Are the Mets for real? Is R.A. Dickey for real? Maybe they're the same question.
After tonight's win over the Tigers, the Mets are now 41-30, eleven games over .500. With tonight's win, Dickey moves to 6-0. Hisanori Takahashi is 6-2. Without the two big surprises of the Mets' staff, the team would be one game over .500, around what many expected of them this season.
Everyone keeps waiting for Dickey to come back to earth, but he now has wins in six straight starts and an ERA of 2.33. Six of his seven starts have been quality starts. Dickey has given up more than three runs only once, and in that start he gave up four runs in seven innings.
If Dickey keeps up this pace, he'll belong on the All-Star team. I'm not quite ready to go that gaga over him, but it's starting to look as if he's a legitimate part of the rotation.
And he'd better be. Takahashi too. Even if Johan Santana starts pitching like the Santana of old, no sure thing, Mike Pelfrey will probably not continue at his 9-2 pace. The Mets struck gold with Dickey and Takahashi - what are the odds that they can do it again with their farm system?
The Mets just signed Ramon Ortiz after he was released by the Dodgers. Ortiz is 37 with a lifetime ERA of 4.93. He has only had one season with an ERA under 4, back in 2002 for the champion Angels. If the Mets have to turn to Ortiz as a starter, they are in big trouble.
Most of the starters available in trade don't look much better. Jake Westbrook basically has had one good year in his career, and that was back in 2004 when he was 14-9 with a 3.38 ERA and 1.25 WHIP. That was his only full season with an ERA under 4. Westbrook also doesn't strike people out; even in 2004, he had just 116 K in 215 2/3 innings.
Kevin Millwood is 1-8 with a 5.12 ERA. He might do better away from the awful Orioles - Millwood has given up 19 homers, 14 at home. Presumably many of those balls might not go out of Citi Field. But on the road, where Millwood has given up five homers in 50 innings, he still has an ERA of 5.04.
If the Mets don't want to give up top prospects - and they shouldn't - they won't get Cliff Lee.
Atlanta just lost, so the Mets are now just a half game out of first. The Mets lead the wild-card race by 1 1/2 games over the Giants, who lost tonight as well. And they wouldn't be in this position without a 35-year-old knuckleballer who started the season in the minors.
12 comments:
41-30 is 11 games over .500 NOT 9.
Don't be surprised, Doom2pro. We're talking about Met fans here. They have a little trouble with math, as evidence by their refusal to accept that 27 > 2.
Oops. Thanks, Doom2pro, for pointing that out. I guess I was so fixated on the idea that, without Dickey and Takahashi, the Mets would be under .500, and had a brain lock over the fact that it was not the case.
Uncle Mike, Yankee fans and Brian Cashman have a little trouble with math as well, believing that $200 million = no advantage.
First time we've heard from Urinalfresh since the Yanks took 2 out of 3 from the Mets. But then, as I said before, taking 2 of 3 at home is what you're supposed to do. The Yankees still play the NL teams better than the Mets do.
Ah, vacation came at just the right time, so I didn't have to watch my Mets play the Stank-ees. Playing against the Stank-ees is like being the only guy at a dance full of ugly women! Yeeeck!
If the Mets keep playing the AL as well as they have, then come October, we won't be having this discussion - Mets win the Series!!
The Mets have to make the Playoffs first, and this bunch has not proven that they can -- and several among them have proven that they can't.
Meanwhile, not that it means anything until October 3, but the Yankees are humming right along with the best record in baseball, 3 1/2 games ahead of the Mets.
And what have the Yankers proven THIS year? Nothing, just like the other 29 teams. Every year you have to prove yourself all over again, re-certify if you will. And that hasn't happened yet, not until October.
All the Mets have to do is be one of the 4 best teams in the NL (not the AL) to make the playoffs. What happens in the AL has no bearing on the Mets making the playoffs. Mikey, you of all people should know that.
But you know, the Mets are a crisp 11-3 against the AL, while the other team across town is only 9-6. And the season series with the Yankers was split 3 games each, so based on that, it would appear that the Mets need not be too worried about the AL this October.
This is the year that the Mets break out of their slump and make it to October. Go Mets!
And you're basing that one what, U.F.? Past experience? What's past is prologue. I don't expect you to know that line, as it comes from a smart guy named Shakespeare.
