... There Are No Words Left to Speak

The Recap: Mets 8, Marlins 10

What a team! After the Marlins swept the Mets this weekend in Florida, the Amazin's are now under .500, in last place, losers of 5 in a row, with an anemic offensive lineup, a pitching staff in shambles, a buffoon as a manager, an idiot GM, and looking at having to play the Yankees next weekend.

THE GOOD: The good news is that the bad news isn't worse. You can speak of the Mets coming back from a 6-0 deficit yesterday to almost tie the game as a positive, but there are no moral victories in baseball these days any more when you're getting paid millions of dollars to perform.

On Saturday night, guess what happened to Jose Reyes when he was moved back into the lead-off spot? He just went 2-for-5 and looked like the Jose Reyes of old. Thank you Jerry Manuel for reading our last post about how stubborn you were to not make this change sooner.

The Mets also got some nice at-bats from David Wright, who drove in 2 runs on Saturday and joined Alex Cora on Sunday with two-run doubles. Jason Bay responded well in the third-spot in the order. And Luis Castillo finally got an extra-base hit from the left side this season.

And speaking of switch hitting, did you know that EVERYONE is a switch hitter if they want to be? But realistically speaking, if it takes you 38 games into the season basically playing every day to get your first extra base hit batting lefty, THEN YOU'RE A RIGHT-HANDED HITTER! Stop batting left-handed! If you're batting .230 lefty and .290 righty, then I hate to break it to you, but you're a right-handed hitter. Period.

THE BAD: Where do we start with this? The lackluster play for the first 3 games of the series? The inability to hit in clutch timely situations, despite the fact the Mets have a hitting coach whose .236 lifetime average in the bigs indicates that he couldn't hit MLB pitching himself? The atrocious starting pitching we've seen from this team in this series? The strikeouts in key situations and the inability to move runners on the basepaths? How about the lack of desire to even care about any of this? (Doesn't that reflect on the manager?)

Nobody's coming up big for this team. Even the sure-handed "Takman" couldn't come through yesterday, allowing 2 runs in 3 innings in relief of Jon Niese who was ineffective and (guess what?)... hurt! And even though it was obvious that Manny Acosta "had it" on Sunday, bonehead Manuel replaced him with Fernando Nieve, who promptly blew whatever hopes the Mets had at a comeback by allowing 3 quick runs to seal the loss. And why? Because every relief pitcher "owns" a certain inning.

You have your 6th inning guy, followed by your 7th inning guy, who gives way to your 8th inning set-up guy, who hands it to your closer in the 9th. REGARDLESS HOW ANY OF THEM ARE PITCHING!?! When did this become "the book" in baseball? Meanwhile, you pitch your relievers every day and wonder why the bullpen is the least effective part of any baseball team by definition. What's wrong with this rule: when your reliever's pitching well, YOU KEEP HIM IN THE GAME! You don't know what you're going to get everyday from the guy warming up. So many games are lost because of the "5 pitchers in a game at least regardless" rule and I hate it.

Oh, and by the way, as mentioned in a previous post, ESPN... can you get this guy a Met hat please? Fernando Nieves has only been on the team for what, 2 years?

The Mets are trying hard to develop their young talent and not put too much pressure on them. That's the reasoning behind why Ike Davis isn't hitting third, as so many Mets fans would like to see. So what does Manuel do yesterday? - He bats Chris Carter CLEANUP!... Nah, that's not a lot of pressure for the kid, is it? Especially when you're looking at a game you need to win to avoid an embarrassing 4 game sweep.

THE UGLY: Let the ugliness begin:

1. Not only did the Mets make errors on Florida bunts, but they also had two runners doubled off first before the game was even 4 innings old. When the other team bunts, the implication is that they are "giving" away an out. Everyone in the ballpark plays for that, yet the Mets allowed six runs in the third when they couldn't execute fielding plays on simple bunts. Once again, this reflects on the manager, who commented after the game: "well, we just didn't play baseball good today". Nice English, Jerry...
   
   
2. Saturday's 7-5 loss saw the Marlins load the bases in the first inning without any Florida batter even swinging the bat as John Maine's first 12 pitches where thrown for balls. I don't know if you can get uglier than that. Maine gave up 6 runs in 5 innings and is now 1-3 on the season with a 6.13 ERA... oh yeah, John Maine's back alright.
   
   
3. Actually, you can get uglier than that. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Oliver Perez, who was mercifully pulled after just 3 innings of work in Friday's 7-2 loss, allowing 7 runs and walking 3 to lower his record to 0-7. Perez is basically stealing money at this point and finally has been dropped from the rotation. Why he's still on the team is anyones guess (his outrageous contract perhaps? Thank you Omar, once again). So while Ollie continues to suck it up, he's getting a big last laugh on the rest of us who actually have to work 2 jobs to make ends meet.
   
   
4. After another 0-for-4 with 2 strikeouts day on Saturday, Jeff Francoeur looks more and more like Stevie Wonder at the plate and got yesterday off. However, with his .126 batting average in the past MONTH, I think we need to go further than that and re-evaluate the entire Francoeur dream and DFA this guy for the young talent. Let's face it, he's just not a major league talent at the plate and has become an automatic out. Meanwhile, Ryan Church is hitting 100 points higher in Pittsburgh...
   
   
5. The Mets have the fewest road wins in baseball and are now 4-12 on the season away from Citi.
   
   
6. And if you think it gets better, Mike Pelfrey is scheduled to start tonight's game in Atlanta, where he's 1-2 with a 8.41 ERA lifetime at Turner Field.