This Week in Baseball 4/27 - 5/3

[Smartly Pretty]

A rotation of Santana-Peavy-Pelfrey-Maine-Hernandez/Niese sounds like depth to me.

 

[treble]

Halladay's not getting traded.

 

[Smues]

Especially not while the Jays are in ... some place other than 2nd, 3rd, 4th, or 5th in the East.

 

[treble]

FIRST PLACE.

It's going to suck, though, when Aaron Hill stops hitting everything in sight

 

[Red Baron]

FIRST PLACE.

It's going to suck, though, when Aaron Hill stops hitting everything in sight

By next week he'll be on the DL.

 

[naiwf]

The Mets don't need more pitching, they need ONE fucking guy who can get a hit with RISP and less than 2 out.

 

[naiwf]

9 BB allowed in 9.2 IP. The Mets are awesome and Minaya deserves a hefty extension for putting together such a gritty, tough team that never rolls over and dies.

 

[Czech]

Me Mets fan. Me want!

 

[naiwf]

Me Mets fan. Me want!

You're not really the guy who should be playing the "whiny fan" routine as a taunt. I know how much it sucks to make the playoffs when it doesn't bring you any closer to a championship (TM) and all, but as a fan of a team who has taken part in three colossal chokes in a row, I'm aggravated that the on field product remains the same from year to year.

 

[Czech]

But all the Mets do is add expensive guys!

 

[wnyxmcneal]

I saw an ad for a Mets game that began with Cole Hamels calling them chokers, and then it was a montage of Mets hits with the announcer going: Choke on This!

Really, PIX?

 

[jimmy no nose]

I thought this was a semi-amusing occurrence in the minors today:

Synchronicity: Potomac Manager Trent Jewett notched his 1,000th career victory and his 1,000th career loss on the same day. The veteran skipper entered an April 30th doubleheader against Wilmington with a 999-999 career record. Potomac dropped the opener, handing Jewett loss No. 1,000. He moved his career record back to the .500 level when the P-Nats pulled out a 6-0 victory in Game 2.

How incredibly mediocre.

 

[naiwf]

But all the Mets do is add expensive guys!

That can't get a hit with RISP. I'd take some scrub with fight in him like David Eckstein over a $15 million a year guy who pops up with the bases loaded and 1 out or strikes out looking. Wright, Reyes and Beltran are awesome when no one's on base or the game isn't on the line. I expect nothing from any of them if my team needs a hit to win a game. Today they hit 2 sac flies, 2 solo homers and Castillo singled in one run and left 13 men on base. Yesterday they hit 3 sac flies, a 2 run HR and 2 singles, while leaving 9 on.

In a 2 game series thus far that's 5 sac flies and 3 hits that plated runs with men on (all singles, one of which was by Pelfrey). All of their other runs came via home runs. I don't know the exact numbers with men on or RISP, but they've left 22 men on base because no one on the team ever gets a big hit with runners on base. This is pretty much exactly what they do in every game. Santana and Moyer have identical records mainly because Moyer gets ridiculous run support and Santana has to win 2-1. It gets tiring seeing the same losses year after year after year.

 

[oldskool]

The Mets are a bunch of pretty boy douchebags, and they need a loudmouth asshole introduced into their lineup to stir the pot and fire up that lineup. Preferably an unheralded nobody who can step up and make them all look bad so they get embarrassed into producing.

 

[Vitamin X]

Clint Hurdle is like the Vinny Del Negro of baseball- except the Rox won't be anywhere near sniffing a playoff spot if he keeps throwing Huston up as the closer instead of Manny:

"It's another month, so I want to change closers once a month," Hurdle said with a smile. "It's May 1, so I think it's appropriate. Just kidding. Huston has made progress, Manny has not."

Lolz. Okay, Clint!

 

[Smues]

I thought this was a semi-amusing occurrence in the minors today:

Synchronicity: Potomac Manager Trent Jewett notched his 1,000th career victory and his 1,000th career loss on the same day. The veteran skipper entered an April 30th doubleheader against Wilmington with a 999-999 career record. Potomac dropped the opener, handing Jewett loss No. 1,000. He moved his career record back to the .500 level when the P-Nats pulled out a 6-0 victory in Game 2.

That's pretty cool. It was probably nice for him to have his 1,000 win just hours after his 1,000th loss so he's not worrying about the loss, if non major league managers worry/care about these sorts of things.

 

[alkeiper]

Wright, Reyes and Beltran are awesome when no one's on base or the game isn't on the line.

Beltran is hitting .370 with RISP. THIS YEAR.

 

[Czech]

The Mets are a bunch of pretty boy douchebags, and they need a loudmouth asshole introduced into their lineup to stir the pot and fire up that lineup.

Swisher's in the wrong borough.

 

[Dandy]

The Pirates have made significant strides, and in my opinion could be a team to watch next year. Of course, small market teams always lose their big producers now, but if they can continue to develop the pitching, they might just have something there.

 

[zio]

Me Mets fan. Me want!

