One New York Life

Current Record: 14-9
April Record: 14-9
Standings: 1st Place (up 1.0)

1) The Mets’ opening day line-up involved Alex Cora leading off, Mike Jacobs batting clean-up, and Gary Matthews Jr. in center field. That, my friends, is a depressing line-up with which to go to war. Jose Reyes missed the first week of the season. Anyone with a sense of, you know, timing, had some idea the first homestand would be a little rough. They grabbed the opening day win and went 2-2 pre-Reyes. This was fine, and there was a potential hot start on the horizon as the Mets had two to go against the Nationals. It was not to be, though, as we all decided to forget that Reyes hadn’t played a competitive baseball game since last May and also had no Spring Training.

2) To that end, Reyes looked horrible in his first few starts. He looked tired on the basepaths, almost clueless at shortstop, and overmatched at the plate — climaxing with an 0-7 in the 20 inning game (pairing slickly with Jeff Francouer’s 0-7 in the same game to tank my fantasy week). Then, Jerry let him sit for the first game of the Greatest Homestand In Team History, finally pulled the trigger on batting him third (which I was totally wrong about) and he’s started to come out of it. Jerry’s point, which I wrongfully ignored, is that Reyes’ being on base doesn’t matter much if the 3/4/5 can’t knock them in. The man has a point.

3) Gary Matthews Jr should probably not be playing baseball anymore. I understand the Mets were hoping they could showcase him against the Marlins, Nationals, and Rockies (in Denver) and maybe entertain a few trade offers, but he has nothing left. Jerry Manuel, because he’s a loyal, level-headed dude in an insane, over-reactive market, gave him way too long to “come out of it”. Angel Pagan is not a long-term answer at centerfield, but his .244/.314/.346 is Williams-esque as compared to what Matthews has done. I thought that Matthews would likely end up in a trade package near the deadline when Beltran was finally ready, but at this point it seems more likely that he’ll be designated for assignment since I’m not sure anyone would want him. He’s a replacement level player (Prospectus has his WARP at 0.2) and he’s certainly not a “perk” for any GM with a clue. As a defensively-decent center fielder, it’s really hard to be “not worth it” for $1M — but Matthews has found a way.

4) When I wrote about Mike Jacobs back in the preview, I kind of expected him to come out of the gate strong. He said all the right things in Spring Training and really led me to believe he had something to contribute. Then, he hit .208/.296/.375 with 1 HR and 7 K in his first 7 games. In a normal year, that might have been a slow start the team could absorb. Unfortunately, an impatient fan-base, not-particular-hot ticket sales, and Ike Davis destroying AAA to the tune of .364/.500/.636 with 2 HR, 9 BB, and 5K in 10 games led to Jacobs getting coyly designated for assignment after the 20-inning game to “make room for a pitcher.” On Monday, Ike was summoned from Buffalo. Ike’s .306/.409/.472 and 6 RBI out-performed the Tatis/Jacobs platoon. Just like that, Davis claimed first, Tatis was a bench player, and Daniel Murphy has no clear role on the team after he recovers from one of the most poorly-timed injuries ever. While I’ll grant that the list of guys who’ve come up and galvanized a team only to flame out quickly is a long one, Ike seems to control of the plate and plays some superb defense at 1B. While I’m still taking a “wait and see” approach with him, a big spring, a big debut, and success at all levels of the minors is, well, exciting. As for Murphy, it’s likely he’ll end up Banished To Buffalo and I don’t know what happens. Francoeur has taken something of a leadership role on the team, left is Bay’s for the foreseeable future, and Castillo (despite the fans’ insane and inexplicable desires) is still playing well at second. Unless Davis swoons hugely in the next few weeks, Murphy will have lost his job to an ill-timed ligament tear in a freak baserunning injury during Spring Training. Not a story you want to tell your grandkids someday.

