I'm still in New Orleans, so I won't really be able to watch any games until I get back to New York in about three weeks or so. Maybe I'll try to make it out to a Zephyrs game while I'm down here...who knows. Maybe I'd try harder if the Mets' best prospects weren't all playing in Binghamton this year.
Anyway - my point is that my only frames of reference for these first few games have been MLB gameday, metsblog, and ESPN highlights (if I'm lucky). This was apparent the other day, when I talked about how great it was that Luis Castillo stole a base and was close to 100% healthy. I had no clue that he loafed around the bases in the first inning after a Carlos Beltran bloop double and cost the Mets an early run, while Willie Randolph attempted to justify his lack of hustle by claiming Castillo was "still a little banged up."
Speaking of Randolph: okay, he's a good manager. I'll give him that. He really wet the leadership bed last September, when he tried to guide the Mets through the collapse by continuing to insist that a fundamentally flawed and under-motivated team would eventually "sip a little champagne," before tearing up about the whole ordeal and acting surprised when the you-know-what finally hit the fan and the Mets really did blow a seven game lead in the last two-and-a-half weeks of the season. But I can still give him his props. Not a whole lot of managers have a deeper knowledge of the game of baseball - save managing a bullpen, maybe, but really - and he, along with everyone in the Mets organization, seems to have profoundly realized exactly what went wrong last year and seems like he's right on the ball as far as correcting the error of his, and the team's, ways. I hope. But the signs are good. Willie matching his realizations to action will be key to the Mets' success this year.
But I digress. My point: win or lose, it's a little bit funny because he's such a cornball. I think if the Mets have a good 2008, the dog days of summer will be prime time to just laugh at Willie and, in particular, his bizarre way of speaking to the media. While the Mets were playing sub-.500 baseball for all of last summer, it would irritate the hell out of me to hear Willie endlessly talk about "his guys" and how Guillermo Mota was one of them. Winning really changes everything though. If the Mets do well this summer, I think Willie will turn into that kind of weird but endearing character that, as fans, we all somehow come to appreciate, even it takes a while to get there. Not necessarily because he's that cool or anything, but, I dunno, think Tom Coughlin. Couldn't stand him, really, until the playoffs - now I love him, his rosy cheeks, and the '07-'08 unlikeliest of unlikely Super Bowl championships he helped bring home for Big Blue.
Maybe I'll do a longer post on Willie later this season, with my perspective varying depending on how things look to be turning out. For the meantime, here he is talking last night about Pedro's injury (more to come on that):
“We don’t trip on stuff like that, ya know. We’ve been a solid team, a together-team, ever since I’ve been here. These guys believe in each other. We love to play and get after it. If you’re here with us and join the party, that’s great. We’ll invite you, you’re there…That’s why I love this group. They don’t make excuses, they just play.”
I'd love to party with Willie Randolph.
****
BUZZ KILL!
Pedro Martinez is going to be out 4-6 weeks with what the Mets are calling a "strained left hamstring." 4-6 sounds like a pretty bad strain. This just sucks, pretty much.
But to piggyback on what Willie was saying, I don't think it will dampen the Mets' spirits too much. I was really looking forward to having Pedro around this season - and he talked during Spring Training about taking a more active clubhouse leadership role, which I was also very excited about. That was missing last year.
Now we've got a mini-situation of what happened last year, where the Mets will play it out and be waiting on Pedro again. For a shorter amount of time - if it is, indeed, only 4-6 weeks (crossing my fingers) - but still, he's not around now for a bit.
This year's set up to potentially be a little different though. We've got Johan Santana instead of Tom Glavine. In general, the team seems a lot more juiced up (that's NOT a reference to the Mitchell report) and a lot more equipped to hold it's own and not whine about Pedro being hurt and "missing Pedro" and playing aimlessly the entire season waiting for one player to come back from injury. I'm confident that we'll deal with Pedro being gone a little better.
Remember, this is what the Red Sox did for each of the last three years or so that Martinez spent in a Boston uniform. Pedro's hurt? The dude weighs like 20 pounds, big surprise...
It's all about how you work with the cards you've been dealt, and I think this year's orange and blue poker face is a lot more encouraging.
****
MEL ROJAS, ARMANDO BENITEZ, BRADEN LOOPER, JORGE JULIO, GUILLERMO MOTA, MATT WISE?
Matt Wise has made two appearances so far this year. In his first, he gave up two hits and recorded just one out in the eighth inning of a 7-2 ball game, before being bailed out by Scott Schoeneweis and Jorge Sosa. In his second, he struck out two hitters in the tenth inning of a tie game but then couldn't hold his liquor against Robert Andino - who? - and Andino hit a Wise fastball about nine miles or so to win the game for the Marlins.
Every team seems to have one - he's usually a relief pitcher, and you usually cringe when he enters the game. Actually you don't even cringe. His very appearance inspires profound feelings of...disgust, irritation, you feel like throwing something against a wall...hatred? Is that too strong?
Maybe every team doesn't have one, but the Mets ALWAYS seem to have that one reliever who you just have absolutely no faith in, ever. And that reliever usually does something on a somewhat regular basis to justify those feelings. Is Matt Wise this year's Guillermo Mota? If so, there could be a direct correlation between Willie Randolph's confidence in Wise and the greater successes and failures of the Met bullpen this season. We shall see.
****
Next up is the Braves tomorrow night. John Maine goes against Tim Hudson - should be a good match-up. On paper, at least, I fear the Braves more than the Phillies...it's early in the season but these next two series should give us a nice beginning gauge of where the Mets are really at so far this year. As the headline on mets.com points out, "Mets-Braves series to set tone in East." Yeah that sounds about right.
I'll try to dissect this early season showdown after Tom Glavine pitches on Saturday. These games are in Turner Field, but what I really can't wait for is Tommy's Shea homecoming...
Todd Zeile went out a bit more gracefully
(Photos courtesy virtualtourist.com, baseballchurch.blogspot.com, cnnsi.net)
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