The Downfall of the Big Guy

Carlos Delgado is batting .217/.245/.543 this month and the worst thing is this is not even his worst month. He has a .188/.262/.260 line in April and has only been Delgado-like in May. Despite all of that, he has only spent 33 at-bats out of the four hole and only 8 at-bats lower than the fifth spot. When Moises gets back, Delgado should honestly be dropped down to 7th in the order.There is enough time he could recover to put up decent numbers this month and finish with a .260/.330/.500 line on the season, but he just does not seem like he is close to turning it around.

I still do not believe he is this bad, but it should noted that in 2006 he only had one month at these levels when he put up a .208/.300/.406 line in May and no full months in '05 approaching those levels. It may bring comfort to know that he did put up a .194/.313/.344 line in May of '04 and a .207/.286/.488 line in April of '04. It is possible he still finishes the year with respectable numbers that approach 2004 and 2006 numbers, but he is not instilling much confidence in many people these days. He simply does not look like he is having any bad luck or anything like that contributing to his atrocious start.

He is on pace to hit 25+ homers and 100+ RBIs, but it is hollow 25+ homers and a 100+ RBIs. He has a .197 batting average with runners in scoring position and has 3.7 runs created per game which is down from 7.0, 9.3, and 7.3 from the past three years. In fact, check out the stats for when him when the Mets need their big guys to step up. He is struggling in close and late (.219 BA), runners on (.220 BA), runners in scoring position (.197), and man on 3rd less than two outs (.133). If he is still struggling when Alou comes back, he simply must be slid down to 7th in the batting order if not 8th. This team is proving it does matter who bats where. The entire team will not be firing on all cylinders at every point in the season and having a 4th or 5th hitter with an OBP under .300 just is not going to cut it.

* * *

So we are finally here. Mets vs. Yankees in Yankee Stadium with both teams heading in completely opposite directions. If the Mets plan to have a shot this weekend at taking the series, they have to win tonight. What better piece of motivation than Roger Clemens. He could very well be the most hated pitcher in the bigs by the Met fan base and though the team has drastically changed since 2000, it should still be fresh in their minds.

On July 8, 2000, Piazza was beaned by a Clemens ball and knocked out. That event came a month after Piazza smacked a grand slam off of him during interleague play. Of course we cannot forget Clemens throwing the bat at Mike during the Subway Series and then saying it was the baseball, which didn't make sense either because you do not peg people with baseballs to record outs.

Today would be a good day for the Mets to wake up with a resounding win over the Yankees.

Mets Starting Pitching ERA as of Thursday Afternoon:

1  San Diego      3.38
2  Arizona        3.63
3  NY Mets        3.73
4  LA Dodgers     3.74
5  San Francisco  3.75
6  Chicago Cubs   3.78
7  Milwaukee      4.18
8  Houston        4.26
9  Pittsburgh     4.37
10 Colorado       4.47

1  San Diego      2.21
2  LA Dodgers     3.39
3  Atlanta        3.59
4  San Francisco  3.67
5  NY Mets        3.73
6  St. Louis      3.79
7  Milwaukee      3.83
8  Arizona        3.85
9  Washington     3.96
10 Chicago Cubs   4.09

Rick Peterson is very high on himself.

"I'm truly disguised as a pitching coach," Peterson said. "I know pitching inside and out, I've studied pitching my whole life, but probably my real interest is helping people untap human potential."

It's hard to argue with him.

"It's like if you walk in the kitchen and you've got all these marvelous ingredients laying on the counter, but you don't know how to put those ingredients together and make a gourmet recipe out of it," Peterson said. "I'm looking at these ingredients and I'm saying, 'Wow, this is not scrambled eggs. You've got something much better than this.'"

It would be nice if a website was devoted to simply following Peterson's analogies.

Wasn't he supposed to be the difference making in the NL East? The Phillies wouldn't really be that much better off (if at all) with him in the rotation.

I have a general rule of thumb that when you repeat something 100 times in a few seconds, there is something much deeper going on and you do not actually believe what you are saying.

"This is a test, gentlemen," Willie Randolph said after Wednesday's loss. "An early season test. An early season test."

Willie is trying to keep a cool head about this recent downturn in the Mets play, but at some point a slump becomes something more.

"I think for us we should be using that as motivation to play well, to kind of see where we're at," Billy Wagner said. "The way we've played over the last 12 games, people look at it different ways ... but good teams rise to the occasion and you play well. We haven't really shown we're a good team in this stretch."

Again, they are still going to win the NL East in my eyes, but some things about this team were exposed. The bullpen needs to get solved and the offensive forces in this lineup need to get healthy and gain some consistency.