What?

My assumption is that no one is reading this, seeing as I've completely s**t the bed as far as blogging goes for a couple of months now. To be fair, I've been relocated from my home in NY down the chop-country, ATL, GA, started a new job packed full of hours, and moved into a new house with an infant, so getting the time to write can be tough, even though I've kept watching all of the games, no matter what.

That being said, I've been waiting for the right moment to kick things off again, and I just can't keep my mouth shut about this, so let the floodgates open, I shall blog again.

To tell you the truth, I may be in the minority, but I really didn't want to see Willie go, and I find the whole thing to be rather sad. Perhaps it's sentimentality rather than reason speaking, but to me this was Willie's team, and that feeling has only been intensified with him now suddenly gone, something I found out about, by the way, at about 6:45am as I pulled into work with a phone call from my father in NY. Having gone to bed with a 4-3 Met lead in the 5th, I almost assumed they would blow it, the way things have been going, and when I woke up and checked the boxscore on my phone I was very pleased, and got a little wave of optimism. Then the phone call, and all day all I could think was, damn.

To me, Willie Randolph represents the man at the helm of the ship when this franchise rocketed back to relevance in a way unseen since the '80's, and I'm not forgetting 1999-2000. The way he guided that team in '05 and '06 was really perfect, he was the right man for the job, and a bad finish to 2007 plus a third of '08 isn't enough to cancel that out. The core of the great '06 team is still here, and more than anything, all of us Met fans really just want that team back, or something like it. That was his team. This feels like his team. I just don't think he deserved to get the boot mid-season.

Plus, I genuinely like him, and if you saw the brief initial interview with Willie as he left the hotel in Anaheim, I don't know how you could call it anything but downright heartbreaking.

Maybe this just feels like the end of an era that once seemed like an empire that would never die; Willie, David, Jose, Pedro, Wags and the Carloses looked like a sure dynasty, and while many of the members of that list may yet see glory, it is now set in stone that things will never happen they way we thought and hoped they would. Jerry Manuel may go on to win us a bundle of championships, and I'm sure that would be as sweet as anything, but for now, things are just off; we were naive in '06 to think that it would all just keep going, the way sports are today, and this is reality. It's the day you and your highschool sweetheart realize you're both going to college.

And I don't want to get in to whether Willie motivated Reyes enough, whether he double-switched appropriately, or any of that. I just feel how I do.

But anyway...
In spite of all that, I'm not quite on board with every sportswriter and their respective mothers with the perception that the Mets handled the whole thing in a "gutless", "classless", "cruel" or "amateur" way. The list could go on, and they're dumping it all on. Initially I thought about it that way, but I actually bought Omar's logic in the press conference, particularly because he seemed very sincere. I can see how he would want him out at the very instant the decision is made for a variety of reason: the risk of leaks, which Omar pounded home a lot, the risk of a manager who nows he's done managing a game, and really, I can see the problem with the mere idea of allowing someone who you've resolved to fire to manage a ballgame. Did the whole thing drag out a bit too publicly over the last couple of weeks? Yes. But to be fair, Omar seemed to take his shots for that, and it is New York. If the thing had been approached the same way in Atlanta, no one would have blinked an eye, which is why it's tough to compare organizations in that way.

I though Omar was pretty darn direct today, and I give him credit for it. I don't think it was all handled splendidly, and obviously I don't agree with the decision at its base, but I'm not gonna linger on the 3:15et/12:15pt am issue.

And whether I think his predecessor should be gone or not, I really liked Jerry Manuel in his portion of the press conference, and apparently, based on what I've read in the various online forums, most Met fans agree with me. I thought he seemed very intelligent, very personable, and most impressively very smooth and comfortable in what was a very uncomfortable situation. His resume isn't incredible, but neither was Joe Torre's, or Terry Francona's. Who knows?

I do agree that if you're gonna bag Willie, someone with a different angle had better come in, but I don't see the whole Manuel is just Willie version 2.0 thing. Why? Because he's a nice, calm, black guy? (And trust me, I'm not playing any race card, I'd be the last person on earth to get PC on you) That's silly; Jerry Manuel struck me as having a very different presence from Willie Randolph, and from what he said, he has a different approach to the subtleties of managing a baseball team.

