A previous post in this space might have enumerated the Mets' myriad deficiencies, starting with Mike Pelfrey's lack of guile, Oliver Perez's lack of focus, Johan Santana's lack of aceness, the Mets' lack of two starting outfielders, and the downward arc of Carlos Delgado's career. It wasn't looking too good for the Mets this season, regardless of who was managing our team.
I was largely in alignment with the mainstream, but the Mets' recent surge has made many people look foolish, myself included. Pelfrey is 7-0 in his last nine starts. Johan and Perez just fired gems against the Phillies. Carlos Delgado has four home runs in his last nine games while hitting at a nearly .400 clip in month of July. And the Mets have won 14 of 17 without those two starting outfielders. Sometimes, you'd rather be wrong.
I was at Shea on Tuesday night, for my first game in 2008. I have tickets to the August 8 tilt against the Marlins, but I figured I'd try to go support the team for at least one of the games in the all-important Phillies set and get an extra game in before the big ballpark is ushered out and going to Mets games becomes a triple digit affair in the money department.
The atmosphere was electric. The Mets and Phils, tied for first place. Santana pitching. A full house on hand. Insults and peanuts, thrown in the direction of every Phillies fan in attendance over the age of 18 (you've got to draw the line somewhere).
Two home runs (one by Delgado) and eight strong Santana innings later, and the Mets have a 5-2 lead going into the ninth. Billy Wagner is unavailable, and Jerry says Santana's done, so it's up to Duaner Sanchez to close the door.
All of a sudden, Sanchez and three other relievers can't get a Phillie out. One six-run ninth later and Phillies win, 8-6. A boisterous ride home on the 7 train, ruined.
This was devastating. The worst loss of the season. A nine inning microcosm of last September. You don't lose that type of game and go on to win a division, I said on the ride home.
But what happened next? Two games and two Mets victories later, and we vault into first for the first time since early April...9-4 for the season, so far, against the Phillies. One game after that, and we're up by two after another Phillies loss, and another sensational performance by Pelfrey.
What we're seeing from the Mets right now is some serious resiliency, the hallmark of any good team. It was only this morning that I was able to fully process the fact that this winning stretch has required the Mets to really bear down on a few occasions. That loss on Tuesday night? No big deal. A blown lead that first night in Cincy last week? We'll put up a four-run ninth. The second game of this remarkable turnaround was the one in Philly where Tatis put us over the top in the 12th after Jayson Werth temporarily ruined Billy Wagner's (and my) afternoon.
It's interesting that Jerry Manuel has gotten the Mets to internalize everything that Willie Randolph ever talked about but could never actually get his team to put into practice. The Mets are fighting, and battling, and finding ways to win games. Manuel's "guys" are playing with the kind of inspiration and loyalty to their manager that Willie could never quite inspire. After Tuesday night, he would have given the media some positive nugget to chew on about battling back in the next two games of the series, but the Mets likely would have found a way to roll over again. That's assuming that if Willie was still around, this last Phillies series would have even been important at all.
And it's somewhat unfair for me to still be ripping on Willie Randolph. It's possible that the Mets' recent success has less to do with Jerry Manuel, per se, and more to do with a team responding to any new face, or the right guys being hot at the right time. Still, it's hard to argue that Jerry has pushed the right buttons. The cerebral Manuel's calm sense of urgency, with a twist, certainly appears to be trickling down throughout this entire Mets team.
Can they keep it up? Everyone on the Mets is stepping it up right now, from Delgado and Pelfrey to Robinson Cancel and Argenis Reyes. Reyes and Wright have rounded into form and are poised to put up numbers as good as anything we've seen from those two. Santana is a second half pitcher, and you have to like what you saw in a big game last Tuesday, even if he didn't end up getting a much-deserved win.
There is a lot of season left, and we don't know if Delgado can continue his pace, or if Pelfrey will keep being dominant, if Ryan Church will come back, if the bullpen will hold, if Carlos Beltran will finally get it going consistently. But I do remember how I felt about the Mets from around this time last year until about a month ago, and I like this a lot more. Regardless of what happens between now and when the leaves change, the Mets have turned their season around, and it's finally fun to watch again.
(Image courtesy nydailynews.com)
No comments:
Post a Comment