The Royals have been major players in the free agent market, making a big run at Andruw Jones while signing Jose Guillen, but they did lose David Riske to the Brewers.
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Something is rotten in the state of Flushing. (All right, so Flushing’s not exactly a state – but neither is Denmark). Mets' fans may still be lamenting the great collapse of 2007, but the problems go further back. The ‘Amazins haven’t been the same since Carlos Beltran froze like a statue at Adam Wainwright’s filthy curveball to end the 2006 NLCS.
The ugly truth is this: for all their talent and high expectations, the Mets have been a .500 team for over a year now, dating back to May of ’07, when they shot out to a 35-19 start, and coasted for the next four months, until the horrific season-ending 5-12 finish that cost them the division to a team that wanted it more than they did.
If there’s one thing the ’08 Mets have proven, it’s that last year’s dreadful denouement may not be the aberration that everyone assumes. Six weeks in, the Mets are once again hovering at the .500 mark and, with some brief exceptions, are playing uninspired baseball.
After spending most of the off-season and spring training assuring fans and the media that that there’s no hangover from last year, they’ve offered up a month’s worth of base-running blunders and mental lapses, untimely hitting, and erratic relief pitching. (All of which makes one wonder: just what do these guys do in spring training, anyway?)
Before the panic button is officially pushed, consider that the Mets have yet to get a start from two front-line pitchers, Pedro Martinez and Orlando Hernandez, and just got Moises Alou, their regular left fielder, back into the lineup.
One could argue that, given those setbacks, the fact that they’re only 1.5 games back (in a weak division) is actually encouraging.
One could also argue that, for every rising young star like Jose Reyes and David Wright, the Mets are still overly dependent on aging players who are either in serious decline (Carlos Delgado) or whose injury-wracked bodies will prove too unreliable (Alou, Pedro, El Duque, Luis Castillo).
Monday night, the Mets arrived in Los Angeles on a rare high, after taking two of three from the NL West-leading Arizona Diamondbacks. It was Cinco de Mayo, the holiday celebrating Mexican independence, and three hours before game time, the clubhouse was relaxed and full of chatter, most of it Spanish, from the boisterous Latin contingent of Reyes, Beltran, and Angel Pagan.
In the dugout, Willie Randolph chatted amiably about his first National League match-up against his mentor, Joe Torre, assured reporters that the Mets anemic bats were related to the cold weather of April, insisted that he wasn’t worried about Delgado’s and Beltran’s alarming slumps (both are hitting in the .215 range, with 6 home runs between them), Oliver Perez’s maddening inconsistency, and shrugged off notions that the relentless booing of unforgiving fans who’ve turned every game at Shea into Judgment Day, has affected his players.
“It’s early,” Randolph said with emphasis. “I’m not going to over-react. In our mind, we’ve moved on, even if the fans haven’t. The players are focused on winning games.”
Randolph exudes the same calm and patience that Torre does. But he doesn’t seem to have Torre’s ability to get into players’ heads and quietly challenge them. Whatever his concerns, he keeps them as hidden as the Mets’ offense.
Is he worried about the Mets’ aging veterans, and how they will hold up in August and September?
“I can’t worry about things I can’t control,” he said. “I try to stay positive.”
In the clubhouse, the mood was equally upbeat. Beltran assured me that yes, he enjoyed playing in New York, despite all evidence that his reserved, even aloof demeanor is not tailor-made for the demands of the Big Apple. Jose Reyes talked about how baseball was “fun” again.
Then the Mets went out, got five hits, and lost 5-1. The following night, they stranded 13 runners and blew a 4-1 lead.
They salvaged the series with a 12-1 thrashing of Dodgers ace Brad Penny, returning home with a respectable 3-3 West Coast swing. Not bad, but probably not enough to allay fans’ fears that this team, pre-season favorites to win the NL East, is more about hype than heart.
“We have to stay healthy and get our swagger back,” said Wright after the Monday loss. “We would’ve liked to have gotten off to a better start, but until we play consistent baseball, we’re going to have to answer these questions, unfortunately.”