To sum it all up, I moved 1000 miles away form home, I'm sorry I dissapeared from the blog, I'm sorry Willie's gone, I hope I'm wrong about that, I don't think Omar's evil, I like Manuel even though I wanted Willie to stay, and I hope I'm right about him.

Now go beat the Angels. Let's Go Mets. Geez.

Gabe the Babe.

IMAGE: METSGRRL.COM FROM FLICKR

When Oliver Perez hits the first batter he faces, you know that nothing good is coming. It's either Dr. Jekyll or Mr. Hyde, and today it was Mr. Hyde. Ollie's line today: 4.1 IP, 8 H, 3 BB, 1 HBP. Yech. The highlight of his day? Backing up an ill-advised errant throw home by Carlos Delgado. Jorge Sosa didn't help him much, giving up 2 runs of his own, but the rest of the pen actually looked very good.

Gabe Kapler has completely forgotten that he is a replacement level player, going 3-4 with a homer, a double and 3 RBI's on the days, bringing his average up to .423 with 4 HR's. Maybe he'll start against righties now, too. Both of these losses to Milwaukee are probably wins without Kapler's timely hits.

So how do you rack up 14 hits and still lose a ballgame? You hit in to double plays in 5 CONSECUTIVE INNINGS. I've never seen anything like that, and to be honest, I was very *ahem* unsure about a couple of those out calls at first, particularly the ones on Church and Schneider, but I haven't seen a highlight, so who knows. To be fair, my seats at Shea aren't far from first base, and are in line with the 1B umpire's view, and they looked safe.

That doesn't, however, mean that there is any excuse for hitting ground balls right at infielders with men on first and less than 2 outs in 5 consecutive innings, and can somebody tell me why Brady Clark was running on contact from 3rd with no one out in the bottom of the 8th? If he holds up there, worst-case scenario is men on 2nd and 3rd with 1 out for David Wright, and after Delgado flied out to end that 8th inning rally, Clark's being thrown out at home proved the dagger for the Mets.

Some other bones to pick, though they didn't end up hurting the Mets in the game:

1. Why did Delgado make that throw home in the 1st? If you don't recall the situation, Carlos caught a pop up in foul territory not far from first, and as usual the runner at 3rd bluffed that he was going. Rather than run the ball in, like any highschool player would do, Delgado flings the ball in to Schneider, and it gets away. If Ollie isn't perfectly positioned to back that ball up, a run scores. It's just another example among many in the early days of this season of something far less than fundamental baseball.

2. What in the world was Willie thinking with his pitching changes today? He brought Scott Schoenweis in to start the 7th, (who for whatever reason I've come to like) and Show got the pinch-hitter Joe Dillon out on 2 pitches. Instead of letting him stay in to face Jason Kendall, who hit .242 last year and has hit 4 home runs in the last 3 seasons, who Ned Yost bats 9th, behind the pitcher, Willie goes and gets Joe Smith. Look, you can like Schoenweis or not, but when you're chasing 3 runs, as they were at the time, how do you go to your 3rd reliever in the 7th inning after the guy you have in there has thrown 2 pitches? If it were Ryan Braun up, maybe, but it was Jason Kendall.

So Smith finishes the 7th, giving up 1 unearned run because David Wright can't throw a baseball (even though Delgado got the error officially) and Feliciano comes in to pitch the 7th. Feliciano retires Fielder, and whaddaya know, that's it for Pedro. Wilie wants Heilman after Feliciano has faced 1 batter. Was he tired? Doubtful, as he had only pitched 2 innings all year. Heilman comes in, and the pitcher's spot is due to leadoff the bottom of the inning, so Willie double-switches in Brady Clark, when anyone in their right mind knew that a righty would be coming in to pitch the 8th for Milwaukee; the Brewers have burned their only lefty RP. As it happened Clark got a hit, but I always want Marlon Anderson facing a righty over Clark. So now we're in the 8th inning, and Willie has just used his 5th relief pitcher, now chasing 2 runs, and his hot-hitting 6 hitter in right field, Church, is out of the game for the pitcher's spot.

