Here's my knee-jerk reaction to tonight's game. I know it looks bad to do this kind of post right after the first loss in eight games, but there were specific things that were particularly annoying about this game.
1. Derek Lowe- I'm all for moving on from this Lowe/Perez business, as they are locked in with their respective teams for the next few years, but it's incredible how different Lowe looks than all of our starters not named Johan Santana. He throws strikes. When he walks someone, he gets the double play. Every announcer in the world will apologize for Minaya, saying things like "He knew Perez" and "didn't want to give the fourth year." How can people even pretend the gross disparity in talent between these two doesn't exist, now that Perez has been totally exposed?
2. Jerry Manuel- There is no worse matchup imaginable for the Mets than Pedro Feliciano versus Matt Diaz. Matt Diaz does not start, he has a major league job only because he has an incredible platoon split crushing lefties. Pedro Feliciano has a major league job because of his huge platoon split crushing lefties, while being weak against righties. That's like putting Livan Hernandez in to face Chipper Jones with the bases loaded. You know what Jerry promised to do? Creatively use relievers in good matchups, while sticking to their roles. Pitching your LOOGY against Matt Diaz is neither of those things.
What else has Manuel promised to improve in this club since he came aboard?
- Hitting better with RISP: Fail.
- Bullpen Management: Not really.
- Run support for Johan: No. And before you say that's outside of his control, go look at tonight's lineup.
- Fundamentals: Nope.
- Playing Omir Santos: Great success!
And if current Mets management didn't annoy me enough I got to listen to Steve Phillips give a long-winded speech at the end of the game about how the Mets suck. Topics covered by him and his awesome research team included:
- Good players never make mistakes. (Bat 1.000)
- Derek Jeter is a good player.
- Kevin Youkilis is a good player.
- David Wright is not, he makes mistakes.
- Carlos Beltran is not, he makes mistakes.
- The Mets lack edge.
- Jose Reyes lacks edge.
- Omar Minaya, an excellent general manger who addressed the team's only need in signing a closer, rightfully called them out for lacking edge.
- Jimmy Rollins=edge=World Series
- The team lacks grit.
- Albert Pujols=grit=good=1/(Carlos Beltran)
- Carlos Beltran does not care enough.
After an otherwise bearable telecast, they just unloaded like in some sort of nightmare. Did Robbie Alomar have enough edge for you, Steve? Mo Vaughn? Jeromy Burnitz? Shinjo, the flamboyant corner outfielder with the .484 OPS? Go ahead and blame the superstars, when the real reason just shut down our offense for 7 innings. Ugh. /rant