7.8.08

With No Bats, Bullpen Worries Ease

Well you can't chalk this loss up against the wuthering bullpen. There was never a lead to blow.


If Pedro had pitched all season he'd be giving Santana a run for his money as Gopherball Champion

Starting with the first pitch of the game, a Jody Gerut gopher ball surrendered by Pedro, the Mets fell behind and despite a couple of mewling little efforts at offense, stayed behind in a demoralising sort of 4-2 loss that dropped them 3 full games behind the Phillies.

In many ways a familiar theme to the early days of this season - the Mets put some runners on, put them in scoring position and then watched the guys who are supposed to be driving those runs home fizzle.

Three innings the Mets ended with runners in scoring position and Carlos Beltran failing: but not only Beltran. For the night, a meak 1 for 9 with runners in scoring position. Want to see the source of this loss? Look no further. Carloses Delgado and Beltran 0 for the Evening. Another rock to poke under.

Another disgusting sort of loss seeing as it comes against the Padres, one of the worst teams in baseball, who have now beaten the Mets 5 out of 6 times this season. Think if the Mets lose out of the playoffs by a few games they can't point to these pissant performances against the Padres and gasp at the opportunities squandered?


Any one got any goat horns for this kid?

A few things could be said about David Wright as well but what would be the pernt? Wright sometimes giveths away as much as he giveths and last night was another one of those - charged with two errors, one legit, one questionable and one my-head-is-not-really-in-the-game sort of amateur base running blunder - how the FUCK do you not pay attention and know how many outs in an inning for chrissakes - of course by then the Mets were just dragging their little bodies across the losing finishing line anyway - afterwards you could hear Jerry Manuel questioning whether or not Wright needed a night off to rest but really it might be one of the Carloses who could do with a blow. Beltran has driven in just 3 runs in the last 12 games and Delgado hasn't had a hit in this series.


Every night another Met Nobody makes the scene...

And even with the Miraculous Tatis having a quiet night by his standards (a mere hit, no homers) there was Murph pounding out three hits from the number two hole and seeing his batting average in the Majors shoot to a meteoric .455.

So the bullpen was spared for a night.


Perhaps irrationally, Killer Kunz is my new favourite Double AA Met

Pedro, quite encouragingly, pitched into the 7th inning and certainly the key to making this shitty little bullpen work is giving them as little work with as big a lead as possible. The latest Double AA wunderkind whose is to save us all, Eddie Kunz, gave up his first professional homer that saw the Padres increase their lead to 4-2 in the 8th but at least he didn't have that beaten child face that Heilman wears when he knows his life is in the shitter and the walls to climb to get out are covered in grease. In fact, I'm going to go out on a limb and say Kunz is going to thrive up here this season. Maybe. Ha. He has to.

Otherwise, Johan Santana takes the mound Thursday afternoon and you've got to imagine what the Mets could really use is a laughter. A big lead early, Santana pitching 7 or 8 dominant innings and the bullpen easing their way into protecting a nice 8 run lead or something.

We'll see though. These are the Padres and the Mets, if the rest of the season is any indication, will be lucky to trickle out a run against the likes of Josh Banks.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

That Murphy is going to be a keeper I think - his pitch selection is well developed and I think he'll end up being a very good hitter in time although he will certainly tail off before the end of this season - still it's an encouraging sign that we might have promising youth capable of playing every day

Anonymous said...

I like the word "squandered." This is one squandering team. They lose more games to barrel bottom scrapers than anybody. And today they nearly did it again. David Van Winkle awoke and actually got an important hit. I was beginning to think he had a fine future as a compiler. Oh well, the Jets got Favre. We can watch that from now on. This team will never get over the hump, throwing away as many wins as they do. Nice job Johan. For a softball pitcher.

Jaap said...

Yes, sanchez, Murph is nice to watch - had a good game last night as well -

Jaap said...

jdon, squander indeed. like squandering a 7 game lead last season. squandering decently pitched games by Johan, even if he's cut off after 100 like his balls are going to fall off and roll away if he guts it out like a man out there instead of mentally quitting every time he gets near that mark.

Jaap said...

oh yeah - Great news by the way, that Favre signing. But you know the Jets, they'll still cock it up somehow. Favre will see his consecutive game streak broken by a freakish accident, like being hit with a Duaner Sanchez pitch or throwing a 6th interception on the day or christ knows what. I'd like to be enthused about this and am but yeah, let's root for the Jets giving up a 1st round pick for him next season...