Mets Go from 9-1 to 911

The Weekend Recap

The Mets rolled into Philly on about the highest of high notes, beat them soundly on Friday 9-1, then lost miserably against Philly ace Roy Halladay on Saturday, ending their 8-game winning streak. But Saturday was a walk in the park compared to their embarrassing and humiliating 11-5 loss on Sunday night's ESPN national TV game against 47-year-old Jamie Moyer - a loss that may have the team spiraling downward once again and exposing the team's severe lack of heart to win.

THE GOOD: Rod Barajas hit his 6th homerun of the year in Piazza-type style and David Wright's first inning 3-run blast were about the only good things you can point to in the Mets 2 loses. Friday night however, was a different story. Barajas hit two homeruns in that game and Jon Niese pitched 7 impressive innings for his first win of the year. The game saw Angel Pagan come up big with 3 hits and 2 rbi, with David Wright and Jeff Francoeur poking dingers as well. And always remember: whenever Frank Catalanotto gets an at-bat in a game that the Mets actually win, that's always a good thing. Too bad the Mets had to play the next two games.

THE BAD: Saturday night saw Mike Pelfrey finally returning to Earth, as his consecutive scoreless innings streak ended at 27 when Philly broke open the game with 6 runs in the fourth. Roy Halladay needed just one of them however, tossing a complete game shutout and allowing just 3 Met hits. Pelfrey took the loss (his first of the season against 4 victories). Then came Sunday's night's ESPN game where Johan Santana and his 80 mile per hour fastball were really bad. Despite staked with a 5-2 lead, Santana gave up 10 runs (Philly scored 9 in the 4th inning - all with 2 outs), with the turning point of the game being Santana's based loaded walk to 47-year-old Jamie Moyer. Pathetic, considering he walked the number 8 hitter to face Moyer. Nice strategy when your pitcher is having a bad night and can't throw strikes. Why is it that whenever the Mets don't score for Santana, he's always on top of his game, but give him runs and he implodes. Santana's now lost to Livan Hernandez and Jamie Moyer, two of the oldest pitchers still active in the league. Hopefully Roger Clemens stays retired.

And speaking of bad, I guess I can understand why Ike Davis needs a day off. After all, he's only 24.. we can't expect him to play more than 4 games in a row now, can we? But even if you do have to sit him, what's with playing Gary Matthews Jr at this point? Does Jerry Manuel have any clue to how bad this guy is? Here's a hint: he's hitting an atrocious .139 and hasn't had a hit since April 18th. And batting him leadoff? Inexcusable.

Here's some advice to number 3 hitter Jose Reyes, who went 1-13 in the Philly series swinging at every first pitch he saw regardless of it's location in the ballpark. Jose, work the pitcher a little please. Take a strike now and then. We all know the mindset of batting third is very different than leadoff, but boy did he look bad. Even Vlad Guerrero thought you were free-swinging. That's pretty bad.

Finally, it's not really bad, but why is it that in just about every meaningless relief stint KRod appears in (as he did in Sunday's game), his retires the side 1-2-3 with no problems, but just about every save situation includes walks, pitching from behind, hit batters, wild pitches, and scoring threats? There's a word for this guy - OVERRATED. I hope it doesn't come down to this guy being clutch in September. You read that here folks, I'm afraid I'm right on this one.

THE UGLY: Losing 10-0 to Roy Halladay is understandable. He's the best pitcher in baseball and as soon as Philly put up a six-run spot, everyone knew the game was over. Sunday's game was different. After the Phillies knocked out Santana in humiliating fashion in the fourth, any self respecting team would have at least tried to do something to show some heart their next time at bat (or at least in one inning for the remainder of the game). Instead, the Mets went the rest of the ballgame without getting another hit and looked completely disinterested. Mind you, it was against a 47 year old pitcher, followed by the likes of Chad Durbin and 8.10 ERA Danys Baez. That's downright embarrassing and ugly. But more importantly, it shows a complete lack of heart on display for a team that has just about zero chance of playing inspired baseball along the way when things get bad, rendering their lastest 9-1 homestand and 8 game winning streak completely meaningless. How would Keith Hernandez, Ray Knight, Daryl Strawberry, Gary Carter, etc react to being beatdown on a nationally televised game while their opponent's 47 year old pitcher is taking extra bases on the basepaths, trying to steal bases late in the game with a 6-run lead, and throwing at their hitters with no retaliation? How many times does Jeff Francoeur need to be blatantly brushed back or hit by a pitch before just one Met pitcher shows some guts? Someone call 911 ...