You're not really the guy who should be playing the "whiny fan" routine as a taunt. I know how much it sucks to make the playoffs when it doesn't bring you any closer to a championship (TM) and all, but as a fan of a team who has taken part in three colossal chokes in a row, I'm aggravated that the on field product remains the same from year to year.

Let's put an end to the three colossal chokes bit. 2007 was pretty much the only one. A 7-game series against the Cardinals in 2006 isn't a choke. Neither is last year when you had a bunch of teams in contention in September.

 

[naiwf]

Me Mets fan. Me want!

You're not really the guy who should be playing the "whiny fan" routine as a taunt. I know how much it sucks to make the playoffs when it doesn't bring you any closer to a championship (TM) and all, but as a fan of a team who has taken part in three colossal chokes in a row, I'm aggravated that the on field product remains the same from year to year.

Let's put an end to the three colossal chokes bit. 2007 was pretty much the only one. A 7-game series against the Cardinals in 2006 isn't a choke. Neither is last year when you had a bunch of teams in contention in September.

If your team was the favorite to win the NL pennant in '06 for an entire season and then lost to an 84 win team with Game 7 at home, I'm sure you'd view that as a choke. Ditto for blowing 7 and 3.5 game leads with 17 to go in consecutive years. I hate when people try to say that another team other than their own didn't choke. Your own ace said the Mets are chokers, it's OK to agree with him.

 

[zio]

3.5 game lead with 17 isn't a "choke". I still wouldn't constitute losing game 7 against the Cards at home a choke because it was an evenly played game. Just because Cole said it doesn't make it true, and he was coerced into that, anyways. He probably doesn't really believe it, but was just having fun since the NY DJ's basically made him say it. Maybe I don't think they choked last year because I honestly didn't believe they were that good of a team. Ditto with the Phils, but they got lucky.

 

[Bored]

Carl Crawford ties an A.L. record/modern MLB record with six stolen bases in one game, last done by Eric Young in 1996.

 

[Taxman]

Craaawwwford's on fiiiiire

 

[naiwf]

3.5 game lead with 17 isn't a "choke". I still wouldn't constitute losing game 7 against the Cards at home a choke because it was an evenly played game. Just because Cole said it doesn't make it true, and he was coerced into that, anyways. He probably doesn't really believe it, but was just having fun since the NY DJ's basically made him say it. Maybe I don't think they choked last year because I honestly didn't believe they were that good of a team. Ditto with the Phils, but they got lucky.

You're looking at each season as separate things as though the team was different. If it was three different teams involved, or the Mets had a drastic overhaul I could agree with you. But, this is the Mets with basically the same guys finding new ways to shit the bed in September/October three years in a row. When you're up by 3.5 w/17 left you're supposed to win the division. They were 3 games better than Philly H2H, but couldn't beat the Nats or Marlins to win the division. That is the definition of choking, especially when you did the same thing the year before.


On a more positive note Carl Crawford has 6 steals today, tying the modern record shortly after Dexter Fowler's 5 SB game. The number of steals, cycles and grand slams so far this season is crazy.

 

[zio]

I get the same players argument, so I could agree with you there. But each team in the NL East plays each other really tough so a game against the Nats or Marlins is never a gimme. I probably have different requirements for choking in baseball, because it's such a game of failure that succeeding is rare compared to failing.

 

[Psycho Penguin]

The Pirates have made significant strides, and in my opinion could be a team to watch next year. Of course, small market teams always lose their big producers now, but if they can continue to develop the pitching, they might just have something there.

I agree. I do think them and KC have to make a run this year, for the financial reasons you touched on.

 

[alkeiper]

I don't consider 2006 a real choke, because I've always felt the Cardinals were a better team than their record indicated that season. They had won 205 games over the previous two seasons, they had replaced their worst position players with midseason acquisitions, and their worst players (Aaron Miles, So Taguchi, Mark Mulder, Jason Marquis) saw little to no action in the NLCS.

Last season, the Phillies closed the season on a 19-8 run. The Mets only played the Phillies in three of those games, and the Mets won the season matchup. The Brewers meanwhile won six of their last seven games. The Mets had a winning September. Yeah, it sucks that they fell short, but the other teams just played better.

There's a difference between choking and fading. Choking is having victory in the palm of your hand, and having it slip away. Fading is falling short because the other teams in your competition are also pretty damned good in their own right. And let's face it. While Reyes-Wright-Beltran-Santana is a hell of a core, Sabathia-Fielder-Braun-Hardy-Sheets is nothing to sneeze at either.

 

[jimmy no nose]

Someone in charge over at MLB.com has officially adopted the term "crank" for use in place of "home run" in all of their highlights. They're really starting to overdo it over there with that word.

 

[naiwf]

I look at a 4-6 finish when you were still up a half game as a choke when 2 of those losses were to an Atlanta team that was 20 below .500, 2 were to a Cubs team that had nothing to play for, and 2 more were to the Marlins who eliminated them the prior year. I'm tired of hearing about how good the Mets team is on paper (from Phillies fans no less) when they've blown decent sized leads two years in a row at exactly the same point. If the roles were reversed and the Mets came back from 7 & 3.5 back with 17 left and won a WS, I'm sure you guys would be bitter as fuck by now as well.