The only guy in the current Yankee starting lineup who hasn't proven himself a World Champion is Curtis Granderson -- and he has at least gotten into a World Series, in 2006 -- you remember the 2006 postseason, don't you? Oh, that's right, you're trying to forget. So was I, but the difference is, now, I don't have to.
Besides, how are the Mets going to make the Playoffs when The Great Johan Santana is too busy meeting with a divorce lawyer?
The only guy in the current Yanker lineup who has proven himself a world "champion" is: NO ONE. Champ? None. Chump, every one.
The reasons are twofold:
1. you are not a champion if you have to rely on a half-BILLION dollars to get it done,
2. they're all pussies (not guys). Hey don't blame me, it was YOUR foul-mouthed, poor loser owner who coined the phrase "fat pussy toad".
And btw, I do remember the 2006 postseason. The Mets were doing great until game 7 of the NLCS. Hey, you can't win them all, but at least they made a very nice showing and gave their fans a nice thrill. They played hard, gave their all, and that's all we ask for as fans, a good effort.
You losers, and you're "nothing matters unless you win it all" attitude is just sickening, and you wonder why everyone hates you? Please.
Oh, and "U.F."? Me no comprende?
Wow, a Met fan is defining what makes a "champion" and what doesn't. Next, Lady Gaga is going to give music lessons to Aretha Franklin.
As to your Reason Number 1: Your math is off. $200 million is one-fifth, not one-half, of a billion. And the Mets have spent three-quarters, or thereabouts, of that much, and haven't won a World Series in 24 years -- at which point, by the way, they had the highest payroll in the majors, and they've had no lower than the 2nd-highest payroll in the inferior league ever since '86, and it's gotten them 4 postseason berths, 1 Pennant, and no ticker-tape. So, no, it is NOT only about the money. It's also about competence, not that you would know.
As to your Reason Number 2: As long as you have Jose Reyes on your team, don't call anybody on another team a "pussy."
Besides, when George Steinbrenner said that about Hideki Irabu -- whose 2 World Series rings equal the Mets' entire total of nearly half a century -- he was suggesting that he was full of pus, not that he was weak. He wasn't: I saw him, live not on TV, pitch complete-game victories (despite Joe Torre being his manager) at both Shea Stadium and Fenway Park, just 3 weeks apart. And he didn't need a gas mask either time.
Being a Met fan, maybe "doing great until game 7 of the NLCS," "a good effort" (that was debatable), "a very nice showing" and "a nice thrill" is enough for you. But when your team has been a consistent winner, you're used to more than just those things.
We don't wonder why everyone hates us: We know. It's because we are what they want to be. Contrary to your diseased mind, we are winners, and we have the hardware and the video footage to prove it.
And "U.F." is short for your name. It's not an inversion of "Felix Unger." I wonder if you even get THAT joke. You should, Oscar was a Met fan. At least he liked baseball, Felix had no use for the game.
Mikey, Mikey, how much was spent on just 3 players back in 2009? CC, Burnett, and Tex..., Tiex..., Teix...(whatever) - nearly a half-BILLION dollars. Your payroll this year is not a half-BILLION dollars, next year maybe, but not yet. So my math is not off.
And that whole thing about King George and Irabu. Uh, no George called him a pussy, it had nothing to do with "pus", despite what the spin doctors at the "just say no to YES" network want you to believe. A rose by any other name....hmmmm? Or in the Yankers case, it's more like the rotting-flesh plant from Indonesia.
Everyone hates the Yankers because:
a. you are cheaters
b. you SUCK
c. your exorbitant payroll
d. you SUCK
e. the snotty attitude of your fans
f. you SUCK
g. you don't win games, you buy them with your massive payroll
h. you SUCK
i. 200 million other reasons that I won't list here
j. but mostly because you SUCK
How much was spent on those 3 players? Enough to win. If your Mets got it through their thick skulls and realized they have the nation's richest market, a new ballpark, and a massive cable network, and thus that they could spend whatever they wanted, maybe they could spend that much on 3 players. And, knowing them as I do (and as you, apparently, do not), it would be the wrong 3 players.
"Cheaters"? How? Spending more money? That is not cheating. Steroids? Less evidence against us than against many of our opponents.
Of your reasons why everyone hates us, 4 are references to our payroll, which is a red herring because they can ALL spend that much, they just choose not to; 1 is "the snotty attitude of your fans," as if Met fans weren't far snottier with far less justification in the 1980s; and 5 are simply your bilious opinion that we "suck."
You're a broken record. Not even a good record, more like a disco song.
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