A Living Dance Upon Dead Minds

So it's the bottom of the seventh on Wednesday afternoon, one man out, Jose Reyes on second, and Luis Castillo grounds one in the hole at short. Reyes tries to take third base on the play.

Jose Reyes ... of all people ... should know better than to try something that dumb. Reyes has made that play on baserunners tens of hundreds of times. Besides, you learn this in little league, that you don't advance when the play's in front of you. So why on Earth would Jose do this? I mean, people wonder why we get frustrated with the Mets. All the talent in the world, but sorry ... this team has a low baseball IQ. Has had a low baseball IQ for a while.

And it's starting to rub off on the fans. Look, I know it was a weekday afternoon game and there's a lot of kids in the crowd. And I'm not blaming the kids. But in the eighth inning, immediately after Kelly Johnson put the Braves in the lead off of J.J. Putz, what's the first thing that happens in the crowd? You guessed it ... an attempt from left field to do the wave.

Are you kidding me? "Hey, we just got our hearts ripped out. Let's do the wave!" C'mon. How can we expect our team to play smart when our camp counselors are teaching young fans bad habits like the wave? This must stop, now.

***

Ask yourself this, when was the last time you were watching a Mets game and thought "wow, that's a heady play", and the subject wasn't Alex Cora?

But is it stupidity? Or is it something else?

You know how a pitcher throws 98, and he solely relies on that, even when 98 becomes 92? His coaches constantly hammer him to change speeds and play smart, but he still wants to blow everyone away?

Now Reyes is fast. Hasn't lost a step like our fictional pitcher. But does Reyes think he can beat everything out just because he's fast? Does he think, "Aah, if Yunel gets it I'm still fast enough to beat it out or discourage a throw"? If that's the case, that's carelessness and it's a lack of attention to detail. Escobar's a good shortstop, but it's not like you've got Fluff Castro running ... it was Luis Castillo. It would have been a near impossible play to get Castillo from the hole if Reyes had held. And then if he would have wanted to advance after the throw (like he's done), fine.

Instead, Reyes gave Escobar the Get Out of Jail Free card because of a combination of arrogance, and a lack of brainpower. And this is why the Mets can't get out of their own way. In games like Wednesday's game, where it goes back and forth and is decided in extra innings, it's little things like a stupid baserunning play and other mistakes that you can avoid by merely thinking that can cost you five or six games which, near the top of the N.L. East, is all it takes.

(Not to mention the physical errors, such as David Wright jumping out of the way of a ground ball that went through his legs. How does this happen, exactly?)

***

And speaking of "How does this happen", I missed Gary Sheffield's game tying home run in the eighth. Why? I was buying ice cream. Okay, it happens.

Now, check the helmet that I bought the ice cream in:


If you said "Hey wait a minute, that's an interlocking NY painted over the Final Season at Shea logo", give yourself a big round of applause. Then laugh.

Then cry.

Seriously? A paint job over a plastic cup? Was it sponsored by Spongetech? I give up. Instead of harping on that, let's see how rehab is going and play "Where's Oliver?"

Today, Perez found a good way to stay in shape as he landed a part in the local production of "Billy Elliot the Musical." His habit of leaping over the foul line made him a natural fit for the part. Unfortunately, on the very leap you see above, Perez aggravated his patella tendon and will miss an additional two weeks.

***

Oh and a word of advice to Snoop Manuel since the team is on its way to the west coast: If the phone should happen to ring at 3AM, and you didn't order room service ... just let it ring.

Que Sera Sera

With the bases loaded in the bottom of the seventh inning and Jorge Sosa peering in ... I had this flashback of Kenny Rogers.

Yeah, that one.

So my conversation with Sosa at that moment ... which was one-sided because, you know, I'm in New York and Jorge can't hear me 1,000 miles away through a television, was this:

"Jorge, just throw the slider. Throw it in the strike zone, and whatever happens, happens. Que sera sera, buddy!"

That'll teach me to draw my wisdom from a Doris Day song.

It seemed like solid logic. Hell, Sosa had been striking out guys with that slider, coming back from 2-0 to get Matt Diaz. So who would have thought that Kelly Johnson would scrape the clouds with Sosa's 3-2 slider and send the Braves to an 11-5 win? I guess I should have known. And in retrospect, I probably would have taken the Kenny Rogers route rather than given up the whole bushel all at once.

