a slump with three hits, doubled home Kaz Matsui with the tying run. Then Cliff Floyd hit his fifth home run of the season, stretching his hitting streak to 12 games as the Mets hung on to win last night 5-4. The Mets have now won 11 of their last 15 games and are just a half-game behind the idle Marlins for the top spot in the National League East, tied with the Braves. But the win was almost lost when Roberto Hernandez, unscored upon in his first eight a...

Not to get greedy or anything but had the Mets managed to win last night with Victor "I'm Not Kazmir" Zambrano against the Nationals, they'd have a place in a three-way tie with the Braves and Marlins this morning. Instead, Zambrano had one of those games we will all look back on with fondness, the kind of pitching performance that leaves you searching for antonyms to superlative like profane, inadequate, deficient. Instead of brilliantly forcing us to forget that the Mets have one ace and one Hall of Famer who can occasionally pitch like an ace, he reminded us of our Achilles heel as he was ripped for eight runs and nine hits in 5 1/3 innings and virtually knocked the Mets out of the game before it really started. He walked three and hit two batters and the Mets lost for just the fourth time in 14 games. Certainly no irony in the fact that yesterday was "Sanitation Day" in New York. Instead, the Mets remain a game behind first place, behind the Marlins a...

NB: Due to travel obligations, the summaries of Friday and Saturday's games against the Nats are necessarily short and sweet. We will return to the predictable ranting and arriving by Wednesday morning : Saturday: Mets 10 Nats 5 With Kaz Ishii, the third Met starter of the season to enter the dark recesses of the disabled list , the Mets were swiftly running out of starting pitcher options. Although his 0-0 record and 8.22 earned run average in three starts at AAA Norfolk would belie any chance in hell of success at the Major League level this season, Jae Seo proved the world wrong and saved the day yesterday for the Mets, pitching five scoreless innings before eventually allowing one run, six hits and no walks in six innings. With the unpredictable Ishii suffering from a strained muscle, Seo threw 79 pitches and 55 went for strikes in winning his first game of the season. Better still, he got to witness the spirit of the "New Mets": "There are not super-huge diff...

For the second time in six days, Pedro Martinez validated the front office decision to jettison Aging Al Leiter by outpitching him to give the Mets a victory. Imagine, after all, if the Marlins had Pedro and the Mets had been stuck with Senator Al. The mere thought induces nausea and vomitting. Instead, our ace, who lifted us again after a loss and who did not have his own souvenir poncho night like Al Leiter did, (souvenir poncho??!) struck out eight and walked none, giving him 38 strikeouts and four walks in 29 innings. Just to underscore his control, whilst the rest of the Mets starting staff struggles to make 50% of their pitches for strikes, Pedro threw 88 pitches last night, 64 of them strikes in winning his second game of the season and lowering his ERA to 2.17. On his souvenir poncho night, Leiter threw 82 pitches in only three innings of work, 42 for strikes, gave up 5 walks, eight earned runs , hit a batter and saw his ERA for the season rise to 5.66 and his record descen...

Well, it didn't take long for that bubble to burst, did it? One start following a magnificent, if entirely unexpected one hit shutout at home against the Marlins, Mets starter Aaron Heilman looked more like himself facing the same Marlins in the Dolphins football stadium, giving up seven runs on 11 hits in a mere four innings, taxing the bullpen and taking a 9-2 loss on the chin. It appears that the reason he's exasperated us all once again was because he abandoned his off-speed pitches and fed fastballs to a team that feasts on them. Pitching coach Rick Peterson, said: "His last outing was a recipe for success. But if you overuse one ingredient, it doesn't come out the same way. This is not the instructional league. It's the big leagues. His thought process tonight was not right." Let me get this straight. You suck in virtually every major league outing, let's say something like a career record of 4-11 and a record of 1-6 on the road with some 7.00 plu...

Boom boom boom boom I'm gonna shoot you right down, right offa your feet Take you home with me, put you in my house Boom boom boom boom --Johnny Lee Hooker, Boom Boom . It might go down as the game that turned into batting practice. Facing a Phillies pitcher making his first start of the season, the Mets had their greatest run production since 1989. Every starting position player had a hit. The team that had hit 12 home runs in its first 13 games had a club-record seven on Tuesday, including a grand slam by David Wright, and buried the Phillies, 16-4. Was it only yesterday that Carlos Beltran was bemoaning the pitching in the NL East? "This is a tough division," Beltran said the Mets' bloodless performance in the series opener Monday night. "I think it is the toughest division in baseball. Every day you face not only a good pitcher, but an ace. Every day you really have to prepare yourself mentally and do an adjustment every at-bat because it's quite a ch...

