Mets Extend NL East Lead to 7 Games
Wow.
Take a look at my last post then this one. The Mets have taken a 7 game lead over both Philadelphia and Atlanta, who both lost tonight following the Mets win earlier today.
The Mets are finally pulling away in the division that seemed so tight as late as earlier this month. Obviously, the goal is to get the farthest you can in the season with the largest lead you can manage.
It’s time to think about resting Wagner more than usual. He admitted that he’s at a dead-arm period and needs some rest, which he received today as Aaron Heilman picked up the save. It really isn’t anything to worry about. I think the Mets should limit Wagner’s appearances to about 2-per-week until about mid-September, then get him going again so he has momentum for the playoffs.
“It happens to everybody,” Wagner said. “It’s something that just kind of comes up, so you just take a day.”
It may take longer. The closer, who has been great this year minus the past few appearances, said he wouldn’t decide about his availability until he arrived at the park on Sunday, leaving open the possibility that he could miss several days.
“I could go, but we’ve got guys in the bullpen who can go out there and do that job,” Wagner said. “Once in a while, it’s good to take a blow.”
If this lead keeps growing, the Mets might as well let Pedro Martinez make another rehab start and take his time. He is pitching in Port St Lucie on Monday, and possibly making another rehab start before joining the Mets. If he does make another rehab start, it’ll most likely be in Binghamton.
With today’s win, the Mets won the series against the Dodgers. The Mets have a road trip upcoming, which many would say it would be difficult since it is against division rivals, but those division rivals have been doing so horrible lately, that it shouldn’t be a problem. Also, it doesn’t hurt that the Mets have the best road record in the major leagues (38-26), which is better than their home record (35-29).
Also to note, Carlos Delgado broke an 0-19 slump with a 2-RBI single that helped the Mets beat the Dodgers today
NL East Race: Standings Aug 12 vs. Standings Aug 24
The Mets are now 6.0 games ahead of Philadelphia and Atlanta. The Braves stayed 6
games back, while the Phillies were bumped from 5 games to 6 games back. The Mets have 2nd largest lead of any division leader in the major leagues. The Red Sox are only .5 more games up than the mets are on the 2nd place team in their division.The NL East Standings on August 12 were:
1. Mets –
2. ATL 2.5
3. PHI 3.0
The division on that day was much closer, and the Mets were just coming off a disastr
ous series loss to the Marlins. Remember? Wagner blew the save? Yeah. Also, the series before that was the Braves series when Delgado was robbed of the game-tying home run from Willie Harris in the final game of the series.
Look at the NL East after August 24, only about two weeks later:
1. Mets –
2. PHI 6.0
3. ATL 6.0
Feel even better after looking at that comparison? Me, too.
On August 12, the Mets were only 12 games above .500, while after August 24th’s game, the Mets are now 17 games above .500.
The Magic number to win the NL East, as shown on the right sidebar of the site, is now 30.
The Mets Record against the Philadelphia Phillies this year: 7-5
The Mets Record against the Atlanta Braves this year: 4-8
PreGame: Mets/Dodgers
The Mets begin the last series of their homestand at Shea, and this series is against the Dodgers.
SS Jose Reyes
2B Ruben Gotay
3B David Wright
CF Carlos Beltran
LF Moises Alou
1B Carlos Delgado
RF Lastings Milledge
C Mike DiFelice
LHP Oliver Perez
The news is that Luis Castillo hurt his right knee while running the bases in last night’s loss to San Diego. Ruben Gotay, who is the backup second baseman and probably one of the hottest pinch-hitters in the games right now, will get the start in place of him.
In other news, first baseman Carlos Delgado has been dropped to sixth in the order. He has been hitting horribly ever since leaving the game last week due to his leg hurting from when he reached over the fence to catch a ball on the first base side of Shea Stadium.
We’ll see how long that lasts.
Pitching Matchup: Oliver Perez (11-8, 3.52) vs. Brad Penny (14-3, 2.59)
Perez, as usual, has been off and on this season. In his shaky starts, he can have six scoreless innings and everything falls apart in the seventh before a reliever can even get warmed up. We’ll see how he does here.
Mets, Phillies, Braves all Lose
The whole NL East that is actually in a race lost yesterday. The Phillies got beat, the Braves got beat in extras, and the Mets blew a lead in the late innings and fell in extras.
The Mets lost the exciting series to the Padres that included a walk-off win and an extra-inning thriller.
The Mets host the Dodgers in a series at Shea starting tonight at 7:10 PM.
To see where Pedro Martinez’ next start will be, click on “more.”
Selfish Barber Trashes Team
Tiki Barber trashed Eli manning, questioning his leadership last season and calling it “comical.”
Well, I think Tiki is comical. Not only did he leave his team when the team was very close to becoming a super-bowl caliber team. At the young age of 31, he took off to work in broadcasting. Great. So there’s more? Yeah. The former Giant has criticized Tom Coughlin every day since he retired, even during his press conference announcing his addition to NBC. Tiki is just a baby because he was unable to put up with Coughlin’s tough practices. Hello, Tiki, its not Jim Laid-back Fassel.
Also, you made the dumb deicision to retire, and you are retired. That means shutup. Don’t distract the team by criticizing everyone. And also he made a huge distraction to announce his retirement halfway through last year’s season.
“It will be interesting to see if he has anything else to say besides the Giants and what his comments will be on that. It’s one of those deals – I’m not going to lose any sleep over what Tiki has to say. I guess I could have questioned his leadership skills last year, calling out the coach and having articles about him retiring in the middle of the season saying he lost the heart. As a quarterback, you’re reading that your running back has lost the heart to play the game and it’s about the 10th week, I can see that a little bit at times. I’m not going to get concerned and I’m going to go out and play ball.”
Barber, you’re supposed to talk politics. Go do that. You quit the Giants, now stay away from them.