6.9.08

STEP ONE TOWARDS ANNUAL COLLAPSE?

Ok, I don't really believe a single home loss to the Phillies last night is
necessarily a harbinger of doom.


Why can't I be Bretty Myers?

Brett Myers, after all, continues to defy logic with his recent spell
of dominant pitching (four starts, 4-0 with a 0.58 ERA with 35 strikeouts in
31 innings) and the Mets went down swinging time after time. Pelfrey
was almost as effective but a miraculous grab by Fat Boy at
first robbing Reyes of at least a certain double, as well as
Murph missing a game-tying homer by inches in the bottom of the 6th.


Even if he'd caught this, the Mets would still have lost 1-0.

Another few inches might have helped Ryan Church catch Gregg Dobb's
two-run shot in the bottom of the 7th. Church also had us all jumping up in
our seats in the bottom of the 9th but alas, he didn't hit the ball quite
hard enough and the game ended drearily, 3-0.

The Mets were impatient at the plate and the number of Ks evidenced that.
Is that from the pressure, artificial or otherwise not to repeat a September
collapse? Will we be more grateful if it is a team-wide choke job rather
than a crappy bullpen that sees a September swoon?

Stay tuned, kiddies. They'll have another chance to snuff these Phils again
this afternoon.

My bet is the Mets have shown all season they're made of stronger stuff than
another miserable collapse.

8 comments:

katherine said...

Well, really, all season we've been losing the series opener to the Phils and then redeeming ourselves, haven't we?

The thing that concerns me is that last night's loss was not as terribly, horribly, gruesomely, painful as usual - it was more like a normal loss. So that is a change in our usual pattern. I hope that doesn't mean we're going to be swept.

Jaap said...

The postponing is also a new precedent but now the Mets have to sweep today to win the series. Ion't really see that happening but maybe the extra day of rest will do Pedro well. If the pen doesn't blow it, Mets can take both. Big if. But I predict Mets will do it with a 9th inning rally in the nightcap.

katherine said...

I keep hearing people say it is hard to win both ends of a doubleheader.

Is it harder than winning any two games in a row?

Because if you have two evenly matched teams playing against each other, in general, Team 1 would have a 25% chance of winning two games in a row, Team 2 would have a 25% chance of winning both games, and there would be a 50% chance of a split. It's like Mendelian genetics.

But maybe there is some factor specific to doubleheaders that makes it even harder.

katherine said...

well, this may make me seem like a weirdo, but the doubleheader question was bugging me, so I went through this year's schedule.
Did you know there have been only 8 doubleheaders in MLB so far this year? The Mets were in 2 of them.

There were 4 splits and 4 sweeps overall. The Mets split one and were swept in one.

So that is exactly what you'd expect if the wins and losses were occurring by chance. But it is a small sample size.

Anonymous said...

All I know is that we had better score about 8 runs against Moyer. It is a disgrace that a lineup supposedly known for patience and putting the ball in play does not put this pensioner in pitcher's hospital.

Anonymous said...

There you go, and jaap, if this team loses it again this year do we blame David Wright, who never gets a hot when we really need it? He gets less press criticism than Obama, and that is hard in this country.

Jaap said...

Katherine, spot on with your doubleheader research. As for mendelian genetics, garden peas and doubleheaders is quite, well, over my head unless you think getting sept by the Phillies is an inherited disease ;)

Jaap said...

jdon, there will be plenty of blame to go around if the Mets spit the bit again. As for Obama, if you think he has no critics I'm sure you find it on, I dunno, Fox news?