Are The Phillies The New Braves?

By Shari Forst
Posted Saturday, September 22, 2007

Correct me if I am wrong, but does it seem as if The Philadelphia Phillies have become the new Atlanta Braves to the New York Mets? Since when can't the Mets beat the Phillies?

The last two times the Mets have been swept both in Philadelphia and at home at Shea, now the Met lead has been shaven from a lofty six games to two and a half.

What's going on here? The Mets jump out to a now customary lead in the first inning, only to give it back. The starting pitching has gone from stellar to marginal, and the bull pen has an ERA that ballooned to 9.00 since August.

Not only that but the spark plug of the team, Jose Reyes had been mired in a slump the last three weeks.

They have also set an atrocious and embarrassing team record this week by committing 10 errors in 2 games beating the previous record of 8 errors.

This team cannot afford to lose games at anytime, but it isn't like last season when they had a 12 game lead over the Phillies at this point.

After the first sweep Willie Randolph and company should have made sure it NEVER happened again. we knew the Braves were like kryptonite to the Mets but the PHILLIES? I remember even those awful teams of the late 70s didn't get swept by the Phils who were really good back then.

I think early on the Mets skated by on their starting pitching which is now faltering. Once considered for the All Star team, John Maine gives out 6 runs a start like it's going out of style. Oliver Perez is walking people, El Duque has bunyons of all ailments this time around. That leaves Pedro Martinez on a very staunch pitch count, Glavine who can give you 6 good innings most of the time, Brian Lawrence who just plain stinks on ice, and Mike Pelfrey still learning on the job.

These problems give way to the bull pen who has just been awful. We can't blame the offense too much they fight back after the pitching gives back the lead only to give back more runs later in the game.

Will the Mets now turn into the Phillies of 1964 where they gave back a huge lead in the NL East and went on to not appear in the playoffs?

Lets hope not-lets hope Willie gets these guys to start playing good baseball again. One would think they would get it together against the Nationals and the last place Marlins but no such luck. They had battled back in the ninth inning in Thursday night's game against the Marlins thanks to a cluch 3-base hit by Marlon Anderson to give the Mets the lead. Due to Billy Wagner's back spasms, he couldn't come in to close the game and the Mets ended up losing a heart breaker.

It's getting to the point that I no longer want to watch them on TV anymore.