I was out at Citi Field last night, and the Mets looked as lifeless as I have ever seen them, which is saying a lot, since I remember August 1991. With Wright slumping and all the other top hitters gone, there’s just no offense to speak of. Sheffield’s been a great pickup and all – he hasn’t grumbled, and he’s been surprisingly energetic on the bases – but you can’t make an offense from Sheffield at this stage of his career. And everyone else is a supporting player at best.
It didn’t help that Pelfrey was working behind in the count, which he can’t get away with doing. Probably the highlights of the game were (1) Ryan Church making a sliding catch in center that Beltran would have made standing up without breaking a sweat and (2) Alex Cora faking out a Dodger baserunner by pretending to turn a double play on a ball hit to the warning track in left field.
The Mets were in good shape about a week ago when they were hanging one game back, but suddenly they look like a team that could drop completely out of contention before they get Beltran back, let alone Reyes.
3 thoughts on “Dead in the Water”
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I don’t know what people are expecting with 3 of your 4 best hitters out, 2 of your top 4 starters out, and you setup man out. The personnel they have available right now is KC Royals-bad, so it should be no surprise that they are playing KC Royals-level baseball.
This season reminds me of 1987 – without the afterglow of 1986.
The ’87 team at least had a dominating offense, with all it’s injuries clustered in the pitching staff, so they did play entertaining baseball. This team is more reminiscent of some even less-successful seasons.
Personally, I’m hoping Omar just pulls in the oars and starts thinking about next year, rather than making some Juan Samuel- or Victor Zambrano-level blunder in trying to bail out an already sunken ship.
Sort of reminds me of the 2006 Red Sox when, after a 53-33 record at the All-Star break, injuries started to pile-up and all of a sudden guys like Wily Mo Pena, Doug Mirabelli, Alex Cora, Gabe Kapler and Dustin Pedroia (at the time a rookie who hit .191 in 2-ish months worth of service) became regulars rather than subs. And guys like Lenny DiNardo, David Pauley, Jason Johnson and Kevin Jarvis became starters. The result was a horror show of bad baseball and, eventually, a scenario where they were simply going through the motions as the playoff possibilities disappeared. However, the lesson learned was that they didn’t panic, they looked at their farm system guys and kept important parts of the team together. I feel bad for you Mets fans. This isn’t the team you expected to see and it’s a bummer.