Another Day

Another failure by the Mets to build any sort of meaningful momentum. Confounded for six innings by Chad Billingsley, who improved to 2-4 on the year last night, the Mets' offense turned in another listless performance against a mediocre pitcher.

A .500 team never fails to play .500 baseball. The Mets are 2-2 in their last four games, 3-3 in their last six, 5-5 in their last ten games, 7-7 in their last fourteen.

You get the feeling that, after winning 15 games last season, if Oliver Perez can't finally put it all together consistently in a contract year then he probably never will.

OP was roughed up again last night

I feel bad for Omar Minaya. I really do. People question whether the Mets have hit their ceiling; sports pundits who are bad at their jobs and Mets fans who don't know what they're talking about suggest that Minaya should be fired along with Willie Randolph if the Mets fail to make the postseason, or don't get it together.

But it's his fault? The guy's made three mistakes since he took over the Mets. Their names are Heath Bell, Henry Owens, and Matt Lindstrom. Two career minor leaguers and a so-so young pitcher on the New York/Triple-A shuttle, all traded away in the '06 off-season in deals that haven't really yielded anything for the Mets. Ben Johnson, acquired in the Bell deal, was, in fact, released yesterday. From AAA.

Since the big moves early in his tenure, in New York's what-have-you-done-for-me-lately environment Omar's only acquired the best pitcher in baseball for an extremely light package of might-miss prospects, built the Mets a solid bench, and brought in Ryan Church and Brian Schneider in a move that, while criticized at the time (I was a critic), so far looks like a winner for the Mets.

Omar Minaya has put a team on the field that should win 95 games. Disagree? The Mets won 96 in 2006 win Tom Glavine at the top of the rotation for most of the year. And Steve Trachsel as the no. 2 starter. In '08, the .500 Mets look like the '05 team without the energy. Braden Looper was our closer that year.

Willie Randolph keeps saying everything's going to be alright. Dude, you're not Bob Marley. Shut up and manage a major league baseball team. Of 2007's dark shadow, Randolph says:

“In spring training we were past that. Obviously the fans are having a tough time moving past that. So we just hope that they eventually get behind this team, because we’re going to make them real proud before the year is over.

“We live in an environment where they want it when they want it. Believe me, my team is really solid and together, how we look at ourselves. I don’t think that we define who we are by the reaction we get. We know mentally where we want to go, who we want to be, and we can’t get there until September. In the meantime, you’re going to go through your ups and downs, your scuttlebutt or whatever it is. I think we understand in this town that’s the way it’s going to be.”

It wasn't "alright" last September, and it's not alright now. For almost a full calendar year the Mets have been a .500 team. For the same amount of time they've played as if nothing will allow them to take a step forward without also taking one back. It's great that our manager is calm and optimistic, but that plus whatever else he's doing is obviously not getting his team to play up to its potential. And what in the lord's name is "scuttlebutt." I'm so sick of this guy.

At the beginning of last season I thought that the circular, Senatorial sentences that Randolph always speaks in were strategic, a coy front while the General rallied his troops in the clubhouse before every game to go out and kick ass. Last September taught us that, truth is, that's the only thing Willie really knows to say. And when some adjustment seems required? Oh we're relaxed, we're gonna be fine, we know what we have to do, we play hard, we play to win, says Willie. Everything's gonna be alright...

The Mets, quite obviously, need to elevate their level of play right now, and Willie Randolph, for nearly a year, hasn't seemed capable of getting them to do that. For every series win against Arizona or Philadelphia there's a decisive loss the next night. The Dodgers have now won 11 of 14 , after last night's victory. Think really hard for a second. Can you even imagine the Mets pulling that off right now? Sad, right?

You can't blame the manager for everything. Steve Phillips really did do a crappy job assembling the Mets teams of the early 2000s, when Bobby Valentine got the ax. But sometimes the blame can't possibly fall any place else, and it's beginning to seem pretty obvious that Willie Randolph's sunshine and lollipops demeanor isn't doing anything for the Mets right now. The Mets remain in need of a jolt, a kick-start, and if the ultimate leader of this team, Willie Randolph, is incapable of providing that, then a change has got to be in order.

I'll give it to Memorial Day. Julio Franco just retired...

(Image courtesy ap.google.com)