"I was slowly losing hold of my original and better self, and becoming slowly incorporated with my second and worse." - Jekyll, highlighting his lack of control over Hyde in Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde He had us all fooled last week after he matched Roger Clemens virtually pitch for pitch in a brilliant outing. Where was the evil Ishii who had no pitch control? Left behind after he stunk up Cincinnati? Where was the man who never met a base on balls he didn't like? Had the masterful mind of Coach Peterson tamed him? Did the Mets land the steal of the season getting him for their backup catcher? Well, at least until his next start, we can pack the bandwagon back in mothballs for Ishii was simply atrocious last night in giving us a repugnant sample of what Dodger fans went through for the past two seasons. And it's not like he eased us into it. After a leadoff single, he stunk right out of the gate, throwing 11 consecutive balls in the first inning, walking two batter...

We all knew the Mets would lose again this season. There were a few spoofing "157-5" signs out at Shea on Saturday but six straight victories was a nice run, the perfect antidote for an 0-5 beginning and a portent of good things to come this season. It couldn't last forever and yesterday, AJ Burnett and the Florida Marlins proved that with a 5-2 victory, the first loss at Shea this season for the Mets. Of course, it wasn't just Burnett's four hitter and or his second straight complete game for the Fish that did the Mets in. Most of us probably imagined a meltdown by Zambrano or an 8 walk outing by Ishii or even a typical Heilman outing would do us in but yesterday it was a series of events and a broken down lineup that did the Mets in. Miracles cannot be expected for long with a lineup that has Doug Mientkiewicz batting cleanup. But with Cliff Floyd still out with a nagging rib problem and Mike Piazza begging off after a day game followed a night game and ...

For a half inning it looked like Game 11 of the season was going to play out like Game 1. Pedro Martinez would pitch a brilliant game and Bradon Looper, like magic, would make a Mets win disappear into thin air. The main difference this time was that the Mets had the last at bat. Although Looper coughed up another fur ball from the pen, failing to convert a one run save opportunity, he padded his record to 1-1 after the relief catcher, defensive replacement but offensive whiz Ramon Castro, himself a former Marlin, singled in the bottom of the 9th with two outs to drive in Victor Diaz, another Met replacement player, and give the Mets a 4-3 victory, their sixth victory in a row and pushed them over .500 for the first time all season. Mmmm, that sounds so good, I'll write it again: The Mets' sixth victory in a row . The game started off promising. The most hatable Marlin, Carlos Delgado whose double error in the game previous cost the Marlins the game was in the lineup again a...

"From day one, we have told everyone that Carlos would make his choice based on where he felt he had the best chance to win a World Series," wrote David Sloane, Delgado's agent, in an e-mail the day he signed with the Marlins. "I'm proud to say that is exactly why he made the choice he made." For one game anyway, the Mets stuffed David Sloane's bravado and Carlos Delgado with it as they won the series opener at Shea 4-0. It was their fifth win in a row after five losses in a row, and another gem of a pitching performance, this time from an unexpected source in Aaron Heilman. They have now moved to within a game of first place and are no longer in last place. The Phillies are taking care of the basement. Heilman tossed a complete game, one-hit shutout against the Marlins and is now only four behind Tom Seaver for the team record of one-hit shutouts. Prior to last night's game it would have been hard to believe that of the two starters, he and Jos...

How many times over the last several seasons did we see the image of John Franco summoned from the bullpen and allow a groan to escape our pinched and disappointed lips? Although the record would show that he only blew 64 saves for us officially in his career, that was only due to the fact that we had someone in the form of Armando Benitez to blow them for us on an even bigger and more catastrophic scale. Suffice it to say that John Franco has cost us enough games and it's about time he started blowing some in our favour. Last night he did just that. With the Mets trailing by two runs in the seventh inning lo and behold, in comes John Franco, with two Met runners on and only one Met out and by the time he left, the tying run had scored. Thanks Franco, you've finally done us more good than harm. After pinch-hitter Marlon Anderson grounded to first base off Franco to score one run, José Reyes hit a dribbler up the third-base line. As Franco fielded the ball, he appeared to trip...

With the Mets having started the season by losing 5 ignominious games in a row you might not have imagined much more success with a pair of Cy Young winners in Smoltz and Clemens sandwiched around Andy Pettitte lined up to face them in the three games that were to follow. Instead, like a determined and stone-jawed prizefighter knocked to the canvas with a hard right, the Mets have gotten back up quickly and started throwing a few punches of their own. They don't have their opponents on their heels yet, but the crowd is beginning to sense blood. Ok, ok, hyperbole. But still, three wins in a row. Two 5 run 8th innings in a row and one 11th inning, game winning RBI single by Jose Reyes off former Met Dan Wheeler to get them there. Not to mention a superb complete game pitching performance by Pedro, a well-fought outing by Tom Glavine and a surprisingly excellent outing from Kaz Ishii, who matched Clemens goose egg for goose egg over seven innings and walked only three whilst strik...

