Mets Fall to .500 As Ollie Gets Crushed And Team Doesn't Hit

The Mets lost their third consecutive game, and dropped to .500 on the season, by falling to the Marlins 7-2 on Friday night (box score/wrap). 

You can't just blame this loss on one person, because the team only managed 4 hits tonight, which wasn't enough last night against Johnson and wasn't enough tonight either against Anibal Sanchez.  THAT BEING SAID...Oliver Perez was awful.  He didn't even give his teammates a chance to think they were in the game.  Perez went 3 and 1/3 innings giving up 9 hits and 7 runs on 4 homers. 

There's a whole lot going wrong right now for the Mets, and Jerry should be held responsible for some of it.  Although the team initially responded to Reyes in the three hole, it's not the right move, and never has been.  The fact that it worked for as long as it did was great, but baseball is a game of adjustments, and now that line up isn't working Jerry should ADJUST.  In the postgame on SNY, Ronnie made an interesting point about the Mets line up, basically saying that if he were a pitcher facing this team he would know where to get the outs.  By that Darling meant that the team has certain guys who strike out too much, and them back to back in the line up is killing the team (Francoeur, Barajas amongst others).  If Ronnie knows that, chances are other teams do too.

The adjustments Jerry needs to make should happen first in the line up because that can take effect immediately.  The other change that needs to be made is the removal of Perez from the rotation.  If Jerry wants to move Perez to the long man role, go for it.  If Jerry wants to drop him to triple-A, do it.  But this team cannot win if they have to overcome their starting pitchers.  And that's been what they've needed to do with the way Perez has been pitching lately.  I know R.A. Dickey is being talked about, but I don't like that idea either.  I think Takahashi should be the man, because he's been fantastic.  And they won't lose too much, especially considering how well Valdes has been throwing out of the 'pen lately.  Fortunately it seems as though Jerry isn't about to let Perez run out there every fifth day anymore, as he hinted to in his post game interview.  And it's about time...

Bottom line here is that the team needs change.  They've responded to it once before this season, and can respond again, but Jerry needs to put them in a situation where they can succeed, and continuing to start Oliver Perez and running this struggling line up out there day after day is not what I would call giving them a chance to succeed. 

Green, Cat and Jerry: Here We Go

According to Mike Puma of the New York Post pretty much all the roster spots have been locked up.  In the article Puma says that Sean Green has "earned" the final spot in the bullpen over Raul Valdez.  I prefer Green to Valdez on this team for reasons I'll explain right after this, but you cannot tell me Green "earned" the spot.  He was terrible, Valdez was good, Figgy was good.  If anyone earned the spot, it was Figgy or Valdez, NOT GREEN.  But I digress...

As bad as Green has been this spring, I'd rather have him in this 'pen over Valdez.  I know that sounds fairly ridiculous considering how bad Green was last year and this spring (and me just saying he didn't earn it).  But overall I like the idea of having SOMEONE in the 'pen besides K-Rod and Feliciano who has been there before on a big league level.  Besides, I was one of the people who felt Green was a nice throw-in on the Putz deal last year, so maybe the team is just giving him another crack at it.

Puma also says, "Mejia, Takahashi, Nieve, Ruben Tejada, Mike Jacobs and Frank Catalanatto have all been told they will make the team, provided they are healthy."  Cat is a nice story and I hope he can prove me wrong and stick with the team because he seems like a nice guy, but this is another instance where I feel he didn't earn the spot.  I still maintain that Carter should be on this roster somewhere.

And I really hope Jerry and Omar prove me wrong and aren't just trying to save their jobs with this Mejia move.  I just don't think you stunt a kid's growth by moving his role around, especially when the cieling for him is as high as it is.   Once again, I think it's easier to find a set-up man than a top-of-the-rotation starter.  But, Bill Madden of the Daily News sees Jerry as an "endangered manager" and I think Jerry does too.  And as I've seen people do what they need to do to protect their livelihoods, especially when given a chance at such a good one, as a manager in New York.

Opening Day is tomorrow...let's go Mets.

Mets Defeat Marlins 6-3 Behind Homers From Bay, Wright and Carter

Today the Mets defeated the Marlins 6-3 (box score), and were aided by a little extra power.  Bay, Wright and Carter all homered for the Mets, Carter as a pinch-hitter, and all of those homers were hit off of Josh Johnson.  Those deep drives coupled with an RBI for Omir Santos, were enough to put the Mets over top today.  Jacobs also looked pretty good today going 2-4 from the plate with two doubles, although one of them was aided by the ball getting by the CF after an attempted dive.

With the news today of Murphy being day-to-day but being spotted with a limp, I think it may be fair to say that Jacobs should be tabbed as the Mets opening day first baseman.  Potentially with the idea of carrying both him and Carter on the roster to start the season.  Especially if the other option is bringing up Ike for a week.  I think I'd rather let him go down and get going in Buffalo and let the Mets rough it out for a week or so with Carter and Jacobs.  At least, that's what I think at this point...

Back to the game...On the hill Figgy looked good, going three innings and only giving up three singles.  Along with Figgy, all of Valdez, Parnell, Takahashi and Feliciano, threw scoreless innings of work.  And the thing I think the Mets got most out of today was that Feliciano and Takahashi were able to work around walks and have fine outtings. 

The only damage done today against the Mets were in Mejia's two innings of work, in which he gave up two hits and three runs, although all runs were unearned.  The biggest reason for Mejia's line was a fly ball dropped by Pagan that allowed two runs to score with two outs in the inning, after Russ Adams had already committed an error earlier in the inning.  Mejia then walked the next batter after the Pagan drop, most likely due to him feeling like he needed to strike everyone out, or else he'd be on the mound forever.

Mejia looked fine today, from a stuff standpoint, but seemed to lose his cool a bit when errors were made behind him.  While I realize that even the best pitchers do that sometimes, it can definitely be seen as an example as to why this kid needs more seasoning in the minors.

Meanwhile, Jose Reyes was playing in another minor league game and went 1-5 with a double for the second straight day.  Once again my dad was using his handheld home video camera to get Reyes' at bats over at the minor league game.  There's nothing I like more than watching games through a chain-link fence.  I'm kidding, I know that field isn't set up for that, and that's probably the best they can do, but either way, it's funny to watch that on a cable network...

Anywho...More Mets action tomorrow at 12:10 against the Nationals on SNY...