Friday, July 25, 2008

Unhappy Endings

Take away Tuesday night's ninth inning and the Phillies scored six runs in 26 innings against the Mets.

Take away the implosion of a makeshift bullpen Tuesday night and the Mets out pitched, out hit and out hustled the Phillies in taking this series and the lead in the NL East.

Frankly, Charlie Manuel chose a lousy time to discipline Jimmy Rollins. That's right, a lousy time. If he or anyone else thinks benching Rollins will wake up this team, they're all dreaming. Rollins doesn't need that kind of reminder; after all, he was in the middle of their one good inning in the series and made a number of superb defensive plays. There are rules of reason and rules of administration, Charlie. Learn the difference. This whole matter should have been kept in house.

Meanwhile, Chase Utley's average is off 30 points from its high. He is going through his second serious slump of the season. Ryan Howard went from hot to cold in this series, something he's been prone to do all season. Pat Burrell, noted Mets' killer, had a bad series. No one is hitting, especially in the clutch. Tuesday night was an aberration; this team doesn't hit with men in scoring position.

Take away those two 20-run games from what seems like the last millennium and you have a vaunted offense that hasn't lived up to its own press clippings. End of story. End of season?

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

There is no good time to discipline a player. Manuel needed to show authority and he needed to do it then. It may hurt now but it will pay dividends in the long run. Rollins needs to make better decisions. The MVP has gone to his head but we all know he is still the same Rollins. Last Year was a career year while this year he is back to true form. Just check his yearly stats.

Tom Goodman said...

I suspect you left your comment as I was updating the post and adding a few more thoughts on Rollins.

Anonymous said...

"Makeshift bullpen"...scoring runs against setup guys doesn't count?

If not, then Mets shouldn't get any credit for scoring against Madson and Romero.

It's not like the Mets were throwing an Alfonseca or a Mesa out there to rack up a save.

They threw every guy in their pen that they rank 2-5 in the pen, it wasn't their dregs.

Tom Goodman said...

By "makeshift" I was referring to their using a guy to close who hasn't in a long time, is not normally a closer and is clearly not their regular closer.

Anonymous said...

Ok.

When Alfonseca saved three games at Shea last year that was a makeshift bullpen doing a great job.

When the Mets' setup guy blew a 3 run lead, that's the Phils beating their setup guy to me.

Everyone else besides Wagner was healthy and rested. If we're gonna get all over our team for failing in two games we should at least give them some credit for all the hits they got in the opener.