Rocky Mountain Low; Collapse Puts Exclamation Point On Entire Series, 17-7

By Joe Janish
Posted Thursday, July 5, 2007

COLORADO -- The Mets played so bad yesterday and for the series, Joe had only two words to say in the beginning of his game recap today...

"No comment."

Can you blame him?

Notes

El Duque’s line:

4 IP | 6 H | 6 BB | 1 HR | 2 K | 6 ER

Guillermo Mota’s line:

2/3 IP | 6 H | 0 BB | 2 HR | 1 K | 6 ER

Suddenly, the Jason Vargas line of Tuesday night doesn’t look THAT awful.

Which brings up an interesting point — if Willie Randolph, Rick Peterson, and the Mets brass have a pauw-wow regarding whether Vargas should get another start, will they consider the fact that El Duque, Mota, and Tom Glavine all had similarly horrible outings? Is it possible that it wasn’t Vargas, but the thin air in Colorado that caused the problems for the Mets in the past three days?

My nephew, an ex-Marine, claims that it takes 48 hours for the human body to adjust to a severe altitude change — such as suddenly playing at an elevation above 5000 feet. You hate to make excuses, but then again, are the Mets really this bad? Couldn’t we at least pretend that the thin air made all the Mets sick, and unable to play to their potential?

While we’ve seen teams lose like this — allowing the opposing team nearly 20 runs — how often does it happen to a FIRST-PLACE team?

Anyway …

Todd Helton drew 7 walks in this series. The Mets, as a team, drew 3. Matt Holliday matched that output in this game. But, no, it doesn’t mean anything, really. The Mets are just running into really great pitching. I mean, who beats Josh Fogg, Aaron Cook, or Jason Hirsh?

For the season, in Colorado: Rockies: 47 All NY Teams: 17.

David Wright went 3-for-4 with 4 RBI. Too bad it was hardly noticeable.

Ruben Gotay did not start but was brought in to pinch-hit, and stroked a single. He now leads the Mets with a .317 batting average.

Both Shawn Green and Paul LoDuca had two hits and a double. They needed to quadruple those efforts for it to matter.

Next Game

The Mets travel to Houston for a four-game series in Minute Maid Park. John Maine goes in the opener against Jason Jennings. Hopefully the Mets can adjust quickly to sea level and right the ship before it starts sinking.

**Read more from Joe Janish at: www.metstoday.com