Around the Mets Blogosphere is what is often a familiar scent to the fans of the blue and orange: despair. defeat. desperation. mint. Well, maybe not mint.
Sure, we lost 2 of 3 to the Yankees. Also 2 of 3 to Philly. The most exciting player to watch in all of baseball is hurt, and at least a week from even starting rehab. John Maine has dead arm. Putz might not even have arms. Castillo is dropping routine pop ups. Keith is calling Delgado fat (he’s big boned Keith. big boned!). But despite all this, maybe we shouldn’t quit give up on 2009. So take two steps away from the ledge (backwards, not forwards) and bear with me.
For starters, the Mets can only get healthier. Between arm problems, leg problems, back problems, flu problems, and the standard case of Ryan Church and mid Springitis, the Mets have pretty much lived with half the roster on the DL and three players in that limbo between going to the DL and maybe back tomorrow all season. But those crazy Mets are actually getting healthier. Well, maybe not Ollie and Delgado, but the others. Beltran defeated his mystery ailment. Cora is back in action. Even Billy Wagner is making strides, and his trash talking and bragging are all ready at top form.
The B team doesn’t entirely suck. Yeah, I’d love to have a B game Reyes over an A game Cora or Wilson Valdez too, but as Donald Rumsfeld once said, you to into interleague play with the Mets you have, not the Mets you wish to have. We’re not seeing power numbers, but they are hitting. Granted its singles. Lots and lots of singles. But as we saw the other night, a series of well timed singles get us runs too. Murph and Fernando Martinez may not be hitting how we’d like, they’re learning. New players slump, but Murph will figure out how to hit the inside ball allowing him to return to being the patient batter who finds a way on. Factor in that Murph is starting to look like he knows what he’s doing at his position, a position that fans were so worried about that not too long ago they were mentioning putting Carp there (with a straight face too).
Best bullpen in the majors. Despite neither Putz or Wagner, the Mets bullpen has so far been the best in the business. Feliciano found his groove, K Rod is K Rod, even Sean Green is doing well. Considering the bullpen was one of the major issues the last two seasons, this is major. Granted there’s an excellent chance Brian Stokes is chained to a radiotor in the bullpen, but Feliciano has learned enough Japanese to help ease Takahashi into regular use. Factor in that the rotation is for the most part respectable, with improvements in Pelf and Redding and a spark of potential from Neise to mix in with Livians dependability and Johan (he’s Johan) and suddenly pitching isn’t that big of a problem. Will Big Pelf have games where he gets angry and the wheels come off? Sure. He’s young, it happens. Even Johan isn’t perfect, as we recently saw. But with the current pitching staff, both rotation and bullpen, I think we have a legitimate chance regardless of who is on the mound on any given night.
So sure, things aren’t all sunshines, rainbows and free shake shacks. But its not all grey skeys and ‘you’ve been traded to the Royals’ either. There’s hope. We can do this. So lets calm down with the ‘Fire Jerry’ and focus our energy on something positive, like witty K-Rod shirts with ‘Frankie Says Relax’ slogans on them.
Pete Lappin (3)
