The fickle foot of fate squashes any hope of finishing at .500
And so it goes.
Yes my friends with last nights 6-5 loss to the Cardinals last night the Mets lost any chance of finishing the season with a even record of 81-81. Hey I know in some peoples minds finishing at or above .500 was a loft goal, to others it was a pipe dream. For me I thought it was a sure thing. But alas it wasn’t meant to be.
As I pointed out in my column this past Tuesday, the Mets would have had to run the table in order to finish the season at a semi respectable 82-80. If they had gone 8-1 over these past nine games they would have been a quasi respectable 81-81. Now the best they can hope for is to finish strong by winning all of their remaining seven games to go 80-82. I think it is safe to say that you, me and even the most optimistic of Mets fans know that this team will more than likely finish up with a record of 77-85 (which more than likely would secure them the eleventh pick in next years ametuer draft).
There has been enough blame to go around of late. From shoddy defense, the lack of hitting when there were runners in scoring position and of course a leaky bullpen. Last night was dichotomy of the season. A ball hit to the outfield is misjudged and misplayed which in turn leads to 2 runs scoring. Our big hitters couldn’t break through late in the game when there were runners on base, and out pen gave up a one run lead for what seems like the thousandth time this season. I think that Beato, and Herrera are keepers. Manny Acosta will become more consistent. Miguel Bautista I feel is in the winter of his Major League career and I do feel that Parnell in the future will be our closer.
This has been a strange season to say the least…. I just wish that this team could have finished the season on the plus size.
And with that said… HERE COMES THE INFAMY !!!!!
Mets alumni celebrating a birthday today includes:
One of the most beloved players to ever don a Mets jersey, second baseman from ”80-’88, Wally Backman is 52 (1959) . Wally is currently the manager of the Mets minor league affiliate in Binghamton New York.
One of the most disliked Mets of all time, outfielder from ’91-’93, Vince Coleman is 50 (1961) He was hated by us Mets fans when he was a member of those Cardinal teams from the ’80′s, and he never did much for us fans to warm up to him once he signed a big contract with the Mets. Oh yeah there was also the INFAMOUS firecracker incident which pretty much ended his tenure with the team.
Middle reliever from the ’02 season, Mark Guthrie is 47 (1965) . Mark was one of the bright spots for the Mets in what was otherwise a rather dismal season in ’02. He appeared in 68 games for the Mets that season, and had a record of 5-3 with one save and a E.R.A of 2.44.
Reserve outfielder from the ’95 season, Jeff Barry s 42 (1969) .
A current member of this seasons September call ups, pitcher, Chris Schwinden is 25 (1986). From what I have seen of him so far, Chris has decent stuff, but he needs to throw with his pitches with more confidence.
Mo Vaughn likes to spend his off season reading classic literature. The first book that he plans on reading is “Test Kitchen Favorites”, which was published by Better Homes and Gardens
9 comments
Anonymous
9/22/2011-10:58am at 10:58 am (UTC -4)
the pen needs some help. for sure.
rustyjr
9/22/2011-12:25pm at 12:25 pm (UTC -4)
No doubt
MetsFan4Decades
9/22/2011-3:55pm at 3:55 pm (UTC -4)
Understatement of the day.
Anonymous
9/22/2011-2:14pm at 2:14 pm (UTC -4)
It’s a travesty that our team’s SSN (Successful Season Number) is .500… Yankee fans are just shaking their collective pumpkin-sized heads, thinking ‘You sorry bast@rds.’
MetsFan4Decades
9/22/2011-3:56pm at 3:56 pm (UTC -4)
Bah….you think the Yankee fans would have enough to worry about with their own team and the upcoming post season to be even thinking about the NY Mets.
Go Rays! Go Tigers! Go Texas!
SaltyGary
9/22/2011-2:20pm at 2:20 pm (UTC -4)
The team is lucky to have this record and Mets fans should be appreciative where they are. Sure they tired at this point sure but if you look at the other 5 months they team performed great. You can’t blame injures or luck or things not breaking right for the record. They team as constructed was/is not good. But we got a historical performance from Reyes who shut people like me up until our predictable “I told you so” at the break. You also had kids playing their hearts out because they believed in themselves and they wanted a job. Much better to watch than the “we are sad because we don’t know why we lose” gang of 07-10.
So why the long faces chums? We have turned the corner in poor operations and have a clear picture of where this team is heading. When is the last time that was the case, 1983? A lack of Pelfrey and a little patience will do folks a lot of good.
Ceetar
9/22/2011-3:25pm at 3:25 pm (UTC -4)
last time I believe was 2007. Didn’t turn out so well.
Injuries killed them. Maybe they don’t compete, but they finish much better than they will end up. They had more serious injuries to serious players than any other season probably in Mets history. That does damage.
MetsFan4Decades
9/22/2011-3:59pm at 3:59 pm (UTC -4)
To be sure, the team as currently constructed was not exactly dominate. But I’d have to say injuries certainly derailed any hope of finishing average, let alone a WC berth.
If Chris Young had stayed healthy,
If not for the freak accident with Ike,
If Wright didn’t miss almost half a year,
If Reyes didn’t do 2 DL stints,
Maybe we would have finished closer to 85 games or so.
SaltyGary
9/22/2011-4:09pm at 4:09 pm (UTC -4)
But these injuries happen to all teams. If the Met’s weren’t so thin, they could of handled it better (even though I feel they handled it quite well). Look at the Red Sox injuries. Lester, Bucholz, Crawford, Youk, Becket are all core guys with significant outages, but they had a better constructed team to handle it.
I think the only person on the site that felt that Young and Cap would make it through the year was Ceet. Most of us thought one was going down (I picked the wrong one). If you go into a season where you need to rely on the health of Young Cap, Reyes, and Beltran to contend, then you are losing out of the gate.