OK, I’m a Tad Worried

By Ed "In Westchester" Semlies
Posted Wednesday, September 19, 2007

I’m not one of those fans who worries easily. I realize that there are ebbs and flows to a season. Sometimes, the team will play great. Other times, not so much. At the end of the day what matters most is making the playoffs, because once there, anything can happen. Just having a great regular season does not mean you will win the World Series, upsets happen, right?

This year has been particularly hard on Mets fans. We came in with high expectations after the crushing loss to the Cardinals in the NLCS last year. We figured that our young guys would improve upon last year. We figured our vets would at least maintain what they did or, if they fell off, it would only be a little. We figured that our young pitchers, Ollie and John, would build upon their success in the post-season and be primed to lead us to a championship.

Alas, while we are in first and in control of our own destiny, this year has not been a cakewalk. There are any number of fingers to be pointed. The Carlos’ regressed, particularly Delgado. Jose, Jose, Jose is not the same player as last year. Injuries riddled the outfield and second base. PLD fell off to be the second coming of Mackey Sasser at the plate. The bullpen has been abysmal since May. About the only guy who has done consistently well since May is David Wright, and even he had an awful April (imagine what his numbers would be if he did not take the first month off!)

Coming into this season, the experts were worried about the starters, with Glavine being a year older, El Duque as well. Both have done very well. Maine had a great first half, but his second half has led to questions about whether he is being figured out. Perez has been sparkling one start and amazingly bad the next (take a look at yesterday). Pelfrey was 0-7, not a good way for the #1 pick to build confidence in the minds of the faithful.

Now El Duque is hurting, and questions that seemed outlandish to the faithful are suddenly in our minds as well. Who will be in our rotation come October? Can we trust Ollie and Maine to get it done? Who will be the bridge to Wagner? Heilman is erratic. Mota, well, he sucks. Joe Smith burst onto the scene early, but battled wildness and arm trouble. Feliciano has his bad moments.

We have two weeks left for this to all settle out. Assuming Delgado is healthy, we all know what the lineup is going to look like:

Reyes
Castillo
Wright
Beltran
Delgado
Alou
Lo Duca/Green
Milledge/Green

Bench – Alomar (unless Castro is healthy), Gotay, Chavez, Anderson

The pitchers will look like this:
Glavine
Perez
Maine
Pedro
Duque
Wagner
Feliciano
Heilman
Schoeneweis
Sosa
Mota

Yes fans, Mota and Scho are going to be on the roster. Prepare the knives for Willie.

There is one spot left for either another pitcher or a bench player. Me, I want Humber in the pen. That hammer curve will be deadly in short stints. Failing that, Smith.

We need a healthy Delgado. We need the bats to wait out the crappy pitchers, upping their pitch count. Too often guys go up there hacking. For a while, this had changed after Down was fired, but some guys appear to be regressing. HoJo needs to have a chat with them. Wait guys out, look for your pitch. The key to beating a crappy guy is to wait for him to make a mistake. The reason they are crappy is that they make a lot of mistakes, but not if you swing at the first pitch.

I’m not worried about facing San Diego. For some reason, we hit good pitchers well. I fear teams with crappy pitchers. Look at what Philly threw against us this weekend, Moyer, Lohse, and Eaton. How the hell can you let Moyer go eight innings and get only four hits? And only seven against Lohse? At least they hit Eaton for once. We have beaten Peavy and Young and Maddux. We have beaten Zambrano. Ted Lilly and Jason Marquis, on the other hand, are the type of guys who give us fits.

So bring on the Padres. Just don’t bring on the Cubs.