For Jerry Manuel and Omar Minaya it is a case of better late than never. Slowly but surely the Mets are making moves that should have been obvious in either Spring Training or even the offseason. Gary Matthews opened the season getting regular at-bats. Now he is chained to the bench. Angel Pagan, despite excellent [...]
After his blowout loss in Philadelphia, the whispers started that Johan Santana was done as an elite starter. And following Mike Pelfrey’s strong outing Saturday night against the Yankees, there was even talk about how Santana was not even the ace of the Mets’ staff. Sunday night, Santana showed that both of those ideas were [...]
“Serenity Now!” This was the mantra of Frank Costanza, a phrase he said to keep his blood pressure down. The problem, of course, was that Frank would scream the phrase at the top of his lungs. And that is pretty much my reaction with Jerry Manuel’s bullpen deployment. There may not be a baseball fan [...]
Back on April 16th, the headline that accompanied David Lennon’s piece in Newsday read, “Francoeur to Moneyball Gurus: How ya like me now?” Jeff Francoeur was great the first 10 days of the season but since then he has been horrible. And when I say horrible, I do not mean average, run of the mill [...]
During the middle of Spring Training, if you asked 10 different people to predict who would be in the Mets’ bullpen on Opening Day, you might have gotten 10 different answers. Manager Jerry Manuel did not go for either the popular or conventional way when he constructed his bullpen. Manuel opted to look elsewhere besides [...]
The bench for the Mets is comprised of Henry Blanco, Frank Catalanotto, Alex Cora, Gary Matthews and Fernando Tatis. Blanco and Cora are fixtures, there as much for their ability to play key defensive positions as anything they do with their bats. The other three players need to produce more offense to justify their spots [...]
This offseason everyone criticized Omar Minaya for not picking up at least one starting pitcher. I advocated for the club to sign John Lackey, and after he inked a deal with the Red Sox, I suggested the club pick up Jon Garland. Some people thought that the Mets needed to add two starting pitchers but [...]
Well that did not go as planned. After winning in a laugher in the opener of a three-game set versus the Phillies, the Mets got blown out in back-to-back days, including Sunday night when ace Johan Santana had the worst start of his career. Now more than ever, fans are wondering - How good are [...]