New Life for the Mets
I gotta say, I thought the Mets were dead going into last night. And that was before I knew the (potentially) insane Oliver Perez was taking the mound to set a new record for worst regular season ERA by a post-season starter in history. That's the thing about baseball; while pitching is the key to winning in the postseason, it's never the team with the best pitchers on paper that gets the best pitching.
But going into last night, it seemed like a typical "team wins game 1 then goes ice cold the rest of the way" situation. They're facing, after all, a very experienced team in St. Louis. The Cardinals seemed likely to be able to finish them off before they could say, "Ya gotta believe!"
But now it's a 3-game series, with two in New York. And darn it all if I'm not going to have to start looking for a TV at 1am on Wednesday. Minaya's Latino Mets are still in this thing.
As for Ollie, no one remembers more than me how good he was back in 2004; I had him on my fantasy team that year. I actually packaged him with Alfonso Soriano for Albert Pujols at the end of the year, in that keeper league. Since the Mets grabbed him, I've been watching for something, anything that could get his head back in the right place. And maybe a 5 inning, 1 walk, virtually series-saving performance could do it. Probably not, but maybe. Throwing him yesterday could be worth a ton down the road.
OK, I'll stop thinking about the future until the end of the season. The Mets are 6 wins from a title. What's our biggest obstacle? The struggles of the Braves in the postseason are well documented. This summer I heard Keith Olbermann on the Dan Patrick radio show blasting Bobby Cox for insisting on pitching Maddux, Glavine, and Smoltz on 3-days rest every fall. He said their poor post-season stats, especially Maddux and Glavine, came from those starts on 3-days rest. Well, Glavine SHOULD have gotten 4-days rest. But because his start was rained out and postponed, he's going on 3-days rest tonight. Then we face Carpenter on 4 days rest Wednesday.
My hope? That Glavine gets the game to the bullpen. The Wagner blown save doesn't scare me, by the way. He'll bounce back. Willie's done a good job of managing the bullpen, and Wagner and Heilman haven't pitched these past two games.
But going into last night, it seemed like a typical "team wins game 1 then goes ice cold the rest of the way" situation. They're facing, after all, a very experienced team in St. Louis. The Cardinals seemed likely to be able to finish them off before they could say, "Ya gotta believe!"
But now it's a 3-game series, with two in New York. And darn it all if I'm not going to have to start looking for a TV at 1am on Wednesday. Minaya's Latino Mets are still in this thing.
As for Ollie, no one remembers more than me how good he was back in 2004; I had him on my fantasy team that year. I actually packaged him with Alfonso Soriano for Albert Pujols at the end of the year, in that keeper league. Since the Mets grabbed him, I've been watching for something, anything that could get his head back in the right place. And maybe a 5 inning, 1 walk, virtually series-saving performance could do it. Probably not, but maybe. Throwing him yesterday could be worth a ton down the road.
OK, I'll stop thinking about the future until the end of the season. The Mets are 6 wins from a title. What's our biggest obstacle? The struggles of the Braves in the postseason are well documented. This summer I heard Keith Olbermann on the Dan Patrick radio show blasting Bobby Cox for insisting on pitching Maddux, Glavine, and Smoltz on 3-days rest every fall. He said their poor post-season stats, especially Maddux and Glavine, came from those starts on 3-days rest. Well, Glavine SHOULD have gotten 4-days rest. But because his start was rained out and postponed, he's going on 3-days rest tonight. Then we face Carpenter on 4 days rest Wednesday.
My hope? That Glavine gets the game to the bullpen. The Wagner blown save doesn't scare me, by the way. He'll bounce back. Willie's done a good job of managing the bullpen, and Wagner and Heilman haven't pitched these past two games.
posted by Prof. A at 6:29 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home