That all to me just reeked of horrible mismanagement, and while it didn't eventually hurt us today, other than having Anderson bat instead of Church in the 9th, those kind of moves will lose you games. Mind you, I've never been a Willie hater, but I have questioned his ability to handle pitching changes and double switches.

On a brighter note, congrats to David Wright on his 100th career home run in the 1st inning today, his 2nd in as many at-bats.

Off day tomorrow, and we can only hope to beat up on the Nats, hopefully with Reyes back and Duaner Sanchez on board, and come out of this homestand over .500.

Willie Stays

Good. There's been so much Willie this, Willie that, that I don't really have much else to say. See yesterday's Willie post. Go out there and get it done, Skip.

Omar's Legacy and Willie's Woes

IMAGE: RICH RENOMERON FROM FLICKR

The state of Willie Randolph's job security is once again the eye of the storm among Met fans following the plunge. My vote remains consistent, and that is not to fire him. Willie is calm and Willie is dedicated, somewhat of an anomaly in the history of the usually neurotic franchise.

I am not in any way denying his shortcomings as a manager. Plainly, he has some difficulty grasping the intricacies of NL baseball, most notably in dealing with pinch-hitters and the bullpen. I don't really take issue with who he uses out of the 'pen or when he uses them, as the pickins have been pretty slim, but rather how he uses them, and how he pinch-hits. Yesterday, for one, I'm not convinced that pinch-hitting Sandy Alomar and his sparkling .143 BA with one man on, thereby limiting Sosa's contribution to 1.2 IP, was a good idea. (If you don't recall, Alomar flied out)Too many times you will see a reliever enter a game to bail someone else out of an inning, only to be pinch-hit for in the bottom of the frame after throwing 1/3 of an inning. I suppose what I'm getting at is that Willie needs to learn to double switch, and he needs to not overvalue certain pinch-hitters (eg. Alomar, Newhan, Franco) when he needs to get what he can out of the 'pen.

Again, I don't question his ability as a motivator and mood-setter. In hindsight there were some things he could have done differently in this regard: slap Reyes around, slap Milledge around, communicate more with the pitching staff, etc. The thing is that he has had so much success in his managerial career, for 11 years as an assistant in the Bronx, and 3 years here, that "if it ain't broke don't fix it" probably came in to play. Up until the last week of the season, no matter what problems he had seen, his team had done nothing but win, and it seems as if the fear of damaging that held him back from making any major statements. I can understand that, right or wrong, and I think it's something that he as a manager can draw from in the future. He will never be fiery; it's not who he is, but let him fail more times than not before you pin him as a loser.

The same kind of delusion can be attributed to Omar. "If it ain't broke...". To me this offseason defines Omar's career. He arrived pre-05 with an overflowing wallet to play with and a store to shop in stocked with big new toys. I can't take away from the success of his moves that year, but to be fair, signing Pedro and Beltran were kind of no-brainers if one had the money to spend. The following offseason he impressed me a little more, but again, he didn't take many gambles. He finagled his way into the right moves. That I give him credit for. Last offseason, he was confident in the assertion that he had built a machine that had perhaps gotten unlucky in losing to the lowly Cards, so he stayed the course and didn't change much; went ahead with a patchwork rotation/pen.

Beyond that, the constant reliance on the proven vet vs. the up-and-comer proved lethal. I have been a defender of Shawn Green's, mostly because I don't see any reason to kill him like people have done, but the insistence on holding Milledge back only stunted the flow of the offense. Gotay was never given a chance to show what he could do pre-Castillo trade as a full-timer, after doing nothing but hit in his small chunk of work. Look around baseball: Pedroia, Buchholz, Ellsbury and Delcarmen in Boston; Joba, Kennedy and Hughes in the Bronx; Tulowitzki in Colorado; Braun and Gallardo in Milwaukee; it goes on. What were Mota, Sele or Brian Lawrence giving you that Humber couldn't have? When your vets aren't bringing you to that next level and you have potential in-house options, you have to give the youth a chance, especially with a cushion in the division like they had up until 2 weeks ago. But Omar and Willie stood pat, going with their guys, trying to ride out the wave. That didn't work, and now major, major moves have to be made to change the culture of a team that took a nosedive.

I don't blame Omar or Willie yet. Omar built the machine that brought the Mets back to relevance and Willie ran it. But now can they fix it?