One New York Life

Current Record (As of 8/1): 49-53
June Record: 12-14
GB (NL East): 9.5 (Philadelphia, 4th)
GB (Wildcard): 6.5 (Colorado, 8th)

1) First off — when winning a $5/person Home Run Derby pool was the highlight of your month — you know it’s been a bad baseball month.

2) In addition — pretty much any month that opens with your team barely scraping out three runs over three games in the second most offense-friendly park in the league is going to be bad. It seems like almost an entire season ago now, but this when it appeared the Mets still had a shot at the division. As the month opened, the Phillies were still playing terrible baseball and they’d managed to tantalize the Mets with only a two-game lead. The Mets arrived in Philadelphia with a chance at the division. Then got whupped three times and left with their tail between their collective legs. These weren’t the games at Citi — where the team led early and the bullpen squandered it. These were just a bad team playing a good team. The Phillies went on to build a 10 game lead and the Mets went on to drop a series to the Nationals. It’s been a long month.

3) I find the people demanding the jobs of Jerry Manuel and Omar Minaya insane. I’ll listen to arguments, but they have to be better than the laughable “he should have been prepared with a better bench for this” or “he should have made some stopgap moves.” Again, I ask, what stopgap moves fix up your two best hitters, two starters, and your 2nd best reliever going to the DL? Like — the Mets would be a .500 team right now and holding down the fort if only we had Mark DeRosa hitting fifth and Eric Hinske hitting 6th? Really? That’s your complaint? As for Manuel — I agree that the team plays sloppy baseball at times, but most of their issues occur on the basepaths. For that, I mostly blame third base coach Razor Shines who seems to operate with no rhyme, reason, or concept for the game of baseball.

4) If there is a silver lining in this cloud of crap, it’s that the Mets will actually be able to see what they have at first base in Daniel Murphy. Murphy played an adventurous left field to open the season featuring high-profile, game-costing errors. Mets fans, being what they are, immediately decided that he’s a terrible player and should be busted back down to Rookie Ball because, apparently, making a guy learn left field at the major league level is something one just “picks up”. Murphy was moved to 1B (he’s a natural 3B) in June and, finally, toward the end of July, he finally got comfortable at the position. According to SNY, he’s now leading the league in the fake statistic of “double plays started.” More importantly, over the last couple weeks, he’s found his missing power stroke, slugging over .500 for the first time since last season. These last two months will be a pretty good indication as whether or not Murphy is the first baseman of the future. As the organization sold him that way and an excuse for not needing the services of Manny Ramirez, he’ll get that chance next season anyway. Sorry Aubrey Huff — you’ll have to choose another large market team to fund your retirement contract… I hope.

5) National League thought — the American League, again, won the All-Star Game. This caused a minor meltdown amongst NL fans and more irritating superiority amongst AL fans. Look, y’all — the National League is not going to win an All Star Game so long as they only have six innings to get a huge lead. Then the AL manager throws Jonathan Papelbon, Joe Nathan, and Mariano Rivera in succession. We threw Heath Bell. HEATH BELL. I watched Heath Bell for a lot of years, and bully for him that he’s had a great first half in San Diego, but he’s a mediocre reliever having a great half. The fact the Padres didn’t ship him out for an absolute haul at the deadline is insane. He is 30 years old — his value, I promise you, will never be higher than it is right now. The National League is not going to win the All Star game until Rivera retires and the AL no longer has 3 dominant closers to get 9 outs while the NL uses guys like Billy Wagner, Eric Gagne, and Trevor Hoffman. Which means, hooray, I have at least 3 more years of listening to Bill Simmons podcasts where he talks about the superiority of the American League and how all AL teams would be 10 wins higher in the NL — even though the team that would play in the NL would be entirely different and would rely on things like “David Ortiz at first base” and “less batters.” If we’re lucky, we can also hear him continue to complain that baseball games are too long while promoting the awesomeness of the AL’s attendance-boosting gimmick that’s inexplicably stuck around.

6) Early in July they sent Ryan Church to the Braves for Jeff Francoeur, thus clearing the team of the guys who have spent extended time on the Jerry Manuel Shitlist. I didn’t understand this trade at first and, as has been well-documented, I was a fan of Ryan Church. But, the more I thought about it, the more I got on-board. At 30, Church is what he is — A .270 hitter with a little bit of power who plays a great right field. At 25, there’s still a chance the Mets’ system can teach him that he does not, in fact, have to swing at every pitch thrown to him. Someone should show video of Vlad Guererro and say “you’re not him. Stop it.” Church should be happy — apparently karma repays a player’s time on the Jerry Manuel Shitlist as TrapJaw got to catch Mark Buehrle’s perfect game.

7) In the closing days of August, like the last gasp of a horror movie monster, the Mets took 5-straight from the Wildcard leading Rockies and the Astros. Then, they promptly returned to Earth dropping three-of-four, at home, to the semi-terrible Diamondbacks. The Mets season, and really the last two seasons, can be summed up by their August 4th game vs. the Cardinals. K-Rod blew the save and allowed the Cards to tie in the top of the 9th. I turned the channel because I knew the game was over. The Mets do not get clutch hits late in games. They haven’t for the last two seasons. Did you know there’s only been three walk-offs in the new stadium this year? The Yankees had three in a week. I checked the box score later in the evening more out of habit then the presumption they won. I discovered that Sean Green HBPed in the go-ahead run before delivering a meatball to El Hombre who did what he do — mashing a grand slam to put the Cardinals up 5. My Mets.

8) As I mentioned earlier this year — the team’s chronic ability to get hits off of bullpen pitchers or to get anything past the sixth inning is something that has yet to be addressed. It hasn’t changed this season. All of their offensive numbers are down due to the injuries — but still, in the 7th-9th inning the Mets aggregate numbers are .240/.330/.363. It represents an 80 point drop in OPS from the 4th-6th. It’s a little thing that nobody talks about but it’s absolutely there — along with their .240/.274/.410 line with bases loaded. I don’t see it getting better next year either.

9) And as that short-lived five game winning streak was happening, I started talking myself in to the idea that it wasn’t quite yet lost. If they could put together a few more wins, maybe they’d start getting guys back, and we had a shot. I was talking myself in to Halladay trades. Then everything came back down to Earth. Really, I do kind of wish the Mets sent a haul of players for Halladay. Right now, there’s a moderately good chance the Phillies end up as, at least, the NL representative to the World Series. So, there’s an outside chance that the Mets, next year, will have to contend with a two-time World Series champion in their division featuring a 1-2 of Cole Hamels and Cliff Lee. And we’ll be responding to that with Johan Santana and……… Oliver Perez?

10) I’m sure there will be a moment this month where I officially throw in the towel. I might be there now but I feel like I’ll know it for certain when it happens. My boss tossed it in after the aforementioned Cardinals game. I’m still holding on to it, but it came really close after the Padres walk-off on Friday. But that’s a thought for another month.