Random thoughts:

• How could Tim McCarver assume that on that wacky play where the Mark Kotsay trap was called a catch and Angel Pagan passed Ryan Church on the basepaths that if the umpire had gotten the call right initially that Pagan would have still passed Church? Does he think that Ryan Church is stupid enough to go back to third base if the umpire had called trap to begin with? Sure, Ryan Church can't hit lefties ... but I wouldn't call him stupid.
• John Maine was not that bad today. He gave up four runs in four innings, but that RBI single to Jeff Francoeur was a good pitch that got him on the handle. But a combination of Maine's off season workout regimen and Francoeur's off season workout regimen caused that ball to be hit off the handle with such force and spin, that it made it all the way to the outfield and then took a sharp right turn as soon as it hit the ground. I'm not worried about John Maine.
• I'm not worried about David Wright either. But he did leave four men on base today when a key hit could have changed the complexion of the game. No, it's not a microcosm of anything, but David Wright had a tough game.
  

Introspection

This is when I have to look into my soul.

Am I supposed to be worried that the Mets are 3-6 so far against the once and future nemesis Atlanta Braves after Thursday's 2-1 loss?

Or do I take comfort in the fact that at one and a half games ahead, the Mets are still the hunted while the Braves are still the hunter?

Look, nobody said that it was going to be easy. If you thought that 2007 was going to be the same kind of cakewalk as 2006, then your optimism is at a level that I can't even begin to understand. This 3-6 stuff, really, is only an issue if the Mets wind up going 3-4 or worse against this team in October. If this had happened say, two seasons ago, then yes...it's an issue. It's an issue because in '05 we had no idea if the Mets had the horses to reach the postseason. Obviously, the Mets have the horses this time around.

And think about how close Thursday's game really was...we're talking a Matt Diaz home run close, since the other two runs in the game were basically caused by errors (one by Carlos Delgado which wasn't an official error, but a ground ball he should have at least blocked led to a sac fly by Jeff Francoeur), and one by Kelly Johnson (who made a great play to rob Ruben Gotay of an RBI). In reality, the game was even closer than that, as David Wright should have at least seen one more pitch with the bases loaded in his third inning at bat against Smoltz (umpires have to stop calling every flinch of the bat a check swing strike).

(In fairness, even if Wright saw those extra pitches, there's no guarantee that he would have delivered...and I say that because I never thought that John Smoltz, who won his 200th game tonight, had lost control of the game. I'm not afraid to say that Smoltz, despite wearing the uniform of the enemy, is a damn good pitcher who deserves to be considered for Cooperstown.)

But what worries me more than six losses against Atlanta is this mini-slump that Jose Reyes is having. El Hombre Incredible is one for his last 14 with four walks, and not so coincidentally the Mets have only scored six runs in those four games. The four walks are a good sign, but Reyes has had the bad fortune of swinging at some nasty pitches and popping them up. It shows how valuable Reyes is that when he's off, so are the Mets.

Once he starts hitting, the Mets will be fine. And they'll live to fight another day. Sure, you'll want separation between the Mets and Braves, but don't count on it. In fact, don't expect the pennant race between the Mets and Braves to be anything other than this:

Dead Meat

Well that was ugly.

This game reminded me of a heavyweight fight...except the fight in question was Lang/Balboa I from Rocky III, where Balboa came out strong in the beginning (Jose Reyes' bases loaded triple and Paul Lo Duca's RBI single in the sixth), but once Lang got going (Shawn Green's misplay of the Scott Thorman's fly ball in the seventh), Lang connected with roundhouses (like Edgar Renteria's home run to finish that inning), Balboa could barely land any counters (Jose Valentin's error in the eighth) and all that was left was for Rocky to take that long fall to the canvas (Kelly Johnson's second home run of the game).

Of course, Lang/Balboa I was early in the movie, and the Braves taking four out of the first six from the Mets is early in the 2007 season. And the Mets come out of this only one half games back of first place. And the advantage that the Mets have is that their trainers were still alive after the game, unlike poor Mickey who went to that great boxing ring in the sky.

But I will say that the Mets' bullpen, in parts, still has something to prove in big moments. I'm not anti-Heilman, but something always seems to be off with Aaron, whether it be his mood, or his slider, or the McReynolds like demeanor his seems to possess most of the time. And Scott Schoeneweis, while victimized by Shawn Green's unfortunate battle with the baseball (why does disaster always seem to follow a Shawn Green close call?) to me, still needs to find his rhythm as a Met. Seven walks and two strikeouts in close to seven innings of work so far doesn't exactly instill supreme confidence...yet. Like I said: still a ways to go. But for a bullpen that was widely thought to be the strength of the team, the foundation is starting to shake ever so slightly.