Infuriating

Manny Ramirez did not lead the Major Leagues with 17 outfield assists in 2005 because he is a nice guy. While he does not have the best arm, he has a decent one and is accurate. With the middle of the order coming up, Manny Acta in a true Windmill Willie moment sent Jose Reyes home on a hard hit single to left field. Forget the fact that the left fielder is usually playing more shallow than normal just because of where they are playing, the Mets were down three and had Jon Lester on the ropes. Why not just give them a free out to be nice? Simply horrible. If you watched the game and watched Manny get to the ball as Reyes rounded third, you knew there was no way he was going to make it without a Boston mistake. Varitek could have dropped the ball, bent over and picked it up, and then tagged out Reyes with time to smoke a cigarette.

"I'm so confident when he's running," Acta said. "But I found out today that not even Reyes can outrun the ball. I thought that Manny caught the ball flat-footed, but I found out that is really shallow here."

As for Alay Soler, he concerned me before about how he would perform in the playoffs with his demeanor and now I am even more so concerned. Soler has blown up because he let his hot head got the best of him, but yesterday he blew up because he lacked guts. I like watching pitchers nibble at the corners as much as I like hearing Tom Cruise talk about Scientology (congrats on reaching the level of an Operating Thetan 6). Soler tossed 107 pitches towards the direction of the plate and 51 were balls and he hit one batter while striking out no one. As far as I'm concerned, he was lucky to escape with only eight runs allowed. While I know Mike Pelfrey needs more work, having a guy who throws hard and attacks hitters will be refreshing when he does arrive.

Losses happen, but with Josh Beckett and Curt Schilling on the horizon and The Human Rain Delay, The Duque, Soler going against the New York Yankees, it could get ugly fast. While ultimately what the Mets do against the AL East is unimportant in terms of the standings and their seemingly sure ticket to the playoffs, the Mets getting bruised and battered by the tops dogs in the AL East is bad. While they still have to play five games after this, they are five tough games. The Mets have the backs up against a wall for their remaining games against the AL East and really, I would not be surprised if they only take one more game the rest of the week as today was a big game that they really let get away. It’s one thing to get beat in a big spot and it is another thing to beat yourself. The Mets beat themselves.

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Thanks to Coop for the link by way of Steve from the Eddie Kranepool Society....

As stated in previous articles, Milledge is enjoying this a lot. Too much perhaps?

Wow. It looks like he is getting ready to give birth to something. I'm not sure what, but something. As for Milledge's comment about Soler making Milledge look like Paris Hilton, I did not think that was possible, but it is.

With all the blurry images, I fell like I'm looing at pictures of big foot.

Heath Bell looked really sharp last night and has been pretty tight since his first two outings. His slider looks great, he is coming inside with his fastball, and attacking hitters in typical Heath Bell Style. Of course, sample size...sample size...sample size. The fact remains he just has not pitched much or gotten into any high leverage situations. Since his first two innings, he has pitched 16.2 innings and owns a 1.08 ERA, 8.64 K/9, 9.18 H/9, 3.78 BB/9, and 1.44 WHIP. While they are not stellar numbers, he has been markedly better in his last six performances than his first six performances.

           IP   ERA   K/9  H/9  BB/9  WHIP
1st Six   10  3.60  9.00 15.3  5.40  2.30
2nd Six  9.2  0.93  8.38 7.44  0.93  0.93

While it is not necessary that Bell takes some more responsibility with everyone in the bullpen pitching well, it certainly bodes well for the Mets to just have backup options. They have some nice depth in that area when you toss Royce Ring and Henry Owens into the discussion and hopefully Heath Bell is opening some eyes and gaining some trust.

The Red Sox faithful congratulated Pedro Martinez like the star that he was for that town for so long. Who says people in Boston have no class?

Punch your wife, back on the field post haste.

Meanwhile, the team addressed the wave of criticism that it had seemed more concerned about wins and losses after Myers' arrest than about the specter of domestic violence.

In a statement issued by the club, Phillies president David Montgomery said the team did not initially comment on Myers' arrest Friday out of a desire to protect Kim and Brett Myers' privacy and let the legal process run its course.

Right. From now on, the Phillies support domestic violence. Write that down.

Beltran and Willie on Jon Lester:

“He was OK, he threw a lot of balls,” said Carlos Beltran, who went 1-for-2 against Lester with a walk and a single in the 9-4 Red Sox victory. “We couldn’t get the big hit at the right time. He fell behind a lot of times, and we couldn’t take advantage of that.”

Did he step it up to make the big pitch or did the Mets just shrink in that situation?

“He had a good arm,” said Beltran. “For a lefty, any time you face a lefty who can throw 90 and top 93, it’s a good pitcher. At the same time, he still needs to learn how to pitch more inside because sometimes, as a lefty, they have a tendency to pitch everything away.”

Why not just help him out?

“The kid was erratic, but he struck David out on a nasty curveball with the bases loaded and he stayed with it,” said Randolph. “His pitch count was up, but he was able to make a pitch when he had to and at the end of the game, he got the win.”

At some point, Nady's homers with no one on base and hits with no one on base will need to start coming with runners on.