Here's how frustrating the Mets are: After splitting six tough games on the road against two of the best teams the league has to offer, they come home to face not only a Reds team that has been struggling this season, but a guy who has been so bad this season, his manager wanted to send him back home to have him checked out physically. So what happens? In a double-header against the Reds, 18 innings total, the aggregate score between the supposed powerhouse Mets and the last place team from flyover country: 13-13, including the awful Bronson Arroyo going eight innings in the nightcap and giving up four hits and only one run while striking out nine.(Then, Arroyo put on his bedazzled jacket, broke out his guitar, and made all those young impressionable David Wright fans swoon for his music. Yep, that kinda night. Well, maybe Bronson can sing, but at least Bronson can't hit or act.)
Break even against the good teams, break even against the bad teams. You can't spell mediocre without Mets these days, apparently. Granted, those last few runs during the Game two loss were tack on runs caused by errors (Wright and Carlos Delgado). But it's all about the microcosms, ladies and gents. And there are too many of them.
Although Game two did see the return of the John Franco temper tantrum, as Billy Wagner busted up a Gatorade cooler after the sloppy ninth inning in true Franco style. Just as John Franco went to the tantrum well a little bit too much when he was a Met (yeah we know John, you're angry ... and make sure the camera's on you so we all know that you care), we don't see it enough these days. So Billy taking the cooler to task is one of those positive microcosms ... the ones that there aren't enough of.
And by the way, another bad outing from Oliver Perez today, and Country Time may go Gatorade cooler all over poor Ollie's head.
"Happy Mother's Day Ollie! FWAP!"
1 comment:
This is making me crazy! I wondered if it was just my paranoid imagination that made me feel that we do worse against bad pitchers. So I did a study looking at this. I reviewed the box scores of all the games to see how we fared against previously good vs previously bad pitchers. Here are the results:
In games the Mets won, the opposing pitchers so far in the season had a won-lost record of 23-13, with an ERA of 4.23.
In games the Mets lost, the opposing pitchers had a won-lost record of 14-14 and an ERA of 5.13.
Eureka!
There is one problem with my analysis, which is that the ERA of the pitchers in the box scores reflects the game actually played that day against the Mets - but that problem would tend to increase the ERA of the pitchers who lost to the Mets, so the findings of the study would actually be greater if I'd used their previous ERAs . For example if I use Brad Penny's and Belisle's ERAs prior to their giving up the 12 runs to the Mets, the opposing, losing pitchers' ERA was 4.09, instead of 4.23. Also the study can't really assess the first week of the season when the pitchers had no W/L record or ERA.
Now, I didn't do a statistical analysis, because it's Mother's Day, and I just didn't feel like going to the trouble, but still I think I'm on to something here.
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