Here's something to keep in mind when you watch or listen to a game: ball four. The Mets are walking the world right now, starters and relievers. Taken as a unit, Mets pitchers are straddling an unsustainable 4.9 walks per nine innings along with a 1.61 walks to strikeouts ratio. The only starter with a BB/9 under 4 is Johan Santana. The team is third in baseball in strikeouts yes, but it also leads the league in walks, by fifteen over the nearest team. There's the matter of the Mets being 22nd in getting innings from their starting pitchers and 3rd in getting innings from their relievers, which short of a miracle is a recipe that's going to blow up in their faces. I've yet to see Fernando Nieve walk across Flushing Bay, so it's safe to assume the bullpen will crash back to Earth if they keep being worked like this.
Know what I mutter about under my breath while I'm at work? It's a constant loop of "Why can't the fucking Mets fucking hit?" Nevermind that Jason Bay has yet to hit a home run and that the man is striking out at a rate that would make Dave Kingman blush, our new leadoff hitter has a .302 OBP. There's also David Wright, striking out at a rate that would make Mark Reynolds blush. If only he could hit .260 like Mark Reynolds, maybe he'd inch his slugging percentage above .500 again. Instead he's changing his swing, can't hit an outside pitch and can't catch up to a high, inside fastball. Which begs the question: what can he hit?
Wright still usually looks better than Jeff Francoeur though, who's made swinging at everything into an art form, if being a cracker version of Vladimir Guerrero can be considered art. The best the Mets can hope for at this point is that Francoeur treads water where his stats are now, because he's at about his ceiling until he can keep the bat on his shoulder for longer than two pitches. His name remains impossible to spell without checking an official reference and he's batting a puke-inducing .114 since the end of the hitting streak to start his season. One of those things bothers me much more than the other.
More good news: Carlos Beltran's return is now so ethereal that Gary Mathews, Jr. put a downpayment on a house on the North Shore. Gotta love the diplomatic language of the official team site in relaying the news that Beltran's mid-May return "now seems less likely."
Oh wait, I think George Vescey has something positive to say:
“I didn’t see anybody offering me an extension,” Manuel said, laughing, as he does. He was referring to his contract being up at the end of the season. A week ago, it was reasonable to envision him not making it to the end of the season, but that is how things go in these parts.
“Everybody’s making a big deal about it,” said Alex Cora, the Mets’ old-pro utility man who will be managing a team one of these days, if he wants the aggravation.
...
What about the fear and trembling that was kicking around recently? “I never thought about it,” said Cora, who helped the Red Sox win the World Series in 2007, and knows from good teams.
Alex Cora is here for another season after this one thanks to a contract that was widely considered idiotic, you fucking buffoon! Alex Cora carried that Red Sox team with his .684 OPS and his seven errors in eighty three games. I don't even dislike Alex Cora, but using him as the linchpin in your "This team has heart" column is Sports Hack 101. They teach you how to be a relentlessly negative sourpuss in Sports Hack 202, a class I've been stuck repeating since 2007.
The Mets are 10-9 with a three gazillion dollar payroll, there's no telling what's going to happen to John Maine next (perhaps an anvil will fall on him or he'll get injured chasing a road runner), before last night they were staring up at the Nationals in the standings and to top it all off, Oliver Perez starts tomorrow. What a great time to revisit the fact that Bobby Bonilla's agent is obviously some kind of Rasputin-like wizard.
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