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.

Your mama says you ugly

Speechless.

Is there really a worse time for the Mets to shit the bed? I know I'm going out on a limb here, but this really has been a bad stretch for the Mets.

* * *

Ouch....

Fernando Martinez, of, Double-A Binghamton (Mets)

Martinez has been hot and cold this season in Double-A, but June has been mostly chilly for the teenager. Martinez is hitting .214 with the same slugging percentage--no extra base hits so far this month.

Well, the 18 year old playing AA managed to knock one out yesterday. I think anyone at his age doing what he is doing deserves the benefit of the doubt and doesn't belong on the not-so-hot section.

While Josh Hamilton might be the biggest story of '07, Rick Ankiel is not far behind.

It's time to move up Kevin Mulvey to AAA. While Humber struggles, Mulvey may just be rocketing up the depth charts. Of course Humber is coming back from Tommy John and might require more time, but it is what it is and he is having a tough time.

Ugh

Well there is growing sentiment amongst Mets fans that Willie is losing his mind by not batting LoDuca second at this point. Green is back and that is certainly better than what he has been runner out there, but staunch Willie supporters that I know are suddenly getting exasperated with Willie. "What the hell is going on with Willie" they say. The answer is I'm not sure. Of course that is not the reason why the Mets are losing and neither is his insistence on using Julio Franco as the first option off of the bench. But a call into WFAN was touching on that this weekend and posed the question how could this be a World Series team when Julio Franco is the first option off of the bench? The bench is extremely important for obvious reasons and having big spots squandered a on guy who came into Sunday's game batting .182 against lefties and .185 against righties is mind blowing. He is also is a potential rally killing double play machine with 51.4% of his at-bats ending with groundballs and 32.4% ending in a strikeout. Scary.

What is even scarier is the bullpen. Schoeneweis should never face a righty until he figures out what the hell is going on with him and the Mets only have four relievers with an ERA under 3.99 and only three that that are actually in the bigs. Also, Mota was supposed to give the Mets some help and he has struggled and just has not looked good. The Mets might have to have to starting looking at how Johan Santana, Joel Zumaya, Adam Wainwright, Jon Papelbon, Andrew Miller, etc. broke into the big leagues and look at a minor league starter as a member of this bullpen. Simply said, the bullpen has not been too effective of late. In April, only one reliever had an ERA over four. For the months of May and June, there were four relievers each month over four. Not a good trend.

One other thing that has come up lately was the observation that Tom Glavine just cannot pitch with a lead. If he gets a few runs, he gives them right back and simply has a penchant for only pitching well when the Mets do not give him run support. Also, Tom Glavine's effectiveness seems to be tied into him getting calls from the umpire. You pretty much know in the first inning what type of day it will be for Tom Glavine. If the ump is going to squeeze him or just call and a true strike zone, he is going to be roughed up. He simply does not have the stuff to pitch without getting the gifts he get back in the 90's. He is going to be hit or miss depending more on the umpire than on him and that is not very encouraging.

This Met team is a in a lull right now and they will wake up, but some glaring weaknesses have shown themselves during this stretch.

* * *

Steve Somers said it best so I'll just repeat him.

I've never seen Yankee fans get so excited a team that is one game under .500.

Do the Yankees look great right now? Yes. Have they gone 10-2 in their last twelve and still not gotten over .500? Yes. It is a long season and while they have a chance to make the playoffs and are certainly better than they have showed early on, there are some other pretty good teams. The Yankees will hit a rough streak just like the Mets have and lose ground again. It will be a back and forth struggle for them and their success has alarmingly been tied to Alex Rodriguez's production. As good as he has been and is, he will hit a lull again also.

It looks like Alex is in everyone's good graces. Anyone think he is a Real Yankee™ yet? Or does he have to prove himself in the post season?

Can I just say how happy I am to not be a Yankee fan?

It's all about the money.

"It's up to the money," Guillen said. "Money talks. I don't blame Buehrle if he tests the market and gets his money. That's his job. He should make as much money as he can because when he's not playing baseball, he's just another guy on the street."

And Buehrle is going to get paaaaaiiiid.

It looks like the Rockies might play some hardball.

Negotiations with top pick Casey Weathers will resume this week. There are indications the Rockies would like Weathers to sign for less than $1.8 million - his slot number - because he lacks leverage as a college senior.

Not a good way to build goodwill with a young player. Then you are going to turn around and ask him for a reasonable extension beyond his arbitration years like Crawford, Baldelli, Wright, Sizemore, etc. got? Please.

I would not be surprised if Bob Geren sat Kurt Suzuki down to talk to him about this statement.

"Jason's the best you can get," Suzuki said Sunday at AT&T Park. "I'm going to follow him and how he prepares himself, be around him a lot doing as much as I can."

I'd make sure he was just being diplomatic and follows him around to do the exact opposite. Jason Kendall actually approached the Athletics to rework his contract so he can stay around. So many players have no self awareness and I bet he is gracious enough to take a bit of a pay cut.

Right now the Mets are on their way to losing another game. If the Mets roll into Yankee Stadium in this fog, they are going to get swept. If that happens, I'll have to endure getting shit from a people who couldn't name three people in the Yankee rotation and that is not going to make me happy.