Turning For The Home Stretch

By Johnny Lowe
Posted Sunday, August 19, 2007

Good morning, good morning, nice to see you again. How’s your coffee? Good, good. Like many of you were last evening I’ve just finished following the action between the Mets and Nationals from RFK Stadium via the internet gameday thingy, playing a little chess during the Nats’ at-bats, and using up more than my fair share of the bandwidth available locally just checking stats. No, Matt, not those stats, just team rankings and a few simple “splits”, mostly, in an effort to find the bad apple in the bunch; someone, or some group to blame, particularly for the Mets status as fourth best run-scoring team in their own division.

This is near and dear to my heart since I personally believed that the group of Reyes, Beltran, Wright, and Delgado could, and would, duplicate their collective offensive performance. There was every reason to be optimistic, and I said as much, big mouth that I am.

I had to start with the usual suspects; the big four, and the biggest target in the arcade is Carlos Beltran. Statistically, Carlos is certainly having an off year, again. After a magnificent first five weeks his hitting has been unbefitting a number three hitter on a professional team, let alone one with Championship aspirations. On pace for something along the order of 35 homers and 100 RBI, his simple month by month splits tell the story of a ballplayer who has been playing almost an entire season hurt, and not helping the Mets too all much (that’s Southern, perfectly acceptable grammar, y’all). He looks a little better since his DL stint but there are plenty of outfield walls to run into between now and October.

If I hadn’t have checked, I’d have blamed the whole drop in offense on the number two spot and called it a day right there but, sorry, it just ain’t so. The number two hitters, collectively, for the team have gotten on base – the job at hand – fourth best in the NL at a .353 clip. Met leadoff hitters? While Jose is “off” from last seasons MVP-caliber performance, second best OBP in the NL at .379 and fourth best OPS at .830 is nothing to sneeze at, especially with the likes of Hanley Ramirez and Jimmy Rollins in the Mets’ own division. Beltran’s case is not helped by these numbers, obviously. Next.

If Beltran started hot and went into the tank, Carlos Delgado is the exact opposite story. An awful, don’t make me watch, April followed by some consistency, if not excellence, has his RBI total up to 68 of the Met total of 71 at that position; middle of the pack. Another drop-off from ’06. Me thinks I see a trend (perfectly acceptable pirate grammar, y’all, arrrr). How soon before Mike Jacobs totals more RBI over a season than Delgado? Personally, I don’t want to hear any of that baloney so Carlos the Elder has some of that hitting stuff to do for the duration, and I hope against long odds that Senor Delgado has one more productive year left in his tank for ’08, which would cost the team the $16M in salary plus the $4M buyout. It’s time to start thinking about a replacement here.

Then there’s that David Wright guy. Another Met who suffered through the winds of April but has since been nothing less than an All-Star. Oh, and he was an All-Star. I wish the Mets had six more just like him in the minors, ready to emerge every two years to man a different position in the ensuing Mets Dynasty Muhahahahahahahah. Of course, that would make the youngest player in the line about ten years old so I ….. probably didn’t think that through well enough. Screw it; David Wright is a keeper, unless the Mets can swing a three-way deal to net Johan Santana, Grady Sizemore, and Ryan Braun, just to play third. Short of that though …..

So what’s the problem? And where’s the beef? It can’t all be because of Carlos Beltran. And it’s certainly not. The biggest drop has been from all the players, sans Ramon Castro, who through crappy play or injury have not allowed the Mets to field an eight-deep, AL-style batting order which spoiled Met fans last season. Endy Chavez hasn’t played in almost ten weeks. Moises Alou, 29 RBI in 200 plate appearances? Reaching deep to grab Carlos Gomez for prime time action when Milledge and Alou were hurt. Jose Valentin, a major contributor last year, nearly invisible while the Mets are 10th and 14th respectively in runs produced by the left field and right field hitters. And while LoDuca is off last year’s pace in all columns the team is still fourth in runs produced at the catcher position. No one player is stinking up the stadium, unless the Mets are at home where they’re 12th in the NL in runs scored, but the team – although usually not completely anemic - is not the same scoring machine it was last season, that much is known league-wide.

And that's okay. When you go to a gunfight you bring all your bullets, the ones you actually have. The drop in production from the lower third - although Glavine can hit - affects the opportunities for the guys at the top, and so on. This whole scoring less thing has been a team effort, and although I'd really like to see Carlos Beltran hitting second for an entire year in a Met uniform with one more every day steady bat in the order (for when Alou and Green are gone next year), you just have to dance with who brung 'ya, I suppose.

Personally, I have very few gripes because, remember, I’m from the era of “yeah, we suck, so what, it’s still baseball”, and my team is in first place. They’re in it; they’re competing, playing, dare I say it, meaningful games. Our first four starters can hang with anyone in the National League and, despite a few conspicuous hairballs, the bullpen is still second in the NL in ERA with the second fewest number of losses. And Billy Wagner. Factor in a sound defense which has committed the fourth fewest number of errors in the NL, and it’s a safe bet that the Mets will go as far as pitching and defense will take them, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. I can live with that.

That I'm used to.

Johnny Lowe is *62 in the forums, takes a multi-vitamin daily, and can find something the size of a couch two hundred miles in outer space. Can you do that? Of course you can’t, don’t be silly.