Having missed the first five innings of the game some 3,500 miles from Shea, I arrived home just in time for the absurdist Opening Day Batter's Eye Delay in the top of the 6th. "The billboard is supposed to show advertisements between innings and go black when play resumes, serving as a functional batter's eye. But in the top of the sixth, the billboard became stuck on an advertisement for MSG and Fox Sports Net, which seemed fitting because a cable television dispute has blacked out Mets broadcasts in a significant part of the metropolitan area." I've decided to just type as we go and will do so for the rest of the season whenever the Mets play a day game since, due to the 5 hour time difference between there and here, the day games are usually the only ones I normally have the chance to to live. The only thing I knew by the time I'd settled in for the 14 minute delay whilst the Shea Stadium staff bumbled around trying to sort out the Batter's Eye, was...

It took them six games to do it but the 2005 New Mets finally won their first game of the season, calming the critics, halting the hyperventilating and bashing the hated Atlanta Braves at Turner Field all in one wonderful afternoon. Although the final score was 6-1, for the first 7 innings there was every indication that this would be another trademark Met loss in what was swiftly becoming the most disappointing season in recent memory. Sure, Pedro Martinez was pitching masterfully again, dueling reformed closer John Smoltz through seven innings but still behind 1-0 even though he'd only surrendered two hits all game. And Carlos Beltran had been struck out swinging twice by Smoltz already as the Mets entered that now famous 8th, gagging on a 1 for 12 streak at the plate in Atlanta. And whilst Smoltz had already rung up 15 K's, a rather remarkable feat in itself considering that it tied his mark for strikeouts that he'd set 13 years before, the tension in Met fans built up...

Well, you've got to hate joining the chorus of howling critics but let's face it. Five straight losses to start the season is a bad audition. If Next Year Is Now , does that mean that this season is already dead and buried? There's something Amazin' about being the ONLY team left in baseball without a win in 2005. Why can't we be more like the 2005 Braves, who have now won four in a row, stand in their customary first place atop the NL East and managed this despite scoring only 14 runs in their first five games? The Mets have scored all of 16 runs in their first five games and still have nothing to show for it. Why can't we be more like the 2005 Chicago White Sox who, despite hitting 4 for 24 with runners in scoring position (an abysmal .166 average), still managed to win three of their first four games? In the Saturday evening's 6-3 loss to the Braves the Mets were 1 for 12 with runners in scoring position and are now 5 for 38 (.132) so far for the s...

We can cackle at will about 1964, the last time the Mets opened their season so auspiciously. But imagine, as we no doubt will, that three losses in a row might only be the tip of the iceberg. Yes indeed,there's a horizon of hopelessness looming out there just waiting to be discovered. Back in 1962 the Mets lost their first 9 games in a row. Then they won a game, their first ever, and then they lost 3 more in a row. If the Mets can't win with Zambrano and Santiago in the first two games coming up against the Braves, they will have to pin their hopes on winning one of their next three games thereafter which would be facing Smoltz, then at home to face Andy Pettitte and Roger Clemens. That could be 8 in a row, one off the mark. The rabble would be deafening by then. What will be interesting now is listening to the cooing of reassurance from Willie and the Boys as they try to convince themselves as well as the Met Public that this season isn't already teetering on the ...

Cover your eyes kids and don't look now, but the Mets have now started a season 0-2 for the first time since 1997. Whereas Day One saw their bullpen collapse, Day Two saw their starting pitcher collapse. Day Three, now that the extent of the ace factor on their staff has been exhausted, will see the recently-acquired Kazuhisa Ishii try to save the Mets' little love boat from sinking to 0-3 before it ever leaves port and gets home. However, Ishii's career numbers against the Reds are not very encouraging -- 7.82 ERA and an 0-2 record in three starts and merely 12 2/3 innings. Women and children first, Herr Kapitan! Before we start to panic completely, ah, there is the sweet odor of hope as Ishii has an 11-2 record in 15 April starts in his three big league seasons. And hey, if he fails, we can all have a nice laugh when concluding that the Mets have not been 0-3 since 1964, when the franchise was still the league's laughingstock. But let's not throw in the towel ju...

Now that Kris Benson is on the DL for perhaps as long as three weeks, it appears some guppy going by the name of Jose Santiago is going to take his place on the mound when the Mets face the Braves next Monday. Hey, good plan. Almost as good as trading Ginter just before Benson went down. Very prescient work. Oh christ, we shouldn't bash the management for their first major error of the spring but really. Santiago is a career reliever -- no starts in 225 Major League appearances. He has pitched with the Royals, his original club, the Phillies and, in 2003, the Indians. His 1-3 record in 2003 brought his career record to 17-22. His career ERA is 4.39. Santiago didn't pitch in organized baseball last season. This sounds like JUST the guy to take the mound against the Braves. ***** Well for one more night anyway, the Mets will have a decent pitcher on the mound as Tom Glavine takes the reigns. He will face the Reds new pitcher, lefty Eric Milton. Milton is a notorious gophe...