5) When Jerry Manuel came home from St. Louis at 4-8, I honestly thought the team was getting ready to fire him. Fair or not, the team needed to get off to a big start and the bats were all quiet. Most of it, though, was easily explainable. Jose Reyes had no spring training. Jason Bay was off to a terribly slow start. Oh, and their clean-up hitter was MIKE JACOBS. They were 5 games out of first and the columns being written, predictable, said they were a bottom-dwelling team, a waste of money, and wouldn’t be better than fourth place the entire season. Then, they went 9-1 at home and took a half-game lead from the Phillies (which should have been a whole game, except for Bruce Bochy inexplicably pulling Tim Lincecum after 8.1 and leading to this insane box score). Manuel shuffled the line-up, discovered that his most solid card was Pagan, Castillo, Reyes, Wright, Bay, Davis, Francoeur, and Barajas, Gary Matthews was banished to the clubhouse, the pitchers stepped up, and the Mets took advantage of some suspect play from the Braves. Suddenly, Jerry’s a genius and everything’s fine. I love Mets’ columnists.

6) And by “the pitching stepped up” I really mean “the pitching and defense stepped up”. Mets pitching in April had a total ERA under 3 with a way-too-high 1.4 WHIP. Mets’ pitchers during The Homestand let way too many guys on base, but made big pitches when they needed it and kept runners from scoring.

7) After watching Jeff Francoeur gun guys down at third and home from all parts of right field, I’d like to start a campaign to get him to adopt the Dikembe Mutombo finger wave whenever he records an assist. I saw one live (I went to the Mets/Nationals loss when Santana decided to give up 4 runs in the first inning because I was there. He hates me) and it’s like watching Vlad when he was in Montreal. You don’t believe there’s any way for him to do it, then he does it, and it’s breath-taking. Until that game, I also forgot how annoying it was to play against Livan Hernandez. He just lets a ton of guys on base, makes the crowd think there’s a rally coming, and then mows down the guys he knows he can get out. It’s terrible.

8) Pelfrey, Maine, and Perez have, collectively, been slightly better than expected. The bulk of this goes to Pelfrey who, in his first four starts went 4-0 with a 0.69 ERA. He also pulled a “gimme the damn ball” in the 20-inning game to collect the rarely seen Win-Save-Win. His ERA got violently snapped back to normal by giving up 6 (questionably Earned via hometown scoring as both Reyes and Castillo dropped infield flies) runs to Philly on May 1st. Maine got off to something of a rough start, but seemed to have an A-Ha Moment following his 3.2, 3K, 1ER appearance against Braves in which he was pulled for still-not-sufficiently-explained reasons. Following that performance, he went 6.0 strong against the Braves with 9Ks and 2ER. He’ll get another soft landing spot tomorrow in Cincinnati. Perez… who knows. At this point, Jerry Manuel has given him almost no leash and Hisanori Takahashi has essentially become his caddy, coming in when the walks get out of hand, saving the bad inning, and collecting the win. Perez will also get a soft landing at Great American Ballpark this week.

9) Two solid strikes against Jerry Manuel. First, he sticks with guys way too long. We covered this above with Jacobs and Matthews. His second problem, it seems, is managing a bullpen. During the 20-inning game in St. Louis, he got K-Rod up in the bullpen six or seven times before finally putting him in. At that point, it was almost expected he would blow the save. Rodriguez said after the game he believed he threw something like 100 warm up pitches. Isn’t warming up a closer on the road pretty straight-forward? The manager makes one phone call and says “as soon as we score a run, get ready.” Not if there’s a guy on third, not if there’s a guy on second, but when we actually score a run. Then, the next day, Jerry had him up AGAIN at least once. If not for a fortuitous 5-inning game called for weather followed by a PPD rain-out against the Dodgers to give the bullpen two full days off, K-Rod and Fernando Nieve would be dead… in April.

10) Too many people were totally out on this team, making insane proclaimations about the season with literally 150 games left on the schedule. As I mentioned to friends, the NFL season will be four games deep by the time baseball season ends. There is, literally, no declaration that can be made in the second week of April. To do so is insane. If there is ANYTHING that concerns me, it’s the fact that the Phillies are so far in Johan Santana’s head that they can actually see out his eyes. But that’s a post for next month after their Yankees/Phillies homestand. I remain cautiously optimistic. Wright, Francoeur, and Bay look good. Reyes is recovering, Castillo is doing what he does, and the Barajas/Blanco catcher combo have been calling awesome games. The team is not bad. Their hitting is not as good as the Phillies but, top-to-bottom, their pitching is as good. Johan Santana and Mike Pelfrey are fly ball pitchers — that they got crushed in Citizens Bank Park on consecutive warm, humid days is not shocking. It will be much more disconcerting if they get equally crushed in Citi Field